| Lincoln, Nebraska | |
|---|---|
| Branding | Fox Nebraska, KFXL |
| Slogan | we're your station! |
| Channels | Digital: 51 (UHF) |
| Affiliations | Fox |
| Owner | Omaha World-Herald (operated under a LMA by Pappas Telecasting Companies) (Lincoln Broadcasting, LLC) |
| First air date | June 26, 2006 (as KOWH-TV) |
| Call letters' meaning | FoX (reflecting affiliation) |
| Sister station(s) | KHGI-TV |
| Former callsigns | KOWH (2006) KCWL-TV (2006-2009) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog 51 (UHF, 2006-2009) |
| Former affiliations | The WB (2006) The CW (2006-2009) |
| Transmitter power | 14 kW |
| Height | 125 m |
| Facility ID | 84453 |
| Transmitter coordinates | KFXL: |
| Website | foxnebraska.com |
KFXL-TV is the Fox affiliate for Lincoln, Nebraska. Broadcasting on digital channel 51, it is owned by the Omaha World-Herald. It is sister station to KHGI-TV, the ABC affiliate for the western portion of the Lincoln/Hastings/Kearney market, and is operated out of KHGI's studio in Axtell. The rights to Fox in the Lincoln/Hastings/Kearney market are owned by Pappas Telecasting Companies, owner of KHGI; KFXL has contracted with Pappas for marketing, sales and programming services.[1]. The KFXL signal is also rebroadcast on the digital subchannels of most of the KHGI/NTV network stations, bringing KFXL programming to the western half of the Lincoln/Hastings/Kearney market and parts of the North Platte market.
Contents |
KFXL signed on June 26, 2006 as KOWH (referring to its owner)[1], an affiliate of The WB Television Network.[2] Previously, The WB was seen either via another Pappas-operated station, KXVO in Omaha,[1] or a cable-only WB 100+ station, KWBL; KOWH took KWBL's place on cable systems in central Nebraska, including Charter Communications in Hastings, Grand Island, and Kearney. As with KWBL, KOWH's programming utilized the WB 100+ schedule, with no live programming.
Five months before KOWH's sign-on, The WB and UPN announced that they would close and form The CW Television Network. Pappas had obtained the affiliation for KOWH by the time it signed on,[1] and to reflect this affiliation, the station changed its callsign to KCWL-TV on August 2, 2006. Similarly to its WB affiliation, KCWL operated as a member of The CW Plus.
On September 1, 2006, KCWL was added to the primary cable system in Lincoln, Time Warner Cable, on channel 18 in their low basic cable tier.[2]
Because it was granted an original construction permit after the FCC finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997,[3] the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. It was thus required to flash-cut to a digital signal when analog broadcasting formally ended on June 12, 2009. Instead, on June 9, 2009, three days before the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, KCWL-TV turned off its analog signal; on June 12, it turned on its digital signal.[4]
However, on June 3, 2009, Pappas Telecasting announced that KCWL would cease to be a CW affiliate upon the shutdown of the analog transmitter, leaving the Lincoln-Kearney-Hastings market without an over-the-air CW station. Instead, when the station returned to the air on June 12, it did so as Fox affiliate KFXL-TV, airing the same programming as KTVG-TV and KSNB-TV.[4] Lincoln had been served by two analog translators of KTVG as well as Omaha Fox affiliate KPTM, which previously included Lincoln in its station ID. Steve Harry, general manager of KCWL, stated that the move was made to increase viewership of his station due to most viewers in Lincoln choosing KXVO, which Time Warner had continued to carry, over KCWL for The CW programming.[4] Harry stated that as a Fox affiliate, KFXL would be in a better position to increase viewership in Lincoln due to the stronger signal, boosting its status as the city's default Fox station rather than KPTM.
For approximately two months, KFXL operated as a full-power repeater of KTVG under the moniker Fox 4 and 17; later in summer 2009, the network was rebranded as KFXL, Fox Nebraska, with KTVG and KSNB rebranded as satellites of KFXL.
The time brokerage agreement between Pappas Telecasting and Colins Broadcasting Corporation (the licensee of KSNB) expired without renewal on November 30, 2009. As a result, KSNB was removed from Fox Nebraska and shut down on December 1, 2009.[5]
As of April 2010, KTVG-TV was no longer listed on KFXL ID screens.[6] It was stated on a message board that parent station KHGI-TV announced during a newscast that KTVG-TV shut down on April 5, 2010;[7] this was confirmed by a comment in the station's July DTV education quarterly activity report filed with the FCC.[8]
Until KTVG shut down in April 2010, that station fed programming to KFXL and the network's low-power analog repeaters even though KFXL was billed as the main station. The digital subchannels of the NTV stations carrying KFXL received a direct feed from the studios in Axtell, as did KTVG.[9]
Since June 12, 2009, KFXL-TV has also been carried in high definition on the digital subcarriers of most of the stations in the KHGI/NTV network--KHGI-DT2 in Kearney, Nebraska; KWNB-DT2 in Hayes Center, Nebraska; and KWNB-LD2 in McCook, Nebraska. KFXL can also be seen in standard definition on the digital subcarrier of KHGP-LP, in O'Neill.
The KWNB (Hayes Center) signal serves portions of the North Platte market, which puts KFXL in competition with that market's local Fox affiliate, K11TW, which is seen on a low-power analog signal and on a subcarrier of KNOP-TV. In order to respect K11TW's rights to Fox in North Platte, KFXL is not carried on NTV's North Platte transmitter, KHGI-LD.
Two additional repeaters, K18CD and KWAZ-LP channel 35 in Lincoln, carried KFXL's programming (and that of KTVG prior to June 12, 2009) until December 1, 2009; both repeaters, as with KSNB, were owned by Colins Broadcasting Company. (A third Colins-owned translator, K17CI in Beatrice, Nebraska, had left the air on June 12, 2009.)[5]
KFXL-TV was rebroadcast on KUVR-LD, channel 29, in McCook until mid-June 2009, when KUVR-LD became KWNB-LD and began rebroadcasting KWNB-TV (though as noted above, KFXL remains available on KWNB-LD via channel 6.2). KTVG-TV also once operated its own repeater in McCook, WCWH-LP channel 40; this was shut down in favor of KWNB-LD2 on March 19, 2010.[10]
In addition, KFXL-TV (and KTVG before it) were carried on KHJP-LP, channel 29, in Valentine from 2004-10. By spring 2010, Pappas Telecasting had shut off both of its repeaters in Valentine (the other, WCWH-LP, had been a KHGI repeater) and by December had returned both licenses to the FCC.
KSNB and KTVG began broadcasting network programming in high-definition on January 1, 2009 prior to the broadcast of the Orange Bowl.
KHGI-DT2, KWNB-DT2, and KWNB-LD2 all continue to carry Fox programming in high definition. However, the network's flagship station, KFXL-TV, continues to broadcast solely in 480i standard definition. On Dish Network and DirecTV, KHGI-DT2 is carried in high-definition and identified as KFXL.
The station airs very little locally-originated programming (public service announcements, brief weather forecasts, community events, and commercials), but all local content is in the 480i format.
As the Fox affiliate for the Lincoln-Hastings-Kearney market, KFXL is found on nearly all cable systems in the south-central, southwest, central, and north-central parts of Nebraska. However, many small systems in the rural area surrounding Lincoln, including the Zito Media systems in Geneva and Wilber, have opted to instead carry Omaha affiliate KPTM-TV.
KFXL is on Time Warner Cable channel 18 in Lincoln and Crete, channel 5 in Seward and David City, and channel 2 in Fairbury and York. It is also carried on Charter Communications channel 4 in Beatrice, Minden, Cozad, Lexington, Gothenburg, Ord, Kearney, and Grand Island. In Hastings, Charter Communications carries KFXL on channel 3. All of the Charter systems in the Lincoln-Hastings-Kearney market, except Beatrice, also carry the KFXL high-definition signal on a digital tier. Glenwood Communications carries KFXL on channel 17 in Blue Hill. Great Plains Cable Television customers in Hayes Center can find the station on basic channel 29, and in Broken Bow and McCook on channel 4. USA Communications customers in Albion and Central City receive KFXL on channel 7, and in Alma and Red Cloud on channel 4. Three River Telco customers in O'Neill receive KFXL on channel 14, while customers in Ainsworth and Valentine receive KFXL on channel 4. In Thedford, KFXL is on Consolidated Cable channel 4.
Dish Network carries KFXL on local channels 51 and 7554 across the entire Lincoln-Hastings-Kearney DMA, and DirecTV carries KFXL on local channel 17.
During most of 2010, KFXL and KTVG-TV were duplicated on cable systems in southeast and south-central Nebraska; however, in August 2010 Time Warner Cable removed the duplicate channels in order to free up space in their lineup.[11]
As CW affiliate KCWL, KFXL was carried as the market's local CW signal on cable systems that made room for the station. When the station switched to Fox programming in June 2009, cable systems that were already carrying Fox programming via KTVG opted to replace KCWL with the national CW100+ feed, though in the eastern end of the market (Lincoln area) cable systems continued to carry (or reverted to carrying) Omaha CW affiliate KXVO-TV as the local station. In addition, DirecTV replaced KCWL with KXVO as the local CW affiliate in its locals package across the entire Lincoln-Hastings-Kearney market area.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
