KVCW

KVCW

Las Vegas, Nevada United States
Branding	The CW Las Vegas My LVTV (DT2)
Slogan	Dare To Defy
Channels	Digital: 29 (UHF) Virtual: 33 (PSIP)
Subchannels	33.1 The CW 33.2 MyNetworkTV 33.3 This TV
Affiliations	The CW (2006-present)
Owner	Sinclair Broadcast Group (KUPN Licensee, LLC)
First air date	July 30, 1989 (1989-07-30)
Call letters' meaning	Vegas CW
Sister station(s)	KSNV
Former callsigns	KFBT (1989–2006)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 33 (UHF, 1989–2009)
Former affiliations	Independent (1989–1995, 1998–2006) The WB (1995–1998, September 5–17, 2006)
Transmitter power	1,000 kW
Height	382.9 m
Facility ID	10195
Transmitter coordinates	36°0′28″N 115°0′24″W / 36.00778°N 115.00667°W / 36.00778; -115.00667
Licensing authority	FCC
Public license information:	Profile CDBS
Website	cwlasvegas.com

KVCW, virtual channel 33 (UHF digital channel 29), is a CW-affiliated television station located in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. The station is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, and is part of a duopoly with NBC affiliate KSNV (channel 3). The two stations share studios on South Jones Boulevard in Spring Valley (although it uses a Las Vegas address), and its transmitter is located on Black Mountain, near Henderson, Nevada (southwest of I-515/U.S. 93/U.S. 95).

On cable, it can be seen on Cox Communications channel 6 and in high definition on digital channel 706 and clear QAM 6.1. Syndicated programming seen on KVCW includes reruns of Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Dr. Phil and Judge Judy.^[1]

History

On April 22, 1987, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued an original construction permit to 4-A Communications to build a new full-power television station, on UHF channel 33, to serve the Las Vegas market. 4-A Communications, owned by Lawrence and Teri DePaulis, became Channel 33, Inc. (which remained the station's licensee until 2015) in August 1987. The station, known as KFBT, went on the air on July 30, 1989 under a program test authority and was given a license one month later. The station's original transmitter was located in the McCullough Range southwest of Henderson. On July 20, 1990, a family ownership group headed by Daniel "Danny" Koker purchased Channel 33, Inc. Under the Kokers, KFBT was an independent station with a firmly local flavor and soon garnered much acclaim with features such as the scary B-movie showcase Saturday Fright at the Movies, hosted by Count Cool Rider, which aired at 10 p.m. Count Cool Rider was actually Koker, one of the station's owners, who has since gone on to become a respected builder of custom motorcycles,^[2] as well as a regular expert on the History channel series Pawn Stars^[3] and host of its spinoff, Counting Cars.^[4][5]

The station primarily broadcast older programming during this era, as well as professional wrestling (most notably World Class Championship Wrestling and the National Wrestling Alliance). KFBT became a charter affiliate of The WB at the network's launch on January 11, 1995 and remained an affiliate while owned by the Koker family. On December 18, 1997, the Koker family sold Channel 33, Inc. to Montecito Broadcasting Corporation with the sale being finalized on February 3, 1998. The same day that Montecito closed on its purchase of KFBT, it immediately entered into an agreement to be acquired by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, which Montecito entered into a local marketing agreement to operate KFBT, until the transaction was completed.^[6] On March 1, 1998, Sinclair moved the WB affiliation to KUPN (channel 21, which later changed calls to KVWB, now KSNV) and KFBT was to affiliate UPN but did not signed a contract and instead became an independent station. The station was rebranded as "Gold 33" and began showing mainly newer syndicated programming. Sinclair completed its purchase of Montecito and Channel 33, Inc. in February 2000, resulting in the creation of the market's first duopoly between KFBT and KVWB.

On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner announced that The WB and UPN would be shut down that September and have some of their higher-rated programs migrated onto a new jointly owned network called The CW.^[7][8] On February 22, News Corporation announced that it would start up another new network called MyNetworkTV.^[9] This new service, which would be a sister network to Fox, would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division, Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give stations affiliated with UPN and The WB that were not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates another option besides becoming independent stations, as well as to compete against The CW.

Sinclair chose to affiliate KVWB with MyNetworkTV leaving The CW to join with either low-power UPN affiliate KTUD-CA (channel 25) or KFBT. Sinclair began negotiations with The CW to affiliate KFBT, and in April, when KTUD decided to go independent instead of pursuing a CW affiliation,^[10] KFBT was virtually assured The CW affiliation. An affiliation agreement was announced on May 2 and KFBT changed its call letters to the current KVCW on June 19, reflecting its pending affiliation with the new network. KVMY (now KHSV) affiliated with MyNetworkTV, when the network launched on September 5, two weeks before The WB was scheduled to shut down and The CW made its debut; as a result, KVCW rejoined The WB for the network's last two weeks of programming before switching its affiliation to The CW on September 18.

On May 15, 2012, Sinclair and Fox agreed to a five-year affiliation agreement extension for the station group's 19 Fox-affiliated stations until 2017. This included an option, that was exercisable between July 1, 2012 and March 31, 2013, for Fox parent News Corporation to buy a combination of six Sinclair-owned stations (two CW/MyNetworkTV duopolies and two standalone MyNetworkTV affiliates) in three out of four markets; KVCW and KVMY were included in the Fox purchase option, along with stations in Cincinnati (WSTR-TV), Raleigh (WLFL/WRDC) and Norfolk (WTVZ-TV).^[11] In January 2013, Fox announced that it will not exercise its option to buy any of the Sinclair stations in the four markets included in the option.^[12]

On August 13, 2013, KSNV-DT announced that the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives would move to KVCW as of August 19. The move of the program was necessitated after KSNV changed its schedule to accommodate a 3 p.m. newscast.^[13] On September 3, 2014, Sinclair announced the purchase of KSNV from Intermountain West Communications Company for $120 million. As Sinclair already owns KVCW and KVMY, the company will sell the license assets (though not the programming) of one of the three stations to comply with FCC ownership restrictions, with the divested station's programming being relocated to the other stations.^[14] On November 1, 2014, KVMY's programming was moved to KVCW's second digital subchannel. Sinclair could not buy KSNV-DT outright because Las Vegas has only seven full-power stations — four too few to legally permit a duopoly. When the sale closes, Sinclair will control half of those stations. It will also create a situation in which a CW affiliate is the nominal senior partner in a duopoly involving an NBC affiliate and a "Big Four" station.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

When the FCC released its initial digital channel allocations on April 21, 1997, it had assigned KFBT's digital companion channel to UHF channel 32.^[16] The allocations met with considerable resistance from low-power broadcasters who would be displaced by the digital channel allocations, and on February 17, 1998, the FCC issued a revised final DTV allocation table.^[17] KFBT's original allocation would have displaced low-powered K31DO (now KNBX-CD), so the FCC substituted UHF channel 29 allowing channel 32 to be assigned to Lake Havasu City, Arizona station KMCC-DT and eliminating a displacement there. KFBT was granted a permit to construct its digital facilities on January 26, 2001. Technical difficulties delayed construction of the full-power facilities requiring extensions of the construction permit.^[18]

On November 8, 2002, KFBT was granted special temporary authority (STA) to construct a low-power facility in order to comply with the FCC deadline for commencing digital broadcasting while the full-power facilities were still being built. The station, now known as KVCW-DT, completed construction of its full-power digital facilities in January 2007 and was granted a license on March 8. Back in 2006, the FCC required each station with a digital companion channel to select which one it would continue to use after the end of the transition period (at that time scheduled for February 17, 2009). KVCW-DT selected channel 29 as its final digital channel and returned the channel 33 license to the FCC.^[19] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 33. Regular analog programming was dropped on February 18, 2009, with the station participating in the "Analog Nightlight" program for two weeks, with a broadcast explaining how to switch to digital reception.

KVCW-DT is available on channels 4, 12 and 51 (over air) in Mesquite, Nevada, and on cable in Saint George, Utah. ^[20]

Newscasts

In 2003, former sister station KVWB established a news department and began airing an hour-long primetime newscast at 10 p.m. It was part of Sinclair's centralized News Central operation that was based at the company's headquarters on Beaver Dam Road in Hunt Valley, Maryland. National and international news segments, weather forecasts and some sports segments originated from the company's Hunt Valley facility, while local news and sports segments were based at KFBT/KVWB's Las Vegas studios. The news department was shared with KFBT, which aired its own local newscast at 7 p.m. It also aired "The Point", a one-minute conservative political commentary, that was required to be broadcast on all Sinclair-owned stations with newscasts. The news department was shut down at the beginning of March 2006, as were the majority of Sinclair's news operations under the News Central format.

KVWB later entered into a news share agreement with NBC affiliate KVBC (channel 3, now KSNV-DT) to produce a nightly 10 p.m. newscast for channel 21. The newscast, originally titled News 3 at 10 on The WB Las Vegas, debuted on April 4, 2006 and was later renamed to News 3 at 10 on MyLVTV to correspond with KVMY's affiliation switch to MyNetworkTV. The program was discontinued on December 15, 2006 and moved to KVCW the following Monday under the title News 3 at 10 on The CW Las Vegas. On August 11, 2007, KVBC became the second station in the Las Vegas market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition and the KVCW broadcast was included in the upgrade. The 10 p.m. newscast originated from KVBC's studios on Foremaster Lane in Las Vegas near the border with North Las Vegas. KVBC also produced a 15-minute sports highlight program called Sports Zone, that aired weeknights at 10:45. Both programs were discontinued on September 28, 2009 and replaced with syndicated programming.

As of August 17, 2015, current sister station KSNV relaunched newscasts on KVCW. Wake Up With The CW Las Vegas, airs 7-9 a.m. and the half-hour broadcast of The CW Las Vegas News at Ten, airs at 10 p.m. Both newscasts compete with KVVU's 7 a.m. segment of Fox 5 News This Morning and the 10 p.m. airing of Fox 5 News at Ten.^[21]

References

External links

• CWLasVegas.com - Official KVCW website
• MyLVTV.com - MyLVTV official website
• LasVegas.ThisTV.com - Official This TV Las Vegas website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KVCW