KRBC-TV

KRBC-TV

Abilene, Texas
Branding	KRBC
Slogan	Abilene's Local News
Channels	Digital: 29 (UHF) Virtual: 9 (PSIP)
Affiliations	NBC
Owner	Mission Broadcasting (operated under a SSA by Nexstar Broadcasting Group) (Mission Broadcasting, Inc.)
First air date	August 24, 1953
Call letters' meaning	Reporter Broadcasting Company (founding owners of KRBC radio)
Sister station(s)	KTAB-TV
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 9 (VHF, 1953-2009)
Former affiliations	CBS (secondary, 1953-1956) ABC (secondary, 1953-1979) DuMont (secondary, 1953-1956)
Transmitter power	1000 kW
Height	258 m
Facility ID	306
Transmitter coordinates	32°16′38″N 99°35′51″W / 32.27722°N 99.59750°W / 32.27722; -99.59750
Website	www.bigcountryhomepage.com

KRBC-TV, virtual channel 9, is the NBC-affiliated television station for the Abilene-Sweetwater-Brownwood market area of Texas; it broadcasts its digital signal on UHF digital channel 29, which remaps to former analog channel 9 via PSIP. Syndicated programming on KRBC includes: Entertainment Tonight, Judge Judy, and Family Feud.

While the station is owned by Mission Broadcasting, KRBC has entered into various service agreements with Nexstar Broadcasting Group station KTAB-TV which provides various services for the station including news, production, traffic and business operations.

Digital television

KRBC is licensed to Abilene on the station on a digital signal on UHF channel 29, operating with an effective radiated power of only 2.5 kilowatts under a Special Temporary Authority, but has filed a construction permit to increase power to about 1000 kilowatts. The full power digital master control build out with high definition was completed in October 2007.

History

KRBC-TV first began its broadcasting operation on August 30, 1953 as the first television station in Abilene. The station was owned by the Ackers family, who had bought the construction permit from Harte-Hanks Communications a few months earlier, along with KRBC radio (1470 AM, now KYYW). The call letters stand for Reporter Broadcasting Company, after the Harte-Hanks-owned Abilene Reporter-News. The tower was originally located atop Rattlesnake Mountain in Cedar Gap. KRBC originally carried a mixture of programming from all four networks of the time--NBC, CBS, ABC and DuMont^[1] However, it was a primary NBC affiliate. It lost CBS in 1956 when KPAR-TV (now KTXS-TV) signed on. The two stations shared ABC until KTAB-TV signed on and took CBS, leaving KRBC as an NBC affiliate.

In 1962, KACB-TV signed on from San Angelo as a semi-satellite of KRBC. The Ackers family owned the station for 44 years until selling it to Sunrise Television in 1997. Two years later, Sunrise severed the electronic umbilical cord between KRBC and KACB, and KACB became a full-fledged station; it is now KSAN-TV.

Sunrise merged with LIN Television in 2001. In July 2004, LIN Television sold KRBC to Mission Broadcasting. Mission Broadcasting in turn contracted with the Nexstar Broadcasting Group, owner of KTAB, to provide news, traffic, sales, engineering and business operations under a local marketing agreement.

In 2005 Nexstar moved the entire KTAB operation from 5410 South 14th Street into the KRBC building at 4510 South 14th Street in Abilene. After consolidating operations under the same studios, the Abilene facility now provides various office and master control functions for Nexstar and Mission stations KLST and KSAN-TV in San Angelo. However, KTAB is still the senior partner. The master control room now operates KTAB and KRBC, as well as KLST and KSAN in San Angelo. Business and traffic operations for both stations are handled here.

KRBC's logo prior to February 2, 2013

During a January 14, 2007 ice storm, the KRBC main transmission tower collapsed, taking the station's analog signal off the air for 13 hours. The collapse not only destroyed the tower and the analog antenna but also the station's low power digital transmission antenna. However, the falling tower missed the transmitter building and an adjacent auxiliary antenna; station engineers were able to get KRBC's analog channel 9 signal back on the air using that auxiliary antenna. The collapse also destroyed the antenna for NOAA Weather Radio station WXK29, leaving it off the air until a new antenna was installed. A microwave link on the tower which helped provide programming to KLST and KSAN in San Angelo was also destroyed in the collapse. In October 2007 the San Angelo link was replaced with a dual channel fiber-optic cable.

The station's digital signal remained off the air until October 2007 when it returned to the air on digital channel 29 with all NBC programming presented in HD. The new digital transmitter is based in a new transmitter building at the KTAB-TV tower site near Potosi, Texas. The station also shares a digital broadcast antenna with KTAB.

Coverage area

KRBC-TV serves as the NBC affiliate for 16 counties in West Central Texas that form the Abilene-Sweetwater television market as defined by Nielsen (Taylor, Nolan, Callahan, Coleman, Brown, Runnels, Stephens, Shackelford, Jones, Eastland, Fisher, Scurry, Mitchell, Haskell, Stonewall and Knox).

KRBC also provides coverage for four other counties that are on the fringe of the assigned market (Throckmorton in the Wichita Falls-Lawton DMA, Coke in the San Angelo DMA, Comanche in the Dallas-Fort Worth DMA, & Mills in the Waco-Temple-Killeen DMA)0.

News operation

KRBC's news coverage primarily centers around Abilene and surrounding communities. The station does provide news coverage outside the greater Abilene area. Weather coverage includes all the above mentioned counties but forecasts do center primarily for the general area near Abilene. On February 2, 2013, KRBC began broadcasting the news in 16x9 widescreen with a new set and new graphics becoming the second station to make the switch. The newscasts on KTAB were included in the upgrade.

News/station presentation

Newscast titles

• The KRBC-TV Newsreel (1953-1960)
• The Television 9/TV-9 Report (1960-1964)
• The Big News on 9 (1964-1974)
• NewsWatch 9 & 3 (1974-1982)
• Big Country News (1982-1994)
• 9 News (1994-1998)
• NBC 9 News (1998-2001)
• KRBC 9 News (2001–2006)
• KRBC News (2006–present)^[2]

Station slogans

• "Live, Local, Latebreaking News Coverage" (late 1990s-2001)
• "Your Community Connection" (2001–2006)
• "Abilene's First News" (2006–2008)
• "Abilene's News Station" (2008–2009)
• "Abilene's News" (2009–2013)
• "Abilene's Local News" (2013–present)

This film, television or video-related list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it with reliably sourced additions.

News team

Current on-air staff

News Anchors:

• Randy Turner - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
• Megan Dobbs - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
• Jacob Bradford - Saturdays at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. Sundays at 10 p.m.
• Nora Hartfeil - weekday mornings at 6 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

KRBC Weather Team:

• Randy Turner (AMS Seal of Approval) - chief meteorologist; weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
• Adrian Castellano - meteorologist; weekday mornings at 6 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.
• Taylor Grenda - meteorologist; Saturdays at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. Sundays at 10 p.m.

BigCountryHomepage.Com Sports:

• David Robinett- sports director; weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m.
• Eric Boynton - sports anchor and reporter

News Reporters:

• Kristen Anderson - general assignment reporter
• Jacob Bradford - general assignment reporter

Carriage controversies

2005 cable dispute

On January 1, 2005 at midnight, KRBC was removed from the cable television lineup in the city of Abilene after months of dispute between the station owner(s) and Cox Communications, now Suddenlink Communications. In accordance with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulation, KRBC station owner Mission Broadcasting (operated by Nexstar Broadcasting) tried to make an agreement with the cable system to continue carrying KRBC's NBC programming. Cox Communications, now Suddenlink Communications claimed KRBC wanted its cable system to pay for its transmission. The disagreement began with KRBC/Mission/Nexstar requesting 10 cents per subscriber for KRBC to be carried on the Cox Cable system in the Abilene area. The basic argument was that satellite providers pay for the right to rebroadcast local affiliates' signals, and that cable operators should, as well.

Due to the dispute, Cox eventually dropped KRBC from its system, which caused many city residents to purchase an antenna for their homes to pick up the stations analog signal for NBC programming. Later in the year, KRBC and the other local television stations were picked up by Dish Network in a local channel package, which was strongly supported and promoted by KRBC/Mission/Nexstar. During the time KRBC was off the cable system, Cox replaced what was the KRBC spot on cable channel 5 with family oriented cable stations from its digital line-up (such as HBO Family and Noggin). The cable system also added several temporary channels to its lineup off its digital cable lineup to preview and to give disgruntled customers several new channels. After nine and a half months of negotiations between Nexstar and Cox Communications, the KRBC signal was returned to the Cox lineup in Abilene on October 20, 2005.^[3]

External links

• Official website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KRBC
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KRBC-TV

References