KSNW

KSNW

Wichita, Kansas
Branding	KSN (general) KSN News (newscasts)
Slogan	Chime In!
Channels	Digital: 45 (UHF)
Subchannels	3.1 NBC-HD
Affiliations	NBC
Owner	LIN TV Corporation (LIN License Company, LLC)
First air date	September 1, 1955
Call letters' meaning	Kansas State Network Wichita
Sister station(s)	KSNC KSNK KSNG KSNL-LD KSNT
Former callsigns	KARD-TV (1955-1982)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 3 (VHF, 1955-2009)
Transmitter power	891 kW
Height	312.2 m
Facility ID	72358
Transmitter coordinates	37°46′26″N 97°30′51″W
Website	www.KSN.com

KSNW, digital channel 45 (virtual channel 3), is a NBC affiliate television station based in Wichita, Kansas and owned by the LIN TV Corporation. KSNW is also the flagship station of the Kansas State Network (KSN), a chain of NBC affiliates serving the western three-fourths of the state. KSNW's transmitter is located near Colwich, Kansas. On cable, KSNW is broadcast on channel 3 in standard definition and digital cable channel 2003 in high definition on Cox Communications in the Wichita area.

On June 12, 2009 KSNW abandoned its previous analog channel, VHF 3, retaining UHF digital channel 45 in 1080i (16:9 widescreen) HDTV.

History

KSNW signed on the air on September 1, 1955 as KARD-TV, the third television station in Wichita. This made Wichita one of the smallest cities in the country with three network-affiliated stations.

In 1962, after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that central and western Kansas was part of the Wichita market, KARD merged with KCKT-TV, channel 2 in Great Bend and its satellites KGLD-TV in Garden City and KOMC-TV, channel 8 in Oberlin. The three stations, known as the "Tri-Circle Network," brought NBC programming to central and western Kansas. The Tri-Circle Network then changed its name to the Kansas State Network, with KARD as the flagship station of the new four station group. The stations eventually expanded their signals to reach 75% of Kansas plus portions of Nebraska, and now claim to reach half of Kansas' television households.

Previous KSNW logo, which does not refer to its channel number.

The stations changed their calls on August 16, 1982 to help viewers think of the four stations as parts of one large network. KARD became KSNW, KCKT became KSNC, KGLD became KSNG and KOMC became KSNK, with the KARD call letters ending up with KARD-TV in Monroe, Louisiana. In 1988, SJL Broadcast Management acquired the KSN stations. They were then sold to Lee Enterprises in 1995. Emmis Communications bought most of Lee Enterprises' stations in 2000. Montecito Broadcast Group, a newly formed partnership between SJL and the Blackstone Group, acquired the KSN stations from Emmis on January 27, 2006. In January 2006, the station hired former general manager Al Buch as the station's new GM, under the then-pending ownership of Montecito Broadcast Group. The CEO/founder of Montecito is George Lilly.

On July 24, 2007, Montecito announced the sale of all of its stations (KSNW and its satellites, plus KHON-TV in Honolulu and its satellites, KOIN in Portland and KSNT in Topeka) to New Vision Television. The sale was finalized on November 1, 2007.

In 2008, KSNW established a low-powered repeater for Salina, K06LZ, which is the same programming as KSNW, but with local ads and programming. K06LZ will soon be replaced with a new digital channel, KSNL-LD. During the 1960s and 1970s, KCKT-TV sent programming to Salina via K18AA, a repeater that aired on channel 18, which in recent years became a Fox affiliate.

On May 7, 2012, LIN Media announced that it will acquire the New Vision Television station group, including KSNW and its four satellite stations, for $330.4 million and the assumption of $12 million in debt. On October 2, the FCC approved the proposed sale to LIN TV. The completion of the deal on October 12, 2012 marked a re-entry to Kansas for LIN, who briefly owned the licenses of rival KAKE and its satellites in 2000 but never held operational control of the stations.

Satellite stations

Kansas State Network

Current satellites

After having turned off their analog signals, KSNC and KSNK are now using their former analog channel assignments 2 and 8, respectively as their virtual channels using PSIP.

Station	Locations served	Channels (Digital)	First air date	Fourth letter in calls meaning	Former callsigns	Former channel numbers	ERP (Digital)	HAAT (Digital)	Facility ID	Transmitter Coordinates
KSNC	Great Bend/Hays/Salina	22 (UHF)	November 28, 1954	Central Kansas	KCKT (1954–1982)	2 (analog VHF, 1954–2008)	1,000 kW	261.1 m	72359	38°25′54.1″N 98°46′19.8″W
KSNG	Garden City/Dodge City	11 (VHF)	November 5, 1958	Garden City	KGLD (1958–1982)	Analog: 11 (VHF, 1958–2009) Digital: 16 (UHF, ?-2009)	7.4 kW	239 m	72361	37°46′43.2″N 100°52′10″W
KSNK	Oberlin/McCook	12 (VHF)	November 28, 1959	Nebraska & Kansas	KOMC (1959–1982)	8 (analog VHF, 1959–2008)	10.4 kW	218 m	72362	39°49′5″N 100°42′4.6″W
KSNL-LD	Salina	47 (UHF)	May 2008	Low Power Digital	K06LZ (1989–2008), K18AA (before 1989), K47KV-D (2008 CP), K74CN (1970s)	none	15 kW	285.4 m	168675	38°53′0.9″N 99°20′15.7″W

Former semi-satellites

• KSNT (analog/virtual digital channel 27, physical RF digital channel 28), Topeka - KSNT only did limited simulcasting with KSNW and the other three KSN stations in western Kansas and is also owned by LIN TV. However, it does not simulcast syndicated programs from Wichita and has its own programming and news departments; however, the news departments of KSNT and KSNW do share news stories in the state of Kansas and they both broadcast NBC programming, produced programs for Kansas 22, and carry Kansas Jayhawks basketball games. KSNT and CBS affiliate WIBW shared a secondary affiliation with ABC until 1983, when KTKA signed on and both stations exclusively affiliated with NBC and CBS respectively.
• KSNF (analog/virtual digital channel 16, physical RF digital channel 46), Joplin, Missouri/Pittsburg, Kansas - Like KSNT, KSNF only did limited simulcasting with KSNW and its satellite stations in western Kansas. It is no longer associated with KSNW; and is now owned by Nexstar Broadcasting, but still uses the "KSN" name (though does not use the KSN logo) in its "KSN 16" moniker.

Both KSNT and KSNF provided limited simulcasts from KSNW from 1982 to 1990, when George Lilly's SJL Communications purchased the station from George Hatch dismantled part of the microwave system that linked KSNF and KSNT to provide simulcasts of KSNW programming in a cost-cutting measure.

News operation

Currently, KSNW broadcasts a total of 21½ hours of local news per week (with four hours on weekdays, one hour on Saturdays and a half-hour on Sundays). Despite being the first station to build a semi-satellite network in the western part of the state, KSNW's newscasts have lagged far behind those of rival stations KWCH-TV and KAKE-TV for several decades. In recent years, however, KSN has been battling KAKE for second place in some time slots although both stations trail KWCH.

Although the three KSN satellites originated their own newscasts for many years, their local operations were progressively cut back from the mid-1980s onward. By the start of the 21st century, local news had been reduced to inserts in KSNW's newscasts, and separate identifications had been largely eliminated. In January 2009, KSN acquired Kansas Now 22, a local news rebroadcast channel airing on Cox Communications in the Wichita market, from KAKE, Topeka CBS affiliate WIBW-TV and their owners Gray Television to produce its own news and weather for the cable channel.

On October 31, 2010, KSNW began broadcasting its newscasts in digital widescreen. Although not truly high definition, the news broadcasts match the aspect ratio of HD television screens; this left KAKE as the last remaining Big Five network affiliate in the Wichita-Hutchinson Plus market continuing to broadcast its local newscasts in 4:3 standard definition until July 17, 2011, when it became the second station in the market to begin broadcasting its newscasts in HD (KWCH-DT was the first station in the Wichita market to broadcast its local newscasts in high definition and produces KSCW-DT's weekday morning and 9 p.m. newscasts (and had produced KSAS-TV's 9 p.m. newscast), which are produced through news share agreements with those two stations, in that format). On January 30, 2011, KSNW began broadcasting the weather segments of its newscasts in high definition, with the remaining in-studio segments following suit on July 17 (the same day KAKE upgraded its news productions from 4:3 standard definition to 16:9 high definition). Field acquisition of news stories remained in standard definition widescreen. In June of 2011, KSNW shook up their weeknight anchor desk by replacing them with their weekend counterparts, who were achieving higher ratings on the weekends than the weeknight newscasts. Upon making this move, Sports Director Jim Kobbe immediately left KSNW. After serving nearly 18 years as the 10 p.m. meteorologist, Chief Dave Freeman was regulated to only 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. broadcasts. After outsourced news broadcasts on KSAS (produced by KWCH) were discontinued at the end of 2011 (with the former KSAS newscast moving to KSCW full time), the production of the Fox affiliate's 9 p.m. newscast was turned back over to KSNW starting on January 2, 2012. This broadcast is known as Fox Kansas News at 9 and originates from an updated main set which will have separate duratans indicating the Fox show. Main anchors for the new 9 p.m. newscast are Katie Taube and J.D. Rudd.

Newscast titles

• Your Esso Reporter (1955–1963)
• The Marlboro News (1963–1969)
• 24 Hours (1969–1975)
• Total News (1975–1978)
• NewsCenter 3 (1978–1984)
• KSN NewsCenter (1984–1985)
• KSN News/KSNW News (1985–1987)
• Channel 3 News (1987–1990)
• NewsChannel 3 (1990–1998)
• KSN News (1998–2008)
• KSN News 3 (2008–present)

Station slogans

• "Hello Wichita, Channel 3 Loves You" (1983–1993; used during period station used Frank Gari's "Hello News")
• "Hello Kansas, KSN Loves You" (1983–1993; used during period station used Frank Gari's Hello News)
• "It's Time To Go 3" (1984–1987)
• "Turn To 3" / "Turn to KSN" (1987–1990)
• "Where the News Comes First" (1990–1993)
• "Clear. Accurate. To the Point." (2002–2006)

News team

Current on-air staff

Anchors

• Stephanie Bergmann - weekdays at noon; weeknights at 5 and 6 p.m.
• Mark Davidson - weekday mornings Kansas Today and noon
• John Snyder - weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m.; also reporter
• Katie Taube - weeknights at 9 p.m. on KSAS; also reporter

KSN Pinpoint Weather Team

• Dave Freeman (AMS and NWA Seals of Approval) - chief meteorologist; weeknights at 5 and 6 p.m. and noon on Thursday & Friday
• J.D. Rudd (AMS Seal of Approval) - meteorologist; weeknights at 9p on KSAS and 10 p.m on KSN.
• Leon Smitherman (AMS and NWA Seals of Approval) - meteorologist; weekday mornings Kansas Today

Sports team

• Leon Leibl - sports director; weeknights at 6, 9 on KSAS, and 10 p.m.
• Mary-Rachel Redman - sports anchor; Sundays at 5, Saturdays at 6, and weekends at 9 on KSAS and 10 p.m.

Reporters

• Craig Andres - general assignment reporter
• Justin Kraemer - general assignment reporter
• Vi Nguyen - general assignment reporter

Former on-air staff

• Mark Bogner (AMS and NWA Seals of Approval) - meteorologist
• Mikayla Lewis - reporter (now with WZTV in Nashville)
• Matt Horn - reporter (now with Capitol News in Florida)
• Erica Coghill - reporter (now with WLKY-TV in Louisville)
• Dana Hertneky - anchor/reporter (now with KWTV-TV in Oklahoma City)
• Brooke Martin - anchor/reporter (now with WISH-TV in Indianapolis)
• Anita Cochran - anchor
• Melissa Beck - anchor
• Todd McDermott - anchor/reporter (now with WPBF-TV in West Palm Beach)

See also

• KSNC
• KSNG
• KSNK
• KSNL-LD

External links

• Official website
• mcsittel.com: Screengrabs from the 1983-1992 (including KSNW and KSNC), taken from Kingsport, TN
• King of the Road: A look at KARD-TV in 1964
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KSNW
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KSNW-TV