ABC West
Encyclopedia
KBMY digital channel 17 (virtual channel 17) is the ABC
affiliate for western North Dakota
. It is owned by Forum Communications
, owners of eastern North Dakota's ABC affiliates, WDAY-TV
in Fargo
and WDAZ-TV
in Grand Forks
. However, it is operated by Reiten Television, owners of the KX Television network of CBS
affiliates. Operations are housed at KXMB-TV
in Bismarck.
The station operates a semi-satellite, KMCY, channel 14 in Minot
. In the market's other two major cities, Williston
and Dickinson
, KBMY is carried on a digital subchannel
of KXMA
and KMCY is carried on a digital subchannel of KXMD
, respectively. Prior to the digital television switchover of 2009
, Dickinson and Williston were served by two separate analog translators, K42FY on channel 42 (rebroadcasting KBMY), and K44HR on channel 44 (rebroadcasting KMCY), respectively. Master control and some internal operations of KBMY and KMCY are based at the facilities of sister station and fellow ABC affiliate WDAY-TV
in Fargo, North Dakota
.
KMCY flash-cut
to digital
on February 10, 2009. KBMY's broadcasts went digital-only on June 12, 2009.
and Meyer Television
groups. Prior to K44HR's inception, cable television subscribers in the Williston area received Denver's KMGH-TV
on cable for ABC programming. Dickinson, located in the Mountain Time Zone
, also received KMGH until K42FY signed on.
The stations do not produce much local content, serving mainly as "pass-throughs" for automated programming. This is somewhat surprising, since they are sister stations to WDAY-TV/WDAZ-TV, one of the strongest ABC affiliates in the nation. KMCY largely simulcasts KBMY, aside from local commercials. The Dickinson station directly repeated KBMY, while the Williston station repeated KMCY.
The only local newscast on the station is "Good Morning West Dakota," a 30-minute morning show produced by Bismarck radio station KBMR
. There are no local cut-ins during Good Morning America
. The station also pre-empts the network's NBA pre-game show to carry paid programming
.
From the 1990s until 2007, KBMY and KMCY were known collectively as ABC West. That year, the stations changed their monikers in favor of the station identities for their area.
In May 2009, KBMY/KMCY were picked up on the digital subchannel
s of KX Television sateelites KXMA
and KXMD
in Dickinson and Williston, respectively, and the low-power translators of KBMY/KMCY serving Dickinson and Williston went off-air.\
, or LMA, with western North Dakota's Fox
affiliate, KNDX/KXND
. The LMA allowed KBMY/KMCY to share the facilities, staff, and some equipment of KNDX/KXND.
The LMA ended in 2008, with Forum opting to partner with Reiten Television in KBMY/KMCY's local operations. Most operations have been consolidated at Forum's flagship station, WDAY-TV in Fargo. Forum still has some advertising sales and engineering staff for KBMY/KMCY in Bismarck, but they are now housed at KXMB's studios.
KBMY and KMCY's programming (except for "Good Morning West Dakota") is transported from WDAY-TV's studios to Bismarck via leased microwave relay bandwidth furnished by Prairie Public Broadcasting's statewide digital terrestrial microwave network (the only permanent full-time video link from Fargo to Bismarck for TV broadcasting). The signal is then sent to KXMB, where it then is exported via a studio to transmitter link
(STL) from KXMB's studios to KBMY and KMCY's transmitters.
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
affiliate for western North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....
. It is owned by Forum Communications
Forum Communications
Forum Communications Company is a media firm based in Fargo, North Dakota. The company prints a number of newspapers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, including The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead....
, owners of eastern North Dakota's ABC affiliates, WDAY-TV
WDAY-TV
WDAY-TV, digital channel 21 , is the ABC affiliate television station for Fargo, North Dakota. The station serves the southern half of the Fargo-Grand Forks television market, with WDAZ-TV in Grand Forks serving the northern half. The two stations are counted as a single unit for Nielsen ratings...
in Fargo
Fargo, North Dakota
Fargo is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Cass County. In 2010, its population was 105,549, and it had an estimated metropolitan population of 208,777...
and WDAZ-TV
WDAZ-TV
WDAZ-TV, channel 8, is an ABC affiliate located in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The station serves the northern half of the Fargo-Grand Forks television market. The station also has significant viewership in southern Manitoba, Canada including Winnipeg and Steinbach as it is carried on cable. WDAZ is...
in Grand Forks
Grand Forks, North Dakota
Grand Forks is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Grand Forks County. According to the 2010 census, the city's population was 52,838, while that of the city and surrounding metropolitan area was 98,461...
. However, it is operated by Reiten Television, owners of the KX Television network of CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
affiliates. Operations are housed at KXMB-TV
KXMB-TV
KXMB-TV, channel 12, is the CBS affiliated television station for Bismarck, North Dakota. The station serves the southern half of the Western North Dakota television market....
in Bismarck.
The station operates a semi-satellite, KMCY, channel 14 in Minot
Minot, North Dakota
Minot is a city located in north central North Dakota in the United States. It is most widely known for the Air Force base located approximately 15 miles north of the city. With a population of 40,888 at the 2010 census, Minot is the fourth largest city in the state...
. In the market's other two major cities, Williston
Williston, North Dakota
-Demographics:Preliminary data from a 2010 housing study indicates that population has grown by nearly 22 percent over the past decade; the actual increase might be much higher. Williston is in western North Dakota's booming oil patch, and adequate, affordable housing has become a concern. The...
and Dickinson
Dickinson, North Dakota
As of the census of 2000, there were 16,010 people, 6,517 households, and 4,020 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,690.7 inhabitants per square mile . There were 7,033 housing units at an average density of 742.7 per square mile...
, KBMY is carried on a digital subchannel
Digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a means to transmit more than one independent program at the same time from the same digital radio or digital television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compression techniques to reduce the size of each individual...
of KXMA
KXMB-TV
KXMB-TV, channel 12, is the CBS affiliated television station for Bismarck, North Dakota. The station serves the southern half of the Western North Dakota television market....
and KMCY is carried on a digital subchannel of KXMD
KXMC-TV
KXMC-TV, channel 13, is the CBS affiliated television station for Minot, North Dakota. The station serves the northern half of the Western North Dakota television market...
, respectively. Prior to the digital television switchover of 2009
DTV transition in the United States
The DTV transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of free over-the-air television programming...
, Dickinson and Williston were served by two separate analog translators, K42FY on channel 42 (rebroadcasting KBMY), and K44HR on channel 44 (rebroadcasting KMCY), respectively. Master control and some internal operations of KBMY and KMCY are based at the facilities of sister station and fellow ABC affiliate WDAY-TV
WDAY-TV
WDAY-TV, digital channel 21 , is the ABC affiliate television station for Fargo, North Dakota. The station serves the southern half of the Fargo-Grand Forks television market, with WDAZ-TV in Grand Forks serving the northern half. The two stations are counted as a single unit for Nielsen ratings...
in Fargo, North Dakota
Fargo, North Dakota
Fargo is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Cass County. In 2010, its population was 105,549, and it had an estimated metropolitan population of 208,777...
.
KMCY flash-cut
Flash-cut
A flash-cut, also called flash-cutover, is an immediate change in a complex system, with no phase-in period.Some telephone area codes were split immediately, rather than being phased in with a permissive dialing period. An example is telephone area code 213, which was split into 213 and 714 all at...
to digital
Digital terrestrial television
Digital terrestrial television is the technological evolution of broadcast television and advance from analog television, which broadcasts land-based signals...
on February 10, 2009. KBMY's broadcasts went digital-only on June 12, 2009.
History
KBMY signed on for the first time on March 31, 1985; bringing the full ABC schedule to western North Dakota and eastern Montana for the first time ever. KMCY followed on June 19. Before 1985, portions of ABC programming were carried by the KX TelevisionKXMC-TV
KXMC-TV, channel 13, is the CBS affiliated television station for Minot, North Dakota. The station serves the northern half of the Western North Dakota television market...
and Meyer Television
KFYR-TV
KFYR-TV, ATSC channel 31 , is the NBC affiliated television station for Bismarck, North Dakota. KFYR-TV is the flagship station of NBC North Dakota, a network of four stations that serve most of central and western North Dakota, along with parts of South Dakota and Montana.The station serves the...
groups. Prior to K44HR's inception, cable television subscribers in the Williston area received Denver's KMGH-TV
KMGH-TV
KMGH-TV, channel 7, is the ABC-affiliated television station in Denver, Colorado. The station itself is usually branded as "Denver's 7", but its newscasts are branded as "7 News". It broadcasts its digital signal on VHF channel 7 from a transmitter located in Golden, Colorado...
on cable for ABC programming. Dickinson, located in the Mountain Time Zone
Mountain Time Zone
The Mountain Time Zone of North America keeps time by subtracting seven hours from Coordinated Universal Time, also known as Greenwich Mean Time, during the shortest days of autumn and winter , and by subtracting six hours during daylight saving time in the spring, summer, and early autumn...
, also received KMGH until K42FY signed on.
The stations do not produce much local content, serving mainly as "pass-throughs" for automated programming. This is somewhat surprising, since they are sister stations to WDAY-TV/WDAZ-TV, one of the strongest ABC affiliates in the nation. KMCY largely simulcasts KBMY, aside from local commercials. The Dickinson station directly repeated KBMY, while the Williston station repeated KMCY.
The only local newscast on the station is "Good Morning West Dakota," a 30-minute morning show produced by Bismarck radio station KBMR
KBMR
KBMR , known as "Country 1130", is a radio station located in Bismarck, North Dakota, owned by Clear Channel Communications. The station runs a classic country format...
. There are no local cut-ins during Good Morning America
Good Morning America
Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...
. The station also pre-empts the network's NBA pre-game show to carry paid programming
Infomercial
Infomercials are direct response television commercials which generally include a phone number or website. There are long-form infomercials, which are typically between 15 and 30 minutes in length, and short-form infomercials, which are typically 30 seconds to 120 seconds in length. Infomercials...
.
In May 2009, KBMY/KMCY were picked up on the digital subchannel
Digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a means to transmit more than one independent program at the same time from the same digital radio or digital television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compression techniques to reduce the size of each individual...
s of KX Television sateelites KXMA
KXMB-TV
KXMB-TV, channel 12, is the CBS affiliated television station for Bismarck, North Dakota. The station serves the southern half of the Western North Dakota television market....
and KXMD
KXMC-TV
KXMC-TV, channel 13, is the CBS affiliated television station for Minot, North Dakota. The station serves the northern half of the Western North Dakota television market...
in Dickinson and Williston, respectively, and the low-power translators of KBMY/KMCY serving Dickinson and Williston went off-air.\
LMA with KNDX/KXND
From 2002 until 2008, KBMY/KMCY was in a Local Marketing AgreementLocal marketing agreement
In U.S. and Canadian broadcasting, a local marketing agreement is an agreement in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another licensee...
, or LMA, with western North Dakota's Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
affiliate, KNDX/KXND
KNDX
KNDX channel 26 and KXND channel 24 are television stations in western North Dakota, owned by Prime Cities Broadcasting, and are affiliated with Fox...
. The LMA allowed KBMY/KMCY to share the facilities, staff, and some equipment of KNDX/KXND.
The LMA ended in 2008, with Forum opting to partner with Reiten Television in KBMY/KMCY's local operations. Most operations have been consolidated at Forum's flagship station, WDAY-TV in Fargo. Forum still has some advertising sales and engineering staff for KBMY/KMCY in Bismarck, but they are now housed at KXMB's studios.
KBMY and KMCY's programming (except for "Good Morning West Dakota") is transported from WDAY-TV's studios to Bismarck via leased microwave relay bandwidth furnished by Prairie Public Broadcasting's statewide digital terrestrial microwave network (the only permanent full-time video link from Fargo to Bismarck for TV broadcasting). The signal is then sent to KXMB, where it then is exported via a studio to transmitter link
Studio/transmitter link
A studio-transmitter link sends a radio station's or television station's audio and video from the broadcast studio to a radio transmitter or television transmitter in another location....
(STL) from KXMB's studios to KBMY and KMCY's transmitters.