KPXD-TV
KPXD-TV, virtual channel 68 (UHF digital channel 25), is an Ion Television owned-and-operated station licensed to Arlington, Texas, United States and serving the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex. The station is owned by the Ion Media Networks subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. KPXD's offices are located on Six Flags Drive in Arlington, and its transmitter is located on Belt Line Road in Cedar Hill.
Arlington/Fort Worth/Dallas, Texas United States | |
---|---|
City | Arlington, Texas |
Channels | Digital: 25 (UHF) Virtual: 68 (PSIP) |
Branding | Ion Television |
Slogan | Positively Entertaining |
Programming | |
Affiliations | |
Ownership | |
Owner | Ion Media Networks (a subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company) (Ion Media Dallas License, Inc.) |
History | |
First air date | December 21, 1996 |
Former call signs | KINZ (1996–1998) |
Former channel number(s) | Analog: 68 (UHF, 1996–2009) Digital: 42 (UHF, 2000–2019) |
inTV (1996–1998) | |
Call sign meaning | PaX TV Dallas (former network branding) |
Technical information | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
Facility ID | 68834 |
ERP | 1000 kW |
HAAT | 371.2 m (1,218 ft) |
Transmitter coordinates | 32°35′25″N 96°58′24″W |
Links | |
Public license information | Profile LMS |
Website | iontelevision |
History
The station first signed on the air on December 21, 1996 as KINZ-TV (in reference to its original affiliation with the Infomall TV Network (InTV), the predecessor-of-sorts of Ion Television), carrying infomercials for much of its schedule and programming from religious broadcaster The Worship Network during the overnight hours. The station was to have originally given the call letters KAQV in its construction permit to operate the station, which were changed prior to its sign-on. In early 1998, Paxson Communications (the forerunner to Ion Media Networks) bought the station, and changed its call letters to KPXD-TV on January 13; the station became a charter owned-and-operated station of Paxson's new family-oriented broadcast network Pax TV (now Ion Television) when the network launched on August 31, 1998.
As part of a wide-ranging deal that gave NBC partial ownership of Pax, the former network's owned-and-operated stations as well as many of its affiliates provided sales and marketing assistance for Pax TV stations in several markets, with KPXD entering into a joint sales agreement with KXAS-TV (channel 5; which NBC had owned 76% interest in at the time, it is now owned by the network outright).
In 2003, Pax TV decided to scale back its programming due to financial losses, resulting in much of the afternoon time slots on its stations' schedules being filled with infomercials. After Pax was rebranded as i: Independent Television on June 30, 2005, Worship Network programming moved to one of KPXD's digital subchannels (originally its third subchannel, then to its fourth subchannel after Ion Life and Qubo launched, before Worship was dropped on January 31, 2010).
Digital television
Digital channels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
Channel | Video | Aspect | PSIP Short Name | Programming |
---|---|---|---|---|
68.1 | 720p | 16:9 | ION | Main Ion Television programming |
68.2 | 480i | qubo | Qubo | |
68.3 | IONPlus | Ion Plus | ||
68.4 | Shop | Ion Shop | ||
68.5 | LAFF | Laff | ||
68.6 | 4:3 | HSN | HSN |
Analog-to-digital conversion
KPXD-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 68, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[2] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 42, using PSIP to display KPXD-TV's virtual channel as 68 on digital television receivers, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.
Newscasts
In September 2001, as part of the JSA with that station, KPXD began airing tape delayed rebroadcasts of NBC station KXAS-TV's 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts each Monday through Friday evening at 6:30 and 10:30 p.m. (the latter beginning shortly before that program's live broadcast ended on KXAS). The news rebroadcasts ended in 2003, two years before most of the network's other news share agreements with Pax TV stations were terminated upon the network's rebranding as i: Independent Television, as a result of the network's financial troubles.
References
- "RabbitEars TV Query for KPXD". Archived from the original on 2014-05-18. Retrieved 2014-05-17.
- List of Digital Full-Power Stations Archived 2013-08-29 at the Wayback Machine
External links
- www.iontelevision.com - Ion Television official website
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KPXD-TV
- DFW Radio/TV History