KBBL-TV
Encyclopedia
- For the former KWFT-TV in Texas, see KAUZ-TVKAUZ-TVKAUZ-TV, digital channel 22 , is the CBS affiliate television station located in Wichita Falls, Texas. It also serves Lawton, Oklahoma. Its transmitter is located at the studio in Wichita Falls and has a low-power translator in Bowie...
. - "KBBL-TV" redirects here. For the fictional KBBL-TV of "The SimpsonsThe SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
", see Media in The SimpsonsMedia in The SimpsonsMedia is a recurring theme of satire on The Simpsons. The show is known for its satire of American popular culture and especially television culture, but has since its inception covered all types of media such as animation, journalism, commercials, comic books, movies, internet, and music. The...
.
KPBI is a television station
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...
in Eureka Springs, Arkansas
Eureka Springs, Arkansas
Eureka Springs is a city in Carroll County, Arkansas, United States. Along with Berryville, it is one of the two county seats for the county. It is located in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas. According to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the town is 2,350...
, serving the Fayetteville
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Fayetteville is the county seat of Washington County, and the third largest city in Arkansas. The city is centrally located within the county and is home to the University of Arkansas. Fayetteville is also deep in the Boston Mountains, a subset of The Ozarks...
market
Media market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area , Television Market Area , or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content...
on channel 34 as an affiliate of the Retro Television Network
Retro Television Network
The Retro Television Network is a system of television stations that airs classic television shows as well as more recently produced programs...
. While the station's city of license
City of license
A city of license or community of license, in American and Canadian broadcasting, is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator....
is located in the Springfield, Missouri
Springfield, Missouri
Springfield is the third largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and the county seat of Greene County. According to the 2010 census data, the population was 159,498, an increase of 5.2% since the 2000 census. The Springfield Metropolitan Area, population 436,712, includes the counties of...
market, A.C. Nielsen considers this station to be part of the Fayetteville-Fort Smith
Fort Smith, Arkansas
Fort Smith is the second-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. With a population of 86,209 in 2010, it is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 298,592 residents which encompasses the Arkansas...
market. The station is currently owned by Riverside Media, and also serves Fort Smith, Arkansas
Fort Smith, Arkansas
Fort Smith is the second-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. With a population of 86,209 in 2010, it is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area, a region of 298,592 residents which encompasses the Arkansas...
via low-powered repeater station KWFT-LP, which also broadcasts on channel 34.
History
Channel 34 began operations in 2000 as KWBS-TV, which stood for WBThe WB Television Network
The WB Television Network is a former television network in the United States that was launched on January 11, 1995 as a joint venture between Warner Bros. and Tribune Broadcasting. On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Warner Bros...
Springfield; however, original station owner Equity Broadcasting decided to make another new station, KWBM
KWBM
KWBM is an affiliate of the Daystar Television Network in Springfield, Missouri. Its main transmitter, on channel 31, is licensed in Harrison, Arkansas and located northeast of Branson, Missouri...
(channel 31) the WB affiliate for Springfield, and KWBS insteed affiliated with Pax (now Ion Television). KWBS dropped the Pax affiliation in 2003 in favor of the Equity-owned Lick TV network, but one year later the station dropped the network and finally affiliated with The WB as its Fayetteville-Fort Smith affiliate; this was accompanied by a call change to KWFT (Lick TV, a short-lived network that broadcast wrestling events (it did not, however, air WWE
World Wrestling Entertainment
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...
wrestling), has since ceased operations).
After it was announced in January 2006 that The WB and UPN
UPN
United Paramount Network was a television network that was broadcast in over 200 markets in the United States from 1995 to 2006. UPN was originally owned by Viacom/Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries, the former of which, through the Paramount Television Group, produced most of the network's...
would close down to form The CW
The CW Television Network
The CW Television Network is a television network in the United States launched at the beginning of the 2006–2007 television season. It is a joint venture between CBS Corporation, the former owners of United Paramount Network , and Time Warner's Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB...
that September, KWFT changed its calls to KBBL-TV on July 6, 2006, but its Fort Smith repeater retained the KWFT-LP call sign, which it still uses to this day. The KBBL-TV call letters were almost certainly not inspired by the KBBL-TV
Media in The Simpsons
Media is a recurring theme of satire on The Simpsons. The show is known for its satire of American popular culture and especially television culture, but has since its inception covered all types of media such as animation, journalism, commercials, comic books, movies, internet, and music. The...
of The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
, even though both stations are located in a DMA with the same name as the Simpsons' fictional hometown
Springfield (The Simpsons)
Springfield is the fictional town in which the American animated sitcom The Simpsons is set. A mid-sized town in an undetermined state of the United States, Springfield acts as a complete universe in which characters can explore the issues faced by modern society. The geography of the town and its...
. Equity likes to use former radio call letters from its hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...
as TV call letters, and KBBL was once used by a Little Rock radio station.
Retro Television Network
The Retro Television Network is a system of television stations that airs classic television shows as well as more recently produced programs...
(then owned by Equity) after The WB ceased operations, but as a result of KPBI-CA
KPBI-CA
KPBI-CA was a Class A low-power television station Fort Smith, Arkansas, broadcasting on channel 46. It is presently silent. The station is owned by Equity Media Holdings and, like many of Equity's stations, KPBI-CA was controlled remotely via satellite from Equity's headquarters in Little Rock,...
(channel 46) losing its 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...
affiliation to KFTA-TV
KFTA-TV
KFTA-TV, virtual channel 24, is the Fox-affiliated television station for the Arkansas River Valley and Northwest Arkansas that is licensed to Fort Smith. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 27 from a transmitter south of Artist Point...
(channel 24) and joining MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...
, channel 34 changed its call letters to KPBI on September 22, 2006 and began to carry KPBI-CA's programming schedule (KFDF-CA
KFDF-CA
KFDF-CA is a Class A low power television station in Fort Smith, Arkansas, broadcasting in analog on VHF channel 10 as an affiliate of This TV. The station is owned by Pinnacle Media, and has an analog translator in Fayetteville, KFFS-CA, on UHF channel 36...
, the station that was originally scheduled to join MNTV, ended up becoming the RTV affiliate). As of October 30, 2011, KPBI has dropped RTV in favor of Me-TV programming.
After failing to find a buyer at a bankruptcy auction, KPBI was sold to Pinnacle Media in August 2009 (after having initially been included in Silver Point Finance's acquisition on June 2 of several Equity stations), with Pinnacle assuming control under a local marketing agreement
Local 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...
on August 5. Pinnacle Media officially took ownership on November 3, 2009 and was restructured into Riverside Media in August 2010 with a change in the minority (40 percent) ownership in the company.
It was announced on August 12, 2009 that KPBI would switch to RTV, which had been dropped from KFDF in January after the network severed its ties with Equity. The area's MyNetworkTV affiliation subsequently moved to a new digital subchannel of KFSM-TV
KFSM-TV
KFSM-TV is the CBS-affiliated television station for the Arkansas River Valley and Northwest Arkansas that is licensed to Fort Smith. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 18 from a transmitter northwest of Winslow. Owned by Local TV, the station has studios on North 13th...
.
On September 1, 2011, Local TV, LLC, the owners of CBS affiliate KFSM, filed papers with the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
to purchase KPBI for $784,000 through a "failing station" waiver. This is necessary because the Fort Smith-Fayetteville DMA has only seven "unique" full-power television stations; though ABC affiliate KHOG-TV
KHBS
KHBS, virtual channel 40 in Fort Smith and KHOG, virtual channel 29 in Fayetteville are the ABC-affiliated television stations for the Fort Smith/Fayetteville, Arkansas television market. The KHBS transmitter is located northwest of Poteau, Oklahoma. The KHOG transmitter is located southeast of...
is a satellite of Fort Smith-based parent KHBS and the FCC considers the parent and its satellite together as one unit. That number of unique full-power stations is normally not enough to legally support a duopoly. It is unclear how the sale could affect programming on the station, though Me-TV programming could potentially be dropped as Local TV has an affiliation agreement with Me-TV competitor Antenna TV
Antenna TV
Antenna TV is an American digital broadcast television network, primarily featuring classic television series from the 1950s to the 1990s, along with some feature films. It is owned by Tribune Broadcasting, a division of the Chicago-based Tribune Company...
, through Local TV's broadcast management agreement with Tribune Broadcasting
Tribune Broadcasting
The Tribune Broadcasting Company is a group of radio and television stations located throughout the United States which are owned and operated by the Tribune Company, a media conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois and named for the flagship Chicago Tribune newspaper.- History :Tribune Broadcasting...
. Channel 34 could rejoin MyNetworkTV (currently shown on KFSM-DT2). However, Local TV will change the station's call letters to KXNW.
Digital television
Because it was granted an original construction permitConstruction permit
A construction permit or building permit is a permit required in most jurisdictions for new construction, or adding on to pre-existing structures, and in some cases for major renovations. Generally, the new construction must be inspected during construction and after completion to ensure compliance...
after the FCC
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
finalized the DTV
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
allotment plan on April 21, 1997, the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...
. Instead, at the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, KPBI would have been required to turn off its analog signal
Analog signal
An analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
and turn on its digital signal
Digital signal
A digital signal is a physical signal that is a representation of a sequence of discrete values , for example of an arbitrary bit stream, or of a digitized analog signal...
(called a "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...
").
, this station is scheduled to go dark
Dark (broadcasting)
In the broadcasting industry, dark is a term used to describe a radio station or television station that has gone off-the-air for an indefinite period of time, or as defined by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission , a "silent" station...
on in 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...
. According to the station's DTV status report, "On December 8, 2008, the licensee's parent corporation filed a petition for bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
relief under chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy
Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure
The Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure are a set of rules promulgated by the Supreme Court of the United States under the Rules Enabling Act, directing procedures in the United States bankruptcy courts...
code... This station must obtain post-petition financing and court approval before digital facilities
ATSC
ATSC standards are a set of standards developed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee for digital television transmission over terrestrial, cable, and satellite networks....
may be constructed. The station ceased analogue broadcasting on February 17, 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...
, regardless of whether digital facilities
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
are operational by that date. The station will file authority to remain silent
Dark (broadcasting)
In the broadcasting industry, dark is a term used to describe a radio station or television station that has gone off-the-air for an indefinite period of time, or as defined by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission , a "silent" station...
if so required by the FCC
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
."
While the DTV Delay Act extends this deadline to June 12, 2009, Equity has applied for an extension of the digital construction permit
Construction permit
A construction permit or building permit is a permit required in most jurisdictions for new construction, or adding on to pre-existing structures, and in some cases for major renovations. Generally, the new construction must be inspected during construction and after completion to ensure compliance...
in order to retain the broadcast license
Broadcast license
A broadcast license or broadcast license is a specific type of spectrum license that grants the licensee the privilege to use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum in a given geographical area for broadcasting purposes. The licenses are generally straddled with additional restrictions that...
after the station goes dark.