KMSS-TV

For the airport in Massena, New York with the ICAO code KMSS, see Massena International Airport.
KMSS-TV
Shreveport, Louisiana
United States
Branding Fox 33 (general)
Fox 33 News (newscast)
Slogan First. Fast. Local.
Channels Digital: 34 (UHF)
Virtual: 33 (PSIP)
Affiliations .1: Fox
Owner Marshall Broadcasting
(Marshall Broadcasting Group, Inc.)
Operator Nexstar Broadcasting Group
First air date April 11, 1985 (1985-04-11)
Call letters' meaning Media South Shreveport (original owner)
Sister station(s) KTAL-TV, KSHV-TV
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog:
  • 33 (UHF, 1985–2009)
Former affiliations Independent (1985–1986)
Transmitter power 1,000 kW
Height 551 m
Facility ID 12525
Transmitter coordinates 32°39′58.8″N 93°56′0.3″W / 32.666333°N 93.933417°W / 32.666333; -93.933417
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Profile
CDBS
Website www.arklatexhomepage.com

KMSS-TV, virtual channel 33 (UHF digital channel 34), is a Fox-affiliated television station located in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States. Owned by Marshall Broadcasting, KMSS is operated under a shared services agreement by Nexstar Broadcasting Group, which owns NBC affiliate, KTAL-TV; Nexstar also operates MyNetworkTV affiliate KSHV-TV (channel 45) under a time brokerage agreement with owner White Knight Broadcasting). The two stations share studio facilities located on Jewella Avenue, between Claiborne Avenue and Ninock Street, on the western side of Shreveport; KMSS's transmitter is located near Mooringsport (southeast of Caddo Lake). On cable, the station is available on Comcast Xfinity channel 8.

History

Early history

The station first signed on the air on April 11, 1985, originally operating as an independent station; it was the first independent in the market and the first television station to sign on in Shreveport since ABC affiliate KTBS-TV (channel 3) debuted thirty years earlier in September 1955 and the first station in all of Louisiana to broadcast in stereo, doing so upon sign on. The station aired CBS programs that KSLA-TV (channel 12) declined to air, mostly the network's late night and morning lineup (with the exception of The Price Is Right and The Young and the Restless) and most of its Saturday morning children's programming.

Fox affiliation

KMSS logo, used from 2001 to 2008.

On October 6, 1986, KMSS became a charter affiliate of Fox (it is one of two television stations in the market, alongside KSLA, that has retained the same network affiliation, and the only station not to be affiliated with any other network). Media South sold the station to Southwest Multimedia in 1987. From 1993 to 1997, the station also carried the Prime Time Entertainment Network, an ad-hoc syndicated programming venture between Chris-Craft Television and Warner Bros. Domestic Television. The Communications Corporation of America purchased the station in 1994. For years it had been the default Fox affiliate for the Longview area until 1991 when then-CBS affiliate, and current sister station, KLMG switched to Fox and became KFXK.

On April 24, 2013, Communications Corporation of America announced that it would sell its stations, including KMSS and its time brokerage agreement with KSHV-TV, to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group (owners of NBC affiliate KTAL-TV (channel 6)). Because Nexstar could not legally purchase KMSS under FCC ownership rules as Shreveport has only eight full-power stations (the FCC requires a market to have at least eight unique owners once a duopoly is formed), and KTAL and KMSS are among the four highest-rated stations in the Shreveport market, Nexstar planned to sell the license of KMSS to its partner company Mission Broadcasting, while KSHV would be sold to a female-controlled company called Rocky Creek Communications. Nexstar planned to operate KMSS and KSHV under a shared services agreement, forming a virtual triopoly with KTAL.[1]

However, on June 6, 2014, Nexstar announced that it would instead sell KMSS-TV, along with two other Fox affiliates – sister station KPEJ-TV in Midland, Texas and KLJB/Davenport, Iowa – to the Marshall Broadcasting Group (marking the company's first television station acquisitions) for $58.5 million. The minority-owned Marshall intends to fund the acquisitions through borrowings guaranteed by Nexstar, and are subject to FCC approval of the stations Nexstar plans to acquire from ComCorp, White Knight Broadcasting and Grant Broadcasting; Marshall plans to launch news operations and provide sports and minority-oriented public affairs programming to KMSS and the other two stations, with Nexstar providing sales and certain non-programming services (including engineering, master control and other administrative functions).[2] The sale was completed on January 1, 2015.[3]

Digital television

Digital channel

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[4]
33.1 720p 16:9 KMSS-TV Main KMSS-TV programming / Fox

Analog-to-digital conversion

KMSS-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 33, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 34,[5] using PSIP to display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 33.

Programming

Syndicated programs broadcast on KMSS-TV include The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The People's Court, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, and Judge Mathis. In its early years, KMSS was the local over-the-air broadcaster of Major League Baseball games from both the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros, and broadcast games from the now-defunct Shreveport Captains minor league baseball team. It also formerly broadcast Big 12 Conference football games after that conference formed in the mid-1990s, and until the launch of the cable SEC Network in August 2014, carried with KSHV Southeastern Conference football and basketball games.

News operation

Fox 33 News current 9PM news open, used since February 2, 2015.

For a long period of time, KMSS was one of several Fox stations that did not have a local newscast; in lieu of a regular news program, KMSS ran daily local weather inserts during regular programming that were produced by WeatherVision, a company formed by meteorologist Edward St. Pe to provide weather forecasts for stations without a news department. Fox-affiliated sister station WGMB in Baton Rouge began producing a half-hour primetime newscast at 9 p.m. on weeknights for KMSS titled Fox News Louisiana on April 23, 2007; originally, the first 20 minutes of the program were taped earlier in the evening and geared specifically towards the Ark-La-Tex audience, with stories filed by Shreveport-based reporters, along with a local forecast. KMSS then joined the WGMB live broadcast for the final two segments, which included a national and international news summary, along with a statewide sportscast. That format was later changed to where the entire KMSS newscast was pre-recorded.

About five months after the 9 p.m. newscast debuted, KMSS debuted a two-hour-long weekday morning newscast called Fox News Louisiana AM on August 20, 2007. Like the evening newscast, certain segments were pre-recorded and included stories by the Shreveport-based reporting staff, while other segments aired live. While production of the evening program was turned over to NBC-affiliated sister station KETK-TV in Tyler in early 2008, the morning newscast continued to be produced by WGMB, until it was canceled in December 2008. KMSS replaced the morning newscast with Montel, which previously aired on sister station KSHV.

The station original half-hour incarnation of the 9 p.m. newscast ended on September 5, 2008, and was replaced three days later on September 8 by a 10-minute news program called Fox News Ark-La-Tex, which remained produced by KETK. Much like the original half-hour 9 p.m. newscast, it is recorded earlier in the evening, with stories by Shreveport-based reporters, along with a local forecast and sports segment prepared by the Tyler-based crew. On September 20, 2010, it was expanded to a half-hour and was retitled to Fox (33) News Ark-La-Tex.

On February 2, 2015, KTAL took over KMSS's newscast and has expanded to 7 nights a week, and, on August 7th of that year, re-added its morning newscast to the station, now named Fox 33 News Good Day.

References

  1. ↑ https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Attachment/getattachment.jsp?appn=101552312&qnum=5040&copynum=1&exhcnum=1
  2. ↑ Nexstar Selling 3 Fox Affils For $58.5 Million, TVNewsCheck, June 6, 2014.
  3. ↑ Consummation Notice, CDBS Public Access, Federal Communications Commission, Retrieved 6 January 2015.
  4. ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for KMSS
  5. ↑ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-03-24.

External links

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