| Fort Worth-Dallas, Texas | |
|---|---|
| Branding | NBC 5 (general) NBC 5 News (news) |
| Slogan | Anytime. Everywhere. |
| Channels | Digital: 41 (UHF) Virtual: 5 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | (see article) |
| Affiliations | NBC |
| Owner | Station Venture Operations, LP (NBCUniversal 76%/LIN TV 24%) |
| First air date | September 29, 1948 |
| Call letters' meaning | TeXAS |
| Sister station(s) | KXTX-TV |
| Former callsigns | WBAP-TV (1948-1974) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 5 (VHF, 1948-2009) |
| Transmitter power | 891 kW |
| Height | 506 m |
| Facility ID | 49330 |
| Website | www.nbcdfw.com |
KXAS-TV, virtual channel 5 (digital channel 41), is the NBC television station for the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The station was Texas' first television station when the station made its debut on September 28, 1948. Its transmitter is located in Cedar Hill. The station is owned by a joint venture between NBCUniversal (76%) and LIN Television (24%) under the name "Station Venture Operations, LP", its only other sister station under this co-ownership is KNSD in San Diego. However, because NBC has majority control of the station, KXAS is run as an NBC owned and operated station.
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The station was launched on September 28, 1948, as WBAP-TV, the first television station in the state of Texas. It was owned by Amon G. Carter, publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, along with WBAP radio. A year later, the two stations were joined by WBAP-FM (96.3 FM, now KSCS).
Even though it was obvious that Dallas and Fort Worth would be a single television market, Carter didn't care whether people in Dallas could see channel 5; he had long been a booster for the Fort Worth area. The station moved to the 1,500-foot candelabra tower owned by WFAA-TV and KRLD-TV (channel 4, now KDFW) in Cedar Hill in 1957 along with its FM sister, reportedly only after NBC threatened to yank its affiliation. Before this, WFAA-TV served as the NBC affiliate for the eastern half of the market.
On November 24, 1963, a KTVT-TV remote unit loaned to WBAP-TV [1] set up at Dallas Police Headquarters fed the live images of accused Presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald being gunned down by Jack Ruby to the NBC network. It was the first time a murder had been witnessed live on network television in the United States. It was also notable that, during NBC's network coverage of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, news reports from WBAP-TV's studios were transmitted in color, with NBC broadcasting the coverage in New York from a black and white studio (WBAP-TV was one of the earliest local stations to convert its local programming to color).
The station was owned by the Carter family trusts until 1974, when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) barred common ownership of newspapers and TV stations in all but a few cases. The FCC grandfathered the Metroplex's other newspaper/radio/television combination--Belo's Dallas Morning News and WFAA-AM-FM-TV—but would not do the same for the Star-Telegram and WBAP-AM-FM-TV. Accordingly, the Carters decided to break up their media empire. WBAP-TV was then sold to LIN Broadcasting, the predecessor of today's LIN TV Corporation, for $35 million. LIN took control in the summer of 1974 and changed the calls to the current KXAS-TV (the Star-Telegram, WBAP-AM and KSCS were sold to Capital Cities Communications at that time; the newspaper is now owned by the McClatchy Company, while the two radio stations are now owned by Cumulus Media.
On January 25, 1986 during live coverage on KXAS of a standoff at an area 7-Eleven store, Thomas Stephens, who had been served divorce papers from his wife the day before, shot and killed himself with .357-caliber pistol on-air during KXAS' coverage. Stephens, believed they encouraged her to seek the divorce, shot his wife's two co-workers, killing one and wounding another. His wife, Patricia, slipped away while he was talking to police over the phone.[2] In 1987, the old Cedar Hill tower was severely damaged when an F-4 military aircraft on approach to Dallas Naval Air Station clipped several guy wires. WFAA, KDFW and KXAS were knocked off the air for several days. KXAS opted to build its own tower to the east of the old tower.
LIN wholly owned the station until 1997, when it sold 76% of KXAS to NBC, in exchange for 24% of KNSD in San Diego (which NBC had recently purchased from New World Communications, who had also owned channel 5's rival KDFW until it and the other Fox affiliates owned by New World were sold to Fox) and cash. As part of the deal, NBC took control of KXAS' operations.
On November 19, 2009 a fire at the Fort Worth studios of KXAS and KXTX knocked both KXAS and its sister station KXTX off the air. The fire was located in the electrical room of the studio. Fire alarms went off at 9:30 PM, which lead to the studio being evacuated, disrupting the 10 o'clock news broadcast.[3]
KXAS has been a long time affiliate of the Muscular Dystrophy Association's "Love Network". The station has aired the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon for 38 years. However, with a major overhaul in hosting and the show now relegated to 6 hours on Sunday Nights as of 2011, the MDA Telethon duties have been transferred to KTXA-TV due to the fact that it would interfere with NBC's Sunday Night schedule. In recent years, substantial portions of the telethon had been preempted by commitments to NBC entertainment and sports programming.[4]
| Channel | Video | Aspect | Name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | KXAS-HD | Main KXAS-TV programming / NBC |
| 5.2 | 480i | NSTP | DFW Nonstop |
KXAS also has a Mobile DTV feed of subchannel 5.1, broadcasting at 1.83 Mbit/s.[5][6]
NBC Weather Plus was previously offered on digital subchannel 5.2; the national NBC WX+ network is defunct as of December 1, 2008. On December 23, the channel was revamped as NBC Plus, featuring weather maps, radar and the L-bar, alongside audio from Fort Worth's NOAA Weather Radio station KEC55.[7] It also uses NOAA's KEC56 in Dallas as an alternate audio feed. Programming on digital channel 5.2 switched from NBC Plus to DFW Nonstop, a local news channel offering a mix of originally-produced news and lifestyle programming and rebroadcasts of KXAS newscasts, on May 4, 2011; the channel is also available to Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable, Verizon FiOS and Grande Communications customers in the Metroplex.[8]
Channel 5.3 was broadcasting Universal Sports, a network primarily airing Olympic sporting events. As of December 31, 2011, Universal Sports airs exclusively on cable and satellite and no longer transmits on digital OTA multicasts including KXAS. It is unknown if new programming would be in place of channel 5.3 or if the channel spot would be dropped altogether.
After the DTV transition period ended on June 12, 2009,[9] KXAS-DT continued on channel 41 [10] PSIP is used to display KXAS-TV's virtual channel as 5 on digital television receivers. At Noon that day, their analog signal transmitted a brief test pattern, followed by instructional programming about how to receive digital TV until June 26, 2009,[11] but the -DT suffix was replaced by a -TV suffix (formerly on its analog singal) when KXAS-TV's analog signal ended nightlight programming. KXAS-TV started High Definition newscasts on September 7, 2007 at 10 AM.
KXAS broadcasts a total of 32 hours of local news a week (5½ hours on weekdays and 3½ hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). In addition to the newscasts seen on KXAS, the station also produces 5½ hours of news on weekdays for its DFW Nonstop digital subchannel in the form of a three-hour extension of KXAS' morning newscast NBC5 Today called DFW Today, and a half-hour 6:30 p.m. newscast, Nonstop Nightly.[12]
In the late 1960s, Fort Worth native Bob Schieffer began his broadcast career at WBAP-TV as a reporter and anchor of the 10 p.m. news. Schieffer then went on to Washington, D.C. as a reporter for the now-defunct Metromedia news service and WTTG-TV, then embarked on a long career with CBS News.
KXAS is locally known for its weather coverage. It claims to be the first station to have hired only full-time meteorologists. One of its first, Harold Taft, broadcast for over 40 years. On March 28, 2000, while an F3 tornado was ripping through downtown Fort Worth, a tower camera caught the tornado on air live during the 6 p.m. newscast as KXAS chief meteorologist David Finfrock was explaining to the viewers at home as well as anchors Jane McGarry and Mike Snyder about the tornado warning for Tarrant County.
On January 16, 2009 KXAS began sharing its news helicopter with Fox owned-and-operated KDFW (channel 4), under a Local News Service agreement.[13]
According to the local Nielsen ratings for the February 2011 sweeps period, KXAS placed second in the 6 a.m. time period with total viewers and adults age 25–54 years old; this in direct comparison to the same time period the year before, when it placed first in that timeslot, when it was aided by NBC's coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. In evening news, KXAS was in third place at 5 p.m. with total viewers and adults 25-54, in last place at 6 p.m. among both total viewers and with adults 25-54, and placed third at 10 p.m. with total viewers and last with 25-54 year olds.[14]
According to the local Nielsen ratings for the May 2011 sweeps period, the 10 p.m. newscast placed last among 25 to 54-year-olds and in third with total viewers (overall, all four stations showed year-to-year gains in total viewers while only KXAS was down slightly among 25-to-54-year-olds); the station's morning newscast had placed third in both demographics. In total viewers, the 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts were also last place finishers among the Metroplex's late newscasts, though the 5 p.m. newscast was in third, behind KTVT, in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic (the 6 p.m. newscast placed last behind KTVT among adults 25-54). The morning newscast was the only KXAS newscast to rank above third place in total viewership (though it, along with KTVT and WFAA's morning newscasts all lost viewers in both key demos to KDFW, which ranked first). [15]
Anchors
NBC 5 Weather Plus
Sports team
Reporters
KXAS has used its "Star 5" logo since 1971—the longest-used numeric logo in the market and one of the longest-used numeric logos in the country. The use of a star in the numeric station logo has since spread to other television stations in Texas, including KTVT, KFWD and KTXA in Dallas-Fort Worth, WOAI-TV in San Antonio, KPRC-TV in Houston and KWES-TV in Midland.
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