KMYA-DT

KMYA-DT
Camden/Little Rock, Arkansas
United States
City Camden, Arkansas
Branding MeTV Little Rock
Channels Digital: 49 (UHF)
(to move to 18 (UHF))
Virtual: 49 (PSIP)
Subchannels 49.1 MeTV
49.2 SSN
Owner 1 Squared Media, LLC
(sale to LR Telecasting, LLC pending)
First air date June 7, 1999 (1999-06-07)
Former callsigns KKYK-TV (1999–2001)
KYPX (2001–2006)
KKYK-DT (2006–2011)
Former channel number(s) Analog:
49 (UHF, 1999–2006)
Digital:
44 (UHF, until 2006)
Former affiliations The WB (1999–2001)
Pax TV (2001–2005)
RTN (2005–2009)
This TV (2009)
Transmitter power 104.6 kW
Height 183 m (600 ft)
Facility ID 86534
Transmitter coordinates 33°16′15.2″N 92°42′14.2″W / 33.270889°N 92.703944°W / 33.270889; -92.703944
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Profile
CDBS
Website www.littlerockmetv.com

KMYA-DT, virtual and UHF digital channel 49, is a MeTV-affiliated television station serving Little Rock, Arkansas, United States that is licensed to Camden. Owned by 1 Squared Media, LLC, KMYA maintains studio facilities located on Shackelford Drive in the Beverly Hills section of Little Rock, and its transmitter is located along AR 335 northwest of El Dorado. KMYA is also repeated on digital subchannels of three low-power Univision affiliates in Arkansas owned by Pinnacle Media: KLRA-CD (channel 20) in Little Rock proper, KXUN-LD (channel 43) in Fort Smith, and KWNL-CD (channel 31) in Winslow/Fayetteville.

Although KMYA brands itself as and is legally a part of the Little Rock market, KMYA's transmitter is located near El Dorado, resulting in it serving most of the El Dorado/Monroe, Louisiana market and not reaching Little Rock proper. Instead, KMYA must rely on satellite and cable television or its simulcast via KLRA-CD to reach the Little Rock metro.

History

The station's repeater, KLRA-CD, was founded on May 5, 1995 as K22FA; it later changed its callsign to KKYK-LP in 1996. The low-power station was originally an affiliate of Network One, but later became an affiliate of The WB. The full-power station now known as KMYA first signed on the air in Camden on June 7, 1999, as KKYK-TV, with KKYK-LP becoming its repeater. The station was originally owned by Equity Media Holdings, which was headquartered in Little Rock and housed the master control hub for all of the company's television stations.

In 2001, the station changed its call letters to KYPX, and swapped affiliations with then sister-station KWBF (channel 42, now KARZ-TV), becoming an affiliate of Pax TV (now Ion Television). The station, and its repeater (which retained the KKYK-LP calls), remained affiliates of Pax TV until June 30, 2005, when it became i: Independent Television. KYPX disaffiliated from the newly rebranded network, and instead became the flagship station of the Retro Television Network.

On June 30, 2006, the station modified its call sign to KKYK-DT, becoming one of the few U.S. television stations to bear the suffix. KKYK's analog repeater on UHF channel 20 in Little Rock, had been designated as a Class A station with its call letters being modified to KKYK-CA (formerly broadcasting on channel 22, KKYK-CA was forced to move to accommodate the digital signal of ABC affiliate KATV, channel 7).

On January 4, 2009, a contract conflict between Equity and Luken Communications (which had acquired RTN in June 2008) resulted in the station losing RTN programming.[1] As a result, Luken moved the Retro Television Network's operations to its headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and terminated all agreements with affiliates owned by Equity, including KKYK, immediately;[2] RTN (under its new modified initials RTV) later affiliated with KATV, being carried on that station's second digital subchannel. The station also reneged on a deal with the Southland Conference to carry University of Central Arkansas basketball games in the interim.[3]

The station became an affiliate of This TV in February 2009, lasting five months until June of that year (This TV was not available at all in the Little Rock market from that point on until 2012, when it resurfaced on a digital subchannel of Fox affiliate KLRT-TV (channel 16), which later dropped the subchannel after it was sold to Nexstar Broadcasting Group partner company Mission Broadcasting in 2013). On April 10, 2009, Equity Media Holdings announced a fire sale of all television stations; KKYK was set for an asking price of $15 million, the highest price for any of the stations in the sale.[4] In the auction, which took place on April 16, the station was sold to the Bank of Little Rock,[5] which acquired the station through the subsidiary[6][7][8] Hallmark National Mortgage Corporation.[9] On January 3, 2011, the repeater began broadcasting digitally as KKYK-CD, and then changed its call sign to the current KLRA-CD on February 28, 2013.

The station's call letters were changed to KMYA-DT on July 8, 2011. That November, Hallmark National Mortgage Corporation announced that it would sell KMYA to Ellis-Wilson, LLC, a company controlled by two former Equity executives.[10] The sale was consummated on March 30, 2012.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[11]
49.1 480i 4:3 KMYA-DT MeTV
49.2 Soul of the South Network

Analog-to-digital conversion

KMYA-DT (as KKYK-DT) shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 49, on June 30, 2006. The station flash-cut its digital signal into operation UHF channel 49.[12] The station's digital signal had been operating at reduced power (70 kW under a Special Temporary Authority) and was also relayed on then-sister station KWBF (now KARZ-TV)'s digital subchannel 42.2, until Nexstar Broadcasting Group assumed ownership of channel 42 in January 2009.

Newscasts

In 1998, KMYA (as KKYK) began producing a half-hour 9 p.m. newscast, which became the first primetime newscast in the Little Rock market (Fox affiliate KLRT (channel 16) did not debut its 9 p.m. newscast until March 2004); the newscast was broadcast from a virtual set inside the station's studio complex. The program cancelled after less than a year on the air due to low ratings. As a Pax affiliate, the station (as KYPX) ran rebroadcasts of the 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts from ABC affiliate KATV (channel 7), one of a few Pax affiliates to rebroadcast local news programming from a station affiliated with a network other than NBC.

References

  1. ↑ What’s Wrong with MyTV? Archived 2009-01-13 at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ↑ Financial Dispute Disrupts RTN Diginet, TVNewsCheck, January 5, 2009.
  3. ↑ http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Sports/249737/
  4. ↑ Equity Media Sets Auction For Stations, Broadcasting & Cable, April 10, 2009.
  5. ↑ "Takers found for 60 Equity stations". Television Business Report. April 18, 2009. Archived from the original on April 24, 2009. Retrieved April 20, 2009.
  6. ↑ Report of the Bank Commissioner of Arkansas, 2008(p. 131 of PDF, numbered p. 125)
  7. ↑ KKYK Asset Purchase Agreement (from FCC sale application)
  8. ↑ FCC Form 314, Exhibit 12 (from FCC sale application)
  9. ↑ "Three more Equity contracts filed". Television Business Report. July 24, 2009. Retrieved November 7, 2009.
  10. ↑ "Little Rock TV cluster returns to former Equity execs". Television Business Report. November 10, 2011. Retrieved March 5, 2012.
  11. ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for KMYA-DT
  12. ↑ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-08-29. Retrieved 2012-03-24.
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