KTXA

The UHF channel 21 allocation in the Dallas–Fort Worth market was originally occupied by KFWT, an independent station licensed to Fort Worth that signed on the air on September 14, 1967. Owned by W. C. Windsor's Trinity Broadcasting Company alongside KFWT-FM 102.1, the station was the first of three new UHF independents in six months in the Metroplex. Within two years, however, the station had gone silent for financial reasons. No buyer was ever found, and Trinity declared bankruptcy in March 1970, with the channel 21 equipment repossessed.

KTXA first signed on the air January 4, 1981;[1] originally operating as an independent station, it was founded by Grant Broadcasting. The station's original studio facilities were located on Randol Mill Road, adjacent to Six Flags Over Texas and now-defunct Arlington Stadium in Arlington (although Fort Worth has always been the station's city of license). It ran a general entertainment format of cartoons and sitcoms during the daytime hours, while at night it broadcast the over-the-air subscription television service ONTV, which required a set-top decoder and a subscription fee in order to receive the ONTV signal during programming hours. By May 1, 1983, it became a general entertainment station full-time, and added classic movies and off-network drama series.

Grant Broadcasting signed on a similarly formatted station, KTXH in Houston, in 1982. In 1984, both KTXA and KTXH were sold to Gulf Broadcasting, which itself was subsequently purchased by the Taft Television and Radio Company that same year.

KTXA logo in 1987.

From 1985 to 1989, KTXA operated the "Channel 21 Kids' Club"; in short promos that aired between cartoons, area children were encouraged to send off for a membership card that would entitle them to discounts at various local businesses and enable them to participate in on-air prize giveaways. They were blue on the front side and white on the back, with a "KTXA Channel 21 Kids' Club" logo appearing on the front in red and white along with the line "I turned 21". The hostess of these shorts, K.D. Fox, was later featured in many other local promotions for various businesses in the Dallas–Fort Worth area.

The station was unprofitable throughout the 1980s, but Taft kept strong programming on the station (including Hanna-Barbera cartoons and other programs owned by Taft and distributed by Worldvision Enterprises). In February 1987, Taft sold its independent stations—including KTXA—to the TVX Broadcast Group; the purchase was finalized on April 1, 1987. In 1989, Paramount Pictures purchased a minority stake in TVX; two years later on February 28, 1991, Paramount acquired the remaining interest in TVX and renamed the company Paramount Stations Group; KTXA adopted the on-air branding "Paramount 21" during this period. Viacom acquired the stations in 1994 as part of its purchase of Paramount Pictures. Around this time, the station moved its operations to the Paramount Building in the West End district of downtown Dallas.

UPN 21 logo, used from 2002 until the shutdown of the network and became independent again in 2006

On January 16, 1995, KTXA became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN); correspondingly, it changed its branding to "UPN 21". After independent station KTVT (channel 11) affiliated with CBS in July 1995, it acquired various syndicated programs that it could not air due to its new network-heavy schedule. It became a UPN owned-and-operated station when Viacom acquired a 50% stake in the network from Chris-Craft Industries in 1996 (up to that point, Paramount maintained only a programming partnership with UPN with Chris-Craft serving as UPN's sole owner).

KTXA logo used from January 1995 to September 2002.

In the late 1990s, KTXA acquired more first-run syndicated talk and reality shows (such as Forgive or Forget and Ricki Lake), while reducing the amount of sitcoms and cartoons on its schedule. Viacom purchased CBS in 2000, making channel 21 a sister station to its former rival KTVT, which CBS had purchased from Gaylord Broadcasting the previous year. KTXA's operations moved from the Paramount Building and were integrated with KTVT at its Bridge Street studios in Fort Worth (both are two of three stations licensed to Fort Worth, the other being NBC-owned KXAS-TV (channel 5)).

For a brief period in the early 2000s, KTXA served as the de facto UPN affiliate for the Waco–Killeen–Temple television market when former affiliate KAKW became a Univision owned-and-operated station for both that market and the nearby Austin market. KTXA, KTVT and the other Viacom Television Stations Group properties were spun off to CBS Corporation after National Amusements decided to split Viacom and CBS into separate companies in December 2005.[2]

TXA 21 logo, used from 2006 to 2012; this variant was used since 2009. It is still in use on the station's promotions.

Second TXA 21 logo, used from 2012 to 2018.

On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW.[3][4] Former WB affiliate KDAF (channel 33) was named as the market's CW affiliate by way of owner Tribune Broadcasting's multi-station deal with the network, and independent station KDFI (channel 27) was named as Dallas's MyNetworkTV station through its ownership by that network's original co-parent, Fox Television Stations. By default, CBS opted to run KTXA as an independent station.

The station's new branding was announced in two phases, starting with the introduction of the "TXA 21" name on May 5, 2006. KTXA then launched a promotional ad campaign called "What Could it Mean?", in which a distinctive star-shaped logo appeared on buildings, sidewalks and billboards around the Metroplex. The new KTXA logo (seen above) was unveiled on July 4. The station's website also revealed that the station planned to begin carrying high school football games from North Texas area teams that fall. KTXA became an independent station on September 16, 2006, the day after UPN ceased operations; this made it the third independent station to be owned by CBS, alongside KCAL-TV in Los Angeles and another former UPN outlet, WSBK-TV in Boston (WSBK later joined MyNetworkTV in September 2011, while CBS purchased independent station WLNY-TV in Riverhead, New York in 2012).

KTXA is the only station among the six that were originally owned by Paramount Stations Group that remains owned by CBS; the others were sold off between 1994 and 2001 and are now owned either by Fox Corporation or the Sinclair Broadcast Group. With KTXA reverting to independent status, the station had automatically gained a competitor in KFWD (channel 52), which had become an English language independent in January 2002 after losing its Telemundo affiliation to newfound O&O KXTX-TV (channel 39); this lasted until August 1, 2012 when channel 52 became an affiliate of the Spanish-language network MundoFox (later MundoMax, now a RNN affiliate). On October 31, 2013, Greenville-licensed KTXD-TV (channel 47) became a full-time independent after dropping its secondary affiliation with classic television network MeTV. As of March 7, 2018, KTXA reverted to become the only general entertainment independent station in the Dallas–Fort Worth market after KTXD was sold to Cunningham Broadcasting, a partner company of Sinclair Broadcast Group, and switched to the affiliate Stadium.

KTXA's (as well as those of co-owned KTVT) Dallas bureau and offices are in this building, CBS Tower, in north Dallas.

On August 26, 2013, KTVT/KTXA moved its Dallas business operations to a redeveloped office building at 12001 North Central Expressway (twenty blocks north of the previous Dallas facility at 10111 North Central, near Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, between Walnut Hill and Meadow Road). The office tower that the stations began occupying—where KTVT's Dallas newsroom and the advertising sales offices for the duopoly occupy the top floor—was renamed CBS Tower. The station's primary studio facilities, and other technical and business operations remain at the Bridge Street facility in east Fort Worth;[5] the former 24,000 square feet (2,230 m²) Dallas offices on North Central were purchased by Avial Hotels (the real estate development subsidiary of North Carolina-based Blue Star Hospitality) in November 2015, which intended to redevelop the building as a hotel.[6]

In the fall of 2016, the station began showing the Go Time syndicated E/I block.[7]

In November 2018, KTXA rebranded as "Texas 21" with a new interstate shaped logo still utilizing the 'star 21' logo as before.

On December 4, 2019, CBS Corporation and Viacom remerged into ViacomCBS.[8]

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

On December 18, 2013, KTXA announced that it would begin carrying MeTV on digital subchannel 21.2; the network moved to 21.2 on December 23, replacing original Dallas affiliate KTXD-TV (which had controversially dropped the network two months earlier);[10] At the time this made KTXA the first television station owned by CBS to carry a major subchannel network (sister stations WCBS-TV in New York City and KYW-TV in Philadelphia were the only other CBS-owned stations that maintained subchannel services, both of which operated as locally programmed news channels).

KTXA began transmitting a digital television signal on UHF channel 18 on October 16, 2000. The station shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 21, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[11] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 18,[12] using PSIP to display KTXA's virtual channel as 21 on digital television receivers. KTXA was granted permission to move its digital signal from channel 18 to channel 19 in response to its 2008 application. However, to accommodate co-owned KTVT's move back to channel 19 on August 4, 2009, KTXA moved back to channel 18. Prior to August 4, KTXA simulcast KTVT's programming on 21.2.

On September 10, 2009, the FCC issued a Report & Order approving KTXA's channel change from channel 18 to channel 29.[13][14] On October 21, 2009, KTXA filed a minor change application for their new channel 29 allotment, which the FCC granted them a construction permit on November 19, 2009.[15] On January 20, 2011, KTXA commenced operations on channel 29, and ceased operations on channel 18 the following day.[16]

The station is the over-the-air broadcast outlet for the NBA's Dallas Mavericks and since 2010, Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers and the NHL's Dallas Stars. KTXA will broadcast 25 Rangers games each season (usually Friday games) through the 2014 season and has aired 17 Dallas Stars games annually since the 2010–11 season (KTXA initially aired Dallas Stars games from 1993–1995); KTXA's Rangers telecasts are produced by Fox Sports Southwest and are syndicated to certain stations in the south-central U.S. (such as KCWX in San Antonio and KSBI in Oklahoma City). KTXA airs FC Dallas matches since 2015.

KTXA also serves as the over-the-air broadcaster of Dallas Cowboys regular season games broadcast by either ESPN or NFL Network, in order to satisfy NFL requirements that games be distributed on a broadcast television station in each team's local market for those who do not have access to those networks. KTXA also carried CBS coverage of the 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament game between Baylor and Sam Houston State, while KTVT aired North Texas and Kansas State (such arrangements are no longer possible due to the NCAA joint tournament contract with CBS Sports and Turner Sports effective with the 2011 tournament).

KTXA also broadcast college football games from SEC TV (formerly SEC Network), as well as men's basketball games from the Big 12 Network, both of which are operated by ESPN Regional Television. SEC Football broadcasts ended after the 2013–2014 season due to the national launch of the cable-exclusive SEC Network in August 2014 as part of a 20-year agreement between the Southeastern Conference and ESPN.

In order to replace the SEC football broadcasts due to the SEC Network's national presence, KTXA began broadcasting Atlantic Coast Conference football and basketball from the ACC Network, a Raycom Sports-operated ad hoc syndicated sports package that began syndicating to 84% of all U.S. households, from 2014 to 2019.[21]