KETK-TV

Building used for KETK's original studios/offices in Jacksonville.

Prior to the station's sign-on, the UHF channel 56 allocation in the Tyler–Longview market was originally slated to be occupied by KTRG, which stood for the initials of the original owner and license applicant. However, the owner had to file for bankruptcy, effectively scuttling plans to launch the station. Amid a few hurdles, the license was purchased by new buyers, who applied to change the call letters to KETK. The station first signed on the air on March 9, 1987, even though the local edition of TV Guide began listings for KETK's programming in February.[1] The launch of KETK took the NBC affiliation from KLTV (channel 7), which had carried the network on a joint primary basis since it signed on in October 1954 and was relegated to secondary status in 1984. KETK was originally owned by Texas American Broadcasting. The station originally operated from studio facilities located on North Jackson Street in Jacksonville; its transmitter facilities were placed on a new tower near Mt. Selman (between Jacksonville and Tyler).

Original logo (1987-1988) used by KETK, during opening credits of station newscasts as well as station ID's between programs. The logo was used for about a year, until adjusted slightly for a subsequent image campaign.

station logo, 2004-2010

Special logo used during KETK's 30th anniversary in March 2017.

A tornado, on a path from near Palestine to near Whitehouse in November 1987, passed just northwest and north of the center of Jacksonville. The original KETK offices and studio there were along the path, and suffered damage. It took less than two days for the station to get back on the air, but much longer for newsroom and other off-screen areas and functions to recover. Because KETK's broadcast tower and transmitter were located farther to the northwest, and away from the tornado, that facility was spared.

Texas American Broadcasting sold the station to Region 56 Network, a subsidiary of Lone Star Broadcasting in 1989. In September 1991, KETK signed on KLSB-TV (channel 19) as a satellite station to serve southern portions of the market that could not receive channel 56's signal (including Nacogdoches). KETK moved its operations to its current location, a former men's clothing store, on Richmond Road at South Loop 323 in Tyler in 1993. Lone Star then sold KETK to Max Television (later Max Media Properties) in 1996. In 1998, the Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired most of the Max Media Properties stations, including KETK. However, in early 1999, Sinclair sold the non-license assets of the station to the Communications Corporation of America, which operated the station via a time brokerage agreement.[2] Sinclair remained the license holder of KETK until 2004 when ComCorp acquired the station outright.

Tower used by KETK to broadcast its signal.

In 2003, Max Media (a company partially related to Max Media Properties) acquired KLSB-TV and converted it into standalone station KYTX, which became a CBS affiliate in April 2004 (the first in the market since KLMG-TV (channel 51, now KFXK-TV) switched to Fox in April 1991). KETK subsequently signed on a low-power translator on UHF channel 53, KLSB-LP (which later changed its call letters to KETK-LP in 2007) to relay its signal to the southern part of the market; the station shut down in 2012. In June 2006, Communications Corporation of America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Rival CBS affiliate KYTX (channel 19) sparked controversy by publicly announcing the ComCorp bankruptcy on its newscasts, for an entire week. ComCorp said in a press release viewers and staff would see no changes at the station. The company emerged from bankruptcy in late 2007.

On April 24, 2013, the Communications Corporation of America announced the sale of its television stations, including KETK-TV, to Nexstar Broadcasting Group. KFXK and KTPN were sold to Nexstar partner company Mission Broadcasting; in the case of KFXK, that station was sold to Mission to comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) duopoly rules. Nexstar continued KFXK's and KLPN's shared services agreement with sister station KETK.[3] The sale was completed on January 1, 2015.[4]

During March 2017, KETK celebrated its 30th anniversary on the air.

Nexstar completed a $4 million renovation of KETK's studio and office facilities in November 2017. A dedication and reception was held on November 16, which included the presence of Nexstar chairman/president/CEO Perry Sook, as well as Leslie Roberts, an anchorwoman who worked for KETK in the late 1980s, among other attendees.[5]

Prior to KETK-TV's sign-on on March 9, 1987, the Jacksonville-based station intended on providing a signal to both the Tyler–Longview and Lufkin-Nacogdoches areas (Nielsen Media Research designates the two areas as a singular market, although television station signals from Tyler and Longview could not reach Lufkin and vice versa due to the distance between these areas). KETK later moved its main studio facilities from Jacksonville to a new complex in Tyler; in 1991, the station arranged to simulcast its programming in east-central Texas, serving southern portions of the market that could not receive KETK's channel 56 signal, on a newly licensed UHF station in Nacogdoches, KLSB-TV (channel 19), which would be operated by KETK-TV under a local marketing agreement. KLSB-TV signed on the air on September 1, 1991; it ran the majority of the KETK program schedule, with the only differences being local commercials, and in some timeslots, local news inserts.

Max Media, a company partially related to former KETK owner Max Media Properties, purchased KLSB-TV in 2003. Upon acquiring the station, Max Media terminated the LMA with the Communications Corporation of America (which bought KETK in 1998) and signed an affiliation agreement with CBS to become the market's first affiliate of that network since KLMG-TV (channel 51, now KFXK-TV) switched to Fox in April 1991. It also leased a building in southeast Tyler that formerly operated as a four-screen movie theater to serve as the station's new studio facilities. That winter, Max filed an application with the FCC to change the station's callsign to KYTX. Channel 19 dropped the KETK simulcast on April 11, 2004, and officially joined CBS the following day on April 12. On April 13, the FCC officially granted the call sign change to KYTX. On June 13, 2004, the station relocated its transmitter facilities farther north of the original transmitter facility to expand its signal to the Tyler and Longview areas, to a new tower located south of New Summerfield.

KETK-LP

Defunct; served as translator of KETK-TV
Nacogdoches/Lufkin, Texas United States
City	Nacogdoches, Texas
Channels	Analog: 53 (UHF)
Branding	NBC 53
Programming
Affiliations	NBC (2004–2011)
Ownership
Owner	Communications Corporation of America (Comcorp of Tyler License Corp.)
History
First air date	September 1, 1991 (1991-09-01) (as full-power station KLSB-TV) 2004 (2004) (as a low-power station)
Last air date	September 1, 2009 (2009-09-01) (transmitter shut down)
Former call signs	K53IQ (2004) KLSB-LP (2004–2007)
Call sign meaning	see KETK-TV infobox
Technical information
Class	LPTV

After the conversion of channel 19 to CBS, the Nacogdoches–Lufkin portion of the Tyler–Longview television market was left without over-the-air access to NBC programming. KETK then entered into an LMA to lease programming time on a new low-power UHF station on channel 53 in Lufkin, assuming the former full-power station's calls as KLSB-LP. As with KLSB-TV, the station began simulcasting KETK-TV's full schedule, except for local commercials, with advertising aimed at the Lufkin and Nacogdoches area. The station's call sign was changed to KETK-LP on April 13, 2007.[6]

On September 1, 2009, KETK-LP's transmitter was shut down. However, its programming remained available in the area via cable on Suddenlink Communications, which also carried NBC programming and KETK news simulcasts from the station in high definition. The station had a construction permit to build digital transmitter facilities, with plans to operate a digital signal on UHF channel 27 under the callsign KETK-LD. The FCC canceled both KETK-LP's license and digital construction permit—its digital transmitter facility was never built—at some point in 2011 or 2012.

KETK-TV's digital signal is multiplexed:

On September 8, 2006, KETK launched a second digital subchannel carrying NBC Weather Plus; the national Weather Plus feed was shut down on December 1, 2008. One month later on January 1, 2009, KETK replaced the local feed of Weather Plus with MeTV. In 2011, the subchannel switched to Estrella TV after the affiliation moved to former CW affiliate KCEB (channel 54).

KETK-TV began operating a full-power digital signal on UHF channel 22 on June 17, 2006. The station began testing high definition broadcasts of NBC programming on September 1 of that year, and started airing NBC programming in 1080i HD full-time four days later on September 5.

During the analog television era, the station's UHF channel 56 signal had the designation of having the highest channel allocation of any NBC affiliate. This ended after the high-band UHF channels (52-69) were removed from broadcasting use during the digital television transition on June 12, 2009. There was speculation that between the original transition deadline of February 17, 2009 and the new federally set deadline of June 12, 2009 that KETK would change its on-air station branding to reflect its physical digital channel 22.

However, the analog transmitter failed during the early morning hours of March 27, 2009, due to a malfunction of the cooling system at the transmitter facilities. Because of the cost and time involved that it would have taken to repair the analog transmitter, KETK filed a Notice of Suspension of Operations with the FCC and permanently shut down its analog operations over UHF channel 56 on March 27, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 22,[8] using PSIP to display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 56, however KETK removed on-air references to its channel position several months prior to the transition in 2008 and only brands by its call letters.

• Richelle Carey (now at HLN)[13]
• Jonna Fitzgerald (currently in politics)