News-Press & Gazette to launch Fox, CW and Telemundo affiliates in St. Joseph

[T.L. Hughes 753]

TVSpy reports that News-Press & Gazette Company has been granted a license to sign on a new television station to serve as the Fox affiliate for St. Joseph, Missouri that will launch this spring. The station does not yet have a callsign (though the St. Joseph News-Press reports that KSJO, the last three letters representing the station's city of license, may be used) and a channel allocation has not been announced. The station will be based out of the News-Press newspaper's offices, and NPG will invest in a news department for the station featuring more than two hours of local newscasts a day, with the station personnel being "closely integrated" with the paper's news operations. Eric Bradley, former general manager of NPG's Bend, Oregon NBC/Fox virtual duopoly KTVZ/KFXO, will serve as the new station's GM; and the station is currently seeking additional staffers for positions in news, sales and production.

 

Since NPG no longer operates the area's cable provider, now operated by Suddenlink Communications, this is does not violate FCC regulations preventing a company from owning both a broadcast television station and a cable system in the same market, and also does not violate FCC rules forbidding co-ownership of a television station and newspaper either since the FCC allows co-ownership of a low-power TV station and newspaper (the signal will only cover a 30-mile coverage area, utilizing an existing transmitter tower located on 16th Street in St. Joseph). Programming from Telemundo and The CW will also be included, possibly as digital subchannels (though the aforementioned articles do not specify if they will be carried as multicast channels).

 

St. Joseph (which is within proximity of the Kansas City DMA) is currently served by only two stations: ABC affiliate KQTV (owned by Nexstar) and TBN partner station KTAJ (which also serves as the TBN station for Kansas City); Local TV LLC's WDAF/Kansas City serves as the market's default Fox affiliate on Suddenlink Communications, DirecTV and Dish Network channel 4. NBC and CBS programming is also piped in from Kansas City via E.W. Scripps Company's KSHB and Meredith Corporation's KCTV. The CW is available via "WBJO" (a cable-only CW Plus affiliate) carried on Suddenlink channel 6 and Mitts Telecasting's KXVO/Omaha is a default affiliate for DirecTV subscribers on channel 15 (there is no default CW affiliate for area Dish Network subscribers); Telemundo, meanwhile, does not have an affiliate licensed to Missouri.

[T.L. Hughes 753]

Update: The FCC recently granted a transfer of ownership to News-Press & Gazette of two low-power stations, licensed to St. Joseph (K16KF-D and K26LV-D) from DTV America Corporation; it is quite possible one of these stations could be used as the main station carrying what is now nicknamed, though not officially the station callsign, "KSJO", and the other would be used as a fill-in translator.

 

Interestingly, this isn't NPG's only news investment this year, since one of the group's other Fox stations KECY-TV in Yuma, Arizona/El Centro, California (which has a similar network structure to the new St. Joseph Fox affiliate, though without MyNetworkTV or ABC programming) is starting an in-house news operation of its own. KECY is set to begin carrying newscasts, that will air in HD, starting this coming Monday (March 26), beginning with a 6:30 p.m. newscast on KECY-DT2 (which serves as the ABC affiliate for the area); the weeknight-only newscasts will also air at 9 p.m. on the main KECY subchannel after Fox primetime programming, at 10 p.m. on KECY-DT2 after ABC primetime, and in Spanish on sister Telemundo affiliate KESE-LP (which is relayed on KECY digital channel 9.4) at 5 and 10 p.m.

[T.L. Hughes 753]

The St. Joseph News-Press has confirmed that the new Fox affiliate in St. Joseph will launch on June 2, 2012; the station, which will broadcast over-the-air on UHF channel 26, will use the callsign "KNPN" for at least on-air use (the station's legal callsign was KNPN-LD until a May 8 license to cover for the construction permit for the station's now completed transmitter facilities changed it back to its original calls at the time of NPG's purchase of the license, K26LV-D). When its news department is fully operational, "KNPN" is expected to broadcast 22 hours of local news programming each week.

 

St. Joseph cable subscribers will lose access to an exisitng Fox station as a result, as Suddenlink will carry "KNPN" on channel 4 in standard definition and 604 in high definition, replacing Kansas City's Fox affiliate WDAF-TV.

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The St. Joseph News-Press has confirmed that the new Fox affiliate in St. Joseph will launch on June 2, 2012; the station, which will broadcast over-the-air on UHF channel 26, will use the callsign "KNPN" for at least on-air use (the station's legal callsign was KNPN-LD until a May 8 license to cover for the construction permit for the station's now completed transmitter facilities changed it back to its original calls at the time of NPG's purchase of the license, K26LV-D). When its news department is fully operational, "KNPN" is expected to broadcast 22 hours of local news programming each week.

 

St. Joseph cable subscribers will lose access to an exisitng Fox station as a result, as Suddenlink will carry "KNPN" on channel 4 in standard definition and 604 in high definition, replacing Kansas City's Fox affiliate WDAF-TV.

 

So they're going to replace WDAF with this huh?

 

Bet that's going to make folks in St. Joseph happy (sarcasm).

[T.L. Hughes 753]

 

So they're going to replace WDAF with this huh?

 

Bet that's going to make folks in St. Joseph happy (sarcasm).

 

Yes, there are probably a lot of people in St. Joe that won't be happy to lose WDAF on cable (although some parts of the area can still see it via antenna and any smaller cable operators in the market will still carry WDAF as long as NPG has not secured carriage of "KNPN" yet). Duly noted its not just WDAF that's getting replaced, "KNPN"'s CW-affiliated digital subchannel will effectively absorb "WBJO", which is part of The CW Plus national programming service, and will air on channels 6 (SD) and 606 (HD) on Suddenlink; also the Telemundo-affiliated subchannel will likely replace that network's national feed on Suddenlink, although there hasn't been any confirmation as to where that subchannel will be placed on Suddenlink (the Telemundo national feed is carried on Suddenlink digital channel 392).

 

KNPN hasn't secured carriage on Dish Network and DirecTV, so WDAF may still be available there until "KNPN" can secure carriage agreements with them. Don't forget also that any cable provider in the area that gets KCWE/Kansas City and DirecTV customers in St. Joseph that get KXVO/Omaha will have those station's replaced with the CW-affiliated subchannel should they get carriage of "KNPN".

 

Interestingly, even though it's been confirmed that the station will launch on June 2, News-Press & Gazette hasn't set launched a website for the station yet.

 

Update: Though there is no website for "KNPN", it appears that News-Press & Gazette has licensed the domain "knpn.com", although accessing that address redirects to the St. Joseph News-Press/News-Press 3 NOW website newspressnow.com.

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Strangely, within the last couple of days, the FCC has deleted the K26LV-D callsign and reassigned the KNPN-LD callsign for channel 26. It appears that the FCC (or News-Press & Gazette Company) may have made a flub in a license to cover issued on May 8, following the completion of its transmitter facilities, which led to the KNPN-LD callsign that was initially assigned to the channel 26 license in April to be reverted to the former K26LV-D calls that were in place when NPG bought the license from DTV America 1, LLC in February. So by the time Fox programming comes to St. Joseph one week from the Saturday following this writing (it launches Saturday, June 2), it won't be using KNPN as a fictional callsign in the same manner as the local CW Plus cable-only affiliate it will probably take over for its CW-affiliated second subchannel.

[T.L. Hughes 753]

The St. Joseph News-Press has released some new details on KNPN-LD, which launches Saturday:

* KNPN will carry local newscasts on weekdays from 5:30 to 8 a.m. and noon to 12:30 p.m., with nightly half-hour newscasts at 5:30 and 9 p.m. Since Fox airs NFL football, expect some preemptions of the Sunday 5:30 p.m newscast from September to January.

* The News-Press' website (newspressnow.com) has also launched a subpage about KNPN, which reveals that the station will also carry The Ellen Degeneres Show, Entertainment Tonight, The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men as some of its syndicated offerings.

* The station has also gained carriage deals with DirecTV and Dish Network, which will replace WDAF-TV/Kansas City with KNPN; Dish will carry the station first (likely at the same time as Suddenlink Communications) and DirecTV will follow sometime in July.