KCWX

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KCWX is the CW affiliate for San Antonio, Texas, broadcasting on PSIP virtual channel 2 over their digital channel 5. The station is licensed to Fredricksburg, Template:Mi to km north-northwest of San Antonio, with the transmitter located in Albert, Template:Mi to km north of San Antonio. The station is owned by Corridor Television, and was formerly managed by Belo Corporation, owners of CBS affiliate KENS-TV until late April 2010 . Currently location of the station's studio and master control facilities is at 1402 West Avenue near downtown Austin, though management of the station is based in offices along the Mopac Expressway on Austin's north side.

Because the channel came into existence late in the analog age between two already existing channel 2 allotments for KPRC in Houston and Midland's KMID and the station's city of license, the station had formerly broadcast at a lower power to protect the other channel 2 stations until the digital age. However the station is still in a position where viewers in the southern part of the San Antonio market must watch the channel exclusively over pay television services.

Although Fredericksburg is within in the Austin DMA, the station's signal covers most of the San Antonio area and Bexar County, and not all of Austin, such as eastern Travis County.

The station airs on San Antonio Time Warner Cable systems on cable channel 4; the area's actual broadcast Channel 4, WOAI, is on cable channel 3. An official website for the station is not currently live, however the URL kcwx.tv has been registered to Corridor Television since April 2006.

History

KCWX went on the air in 2000 as KBEJ, the UPN affiliate for both San Antonio and Austin; in a rarity by modern standards (when most stations ask for a specific set of calls), the callsign was randomly assigned within the May 1998 FCC callsign change report. The station was jointly operated by KVUE, Austin's ABC affiliate, and KENS—both owned by Belo.

Establishment of channel 2

In San Antonio, UPN originally affiliated with KRRT (now KMYS) when it launched in 1995. KRRT dropped UPN for The WB in 1998, and NBC affiliate KMOL-TV (then owned by former UPN part-owner Chris-Craft Industries, now WOAI-TV owned by Newport Television) aired UPN programming late at night for two years until KBEJ signed on.

In Austin, UPN was available on a network of low-powered TV stations called HPN (Hill Country [in place of "United"] Paramount Network) from 1995 to 1998, a joint partnership with LIN TV stations KXAN and KNVA by simulcast channels which would air separate network programming from the main channel numbers. This network was fronted by KBVO-CA in Austin. IN 1998, the affiliation was picked up by low powered station K13VC, a.k.a. KVC 13, a sister station to KTBC before dropping it two years later to make way for a digital signal on channel 13.

Programming History

KBEJ originally had a separate cable feed for Austin viewers, which presented repeats of KVUE's syndicated programming, instead of repeats of KENS' newscasts. This ended once Austin-area cable systems dropped K13VC. The KBEJ signal has always originated from Belo's headquarters in Dallas, but some of its programming is provided from KENS and content decisions are controlled from the KENS studios. KVUE provides the microwave link for the transmitter located in Stonewall and to the Austin cable system. Syndicated fare in general was at the time during the dual-market focus usually lower-value and older syndicated programming, in order to avoid Syndex blackouts in either market; since the station began to market exclusively to San Antonio the syndicated schedule has continued somewhat to air lower-profile programming, while the entire overnight schedule has been given over to paid programming. The KENS and KVUE master controls are located in their respective cities and are completely independent from the Dallas campus and KBEJ.

Austin viewership and Star Trek: Voyager

When KBEJ initially signed on, Time Warner Cable was not willing to place KBEJ on its Austin cable system, This caused significant protest from fans of Star Trek: Voyager, who were unable to watch the series' final season.

This led to many fans downloading illegal copies of the episodes from the Internet or trading taped copies with friends in other television markets. Although UPN frowned officially upon this practice, unofficially the network and its parent company, Paramount Pictures, turned a "blind eye" in this instance due to the circumstances of the situation. In 2001, Time Warner cable agreed to carry KBEJ and viewers in the market were once again able to view UPN programming.

Becoming an affiliate of The CW

On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced they would merge to form The CW, starting in September 2006. On March 28, KBEJ was announced as the CW affiliate for San Antonio . Originally speculated to serve Austin also, on April 18, it was announced that LIN TV's KNVA will also be joining The CW . On April 7, 2006, KBEJ's call letters changed to KCWX to reflect its new affiliation .

Soon after The CW launched, Time Warner's Austin-area systems began blacking out CW programming on KCWX, as LIN Television proclaimed SyndEx exclusivity for KNVA, on October 2, 2006. KCWX's regular schedule outside of CW hours was still available in Austin up until April 3, 2007, when Time Warner officially dropped KCWX from its Austin cable channel lineup. The CW affiliation will move over to KMYS on September 1, 2010 |- |} Because it was granted an original construction permit after the FCC finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997 [1], the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. Instead, on June 12, 2009, which was the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, KCWX was required to turn off its analog signal and turn on its digital signal (called a "flash-cut").

KCWX elected to choose channel 5 as its final DTV channel selection [2]; however, it had to wait for KENS to turn off its analog signal before KCWX could turn on its digital signal, using PSIP to display KCWX's virtual channel as 2.

In late May 2009, in a filing with the FCC, Belo/Corridor stated that they would not have their digital broadcast signal ready to go on air on June 12, instead expecting it to be ready on July 10 due to weather delays. Cable viewers continued to view the station via Belo's direct fiber connection to the Time Warner Cable headend. Local cable viewers would continue to see KCWX because the cable company receives the KCWX signal via fiber. Corridor/Belo was able to negotiate with the tower installer to finish the tower work earlier than expected, and KCWX's digital signal finally signed on July 1, 2009. Shortly thereafter a digital subchannel consisting of This TV programming was launched on 2.2.

Since KCWX is operating on a VHF-low channel, some viewers have difficulty receiving their signal. So KCWX applied to the FCC to increase their power from 23.7kW to 82.9kW. They also applied for two 300 watt, channel 8, fill-in digital translators. One in the immediate part of Austin and the other in the immediate part of San Antonio.

External links

• History of establishing the Channel 2 license in San Antonio/Austin
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