| Temple/Waco, Texas | |
|---|---|
| Branding | KCEN-HD (general) KCEN-HD News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Live, Local, Now |
| Channels | Digital: 9 (VHF) |
| Subchannels | 6.1 NBC 6.2 This TV 6.3 Me-TV |
| Affiliations | NBC (except March 1984-September 1985) |
| Owner | London Broadcasting Company (KCEN License Company, LLC) |
| First air date | November 1, 1953 |
| Call letters' meaning |
KCEN CENtral Texas KAGS-LD AGgieS (Texas A&M Aggies) |
| Sister station(s) | KAGS-TV KYTX |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 6 (1953-2009) |
| Former affiliations | CBS (secondary, 1953-55) DuMont (secondary, 1953-1955) ABC (secondary 1953-84, primary March 1984-September 1985) |
| Transmitter power | 25 kW |
| Height | 527 meters (1,729 ft) |
| Facility ID | 10245 |
| Website | centraltexasnow.com |
KCEN-TV, virtual channel 6, is the NBC affiliate for Waco, Killeen and Temple, Texas. Licensed to nearby Temple, it is owned by London Broadcasting. It was founded in 1953 by Frank W. Mayborn, publisher of the nearby Temple Daily Telegram newspaper. With studio and transmitter on a 25-acre (100,000 m2) tract of land one mile (1.6 km) south of Eddy on I-35, KCEN-TV broadcasts locally on digital channel 9, which appears on tuners as channel 6.
Contents |
KCEN signed on for the first time on November 1, 1953 on analog channel 6. It was owned by Frank W. Mayborn, publisher of the Temple Daily Telegram and owner of KTEM radio. Early on, Mayborn realized that Temple/Killeen and Waco were going to be a single television market (although they are separate radio markets). To signify his goal to serve all of Central Texas, he decided to call his new station KCEN-TV (for CENtral Texas) rather than KTEM-TV (for TEMple). It was the first television station to serve the Waco/Temple/Killeen market, and the second television station in Central Texas behind KTBC in Austin by a year.
KCEN signed on with one of the tallest towers in the Southwest, at 830 feet (250 m). The station originally carried programming from all four major networks at the time, but was a primary NBC affiliate. It lost CBS to KWTX-TV in 1955; later that year DuMont halted operations. This left KCEN as an NBC affiliate with a secondary ABC affiliation.
In 1981, KCEN moved to a new 1,924-foot (586 m) tower, expanding its coverage area to almost 29,000 square miles (75,000 km2)--one of the largest in the nation. The station now provides at least secondary coverage from the fringes of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex to the fringes of Austin.
The station switched to a primary ABC affiliation in March 1984, while continuing to carry some NBC programs in off-hours.[1] When KXXV signed on in March 1985, it took over the NBC affiliation. However, that fall, NBC returned to KCEN and KXXV picked up ABC programs.
The station was the first in Central Texas to broadcast closed captioning, in 1989.
KCEN, the Temple Daily Telegram and the Killeen Daily Herald remained under Mayborn family ownership after Frank's death in 1987. In January 2009, a sale of both KCEN and KMAY-LP to London Broadcasting Company of Dallas, Texas was announced, with a purchase price of $26 million.[2] The sale was completed on April 30, 2009.
KCEN broadcasts on cable channel 3 in Waco, Killeen and Temple.
KCEN also maintains business offices at 111 West Central Ave. in Temple, as well as sales and news offices in Killeen and Waco.
On July 3, 2011, London Broadcasting announced that in fall 2011 KAGS would be expanded to a full NBC station for the Bryan/College Station area, with no shared content with KCEN.[3] A fully independent KAGS-HD began airing newscasts in October of 2011. On September 26, 2011, Azteca America on 6.3 was replaced with classic programming from Me-TV.
| Channel | Resolution | Programming |
|---|---|---|
| 6.1 | 1080i | Main KCEN Programming / NBC HD |
| 6.2 | 480i | This TV (Branded as MY TX) |
| 6.3 | Me-TV[4] |
The station ended its analog broadcasts on February 17, 2009 — the original date for the analog shutdown in the United States. KCEN's digital branding became KCEN 9.[5] The branding was again changed, to simply KCEN-HD, on February 1, 2010; the station also resumed mapping to channel 6 via PSIP.
Anchors
Weather team
Sports team
Reporters
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||