KCWX

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KCWX
Fredericksburg / San Antonio, Texas
Branding	CW2
Channels	2 (VHF) analog
Affiliations	The CW
Owner	Corridor Television, LLP (Operated by Belo)
Founded	2000
Call letters meaning	K CW Network TeXas
Former callsigns	KBEJ (2000-06)
Former affiliations	UPN (2000-06)
Website	mysanantonio.com

KCWX (formerly KBEJ) is the San Antonio CW affiliate licensed to Fredericksburg, Texas. Owned by Corridor Television and operated by Belo Corporation, the station originally served as the UPN affiliate for both the San Antonio and Austin television markets.

It broadcasts on VHF channel 2. Although Fredericksburg is located in the Austin market, the station's signal slightly favors San Antonio. It airs on Time Warner cable systems as cable 4 in San Antonio (not to be confused with WOAI-TV on VHF channel 4) and cable 23 in Austin. It is operated out of the studios of sister station KENS-TV in San Antonio. KCWX's transmitter is located near Albert, Texas. An official website for the station is not currently live, however the URL kcwx.tv has been registered to Corridor Television since April 2006.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Before KBEJ went on the air... 1.2 Special programming 1.3 Austin and The Voyager Controversy 1.4 Becoming an affiliate of The CW 2 Previous logos 3 External links

[edit] History

KCWX went on the air in 2000 as KBEJ, the UPN affiliate for both San Antonio and Austin.

[edit] Before KBEJ went on the air...

In San Antonio, KMOL-TV (then owned by former UPN part-owner Chris-Craft Industries, now WOAI-TV owned by Clear Channel) had the secondary UPN affiliation late at night after KRRT (now KMYS) dropped UPN for The WB.

In Austin, UPN was available on a network of low-powered TV stations called HPN (Hill Country [in place of "United"] Paramount Network) from 1995 to 1998, a joint partnership with LIN TV stations KXAN and KNVA by simulcast channels which would air separate network programming from the main channel numbers. That affiliation afterwards was picked up by low powered station K13VC, a.k.a. KVC 13, a sister station to KTBC before dropping it two years later to make way for a digital signal on channel 13.

[edit] Special programming

KBEJ originally had a separate cable feed for Austin viewers, which presented repeats of KVUE's syndicated programming, instead of repeats of KENS' newscasts. Once the Austin Cable system dropped their UPN affiliate station, KBEJ started broadcasting the same signal to both cable systems. The KBEJ signal has always originated from the Dallas Belo campus, but some of its programming is provided from KENS and content decisions are controlled from the KENS studios. KVUE provides the microwave link for the transmitter located in Stonewall and to the Austin cable system. Syndicated fare in general is usually lower-value and older syndicated programming, in a way to avoid Syndex blackouts in either market. The KENS and KVUE master controls are located in their respective cities and are completely independent from the Dallas campus and KBEJ.

[edit] Austin and The Voyager Controversy

In August of 2000, programming for UPN was transferred from K13VC to KBEJ. However, due to a dispute over channel location and licensing fees between the station's gereral manager and part owner, Salim Tawil, and the Austin Time Warner cable franchise, KBEJ programming was not available to the larger majority of the Austin market save for those with directional antennas of a design sufficient to receive and amplify signals from Fredericksburg. This caused significant protest from fans of Star Trek: Voyager, who would not be able to watch the series' final season, as no other competitive cable franchise in the area would carry KBEJ due to the same difficulties the Time Warner franchise had experienced. All attempts by Star Trek fans in the area to convince Tawil to change his stance on the issue were reportedly met with vehement derision toward "psychotic trekkies living in their mother's basements with no lives" and threats of legal prosecution against any attempts by fans to publicly protest against the station's position on cable access — most notably against an effort by a University of Texas-based Trek Fandom group that threatened to organize boycotts against advertisers airing commercials on KBEJ. Attempts to secure assistance from UPN in the matter were attempted, but due to contractual obligations the network was unable to force Tamil to either allow cable access to their programming, or even allow for special rebroadcasting permission of Voyager on another local, non-affiliated station.

As a result of the actions by KBEJ, the final season of Voyager was not seen in its original airing in the Austin market. This led to many fans downloading illegal copies of the episodes from the Internet or trading taped copies with friends in other television markets. Although UPN frowned officially upon this practice, unofficially the network and its parent company, Paramount, turned a "blind eye" in this instance due to the circumstances of the situation.

In 2002, under pressure from UPN, Tamil's partners forced Tamil in a corporate decision to renegotiate with the Austin-area cable TV providers, and viewers in the market were once again able to view UPN programming.

[edit] Becoming an affiliate of The CW

On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced they would merge. The newly combined network would be called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. The merger would take effect on-the-air in September 2006.

On March 28, KBEJ was announced as the CW Network affiliate for San Antonio ([1],[2]). However, it will no longer serve Austin; on April 18, it was announced that LIN TV's KNVA will also be joining The CW ([3]). The station will now only concentrate on San Antonio. On April 7, 2006, the call letters changed to KCWX to reflect its new affiliation. [4]

On the week of October 2, 2006, Time Warner's Austin-area systems began blacking out CW programming on KCWX, to protect KNVA. However, all other KCWX programming remain unblocked.

[edit] Previous logos

UPN 2 logo, used from its 2000 launch until early 2006.

[edit] External links

• History of establishing the Channel 2 license in San Antonio/Austin
• Station webpage (shared with San Antonio Express-News).
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KCWX

Broadcast television in the San Antonio market  (Nielsen DMA #37)
KCWX 2 (The CW) - WOAI 4 (NBC) - KENS 5 (CBS) - KLRN 9 (PBS) - KSAT 12 (ABC) - K14LM 14 (3ABN) - KNIC 17 (TFU) - KHCE 23 (TBN) - KPXL 26 (i) - KABB 29 (Fox) - KVDF-CA 31 (AZA) - KNIC-CA 34 (Silent) - KMYS 35 (MNTV) (The Tube on DT2) - KWEX 41 (UNI) - KQVE-LP 46 (DS) - K52EA 52 (Multimedios) - KVDA 60 (TEL)
See also, Broadcast television in Del Rio / Eagle Pass