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| City | El Paso, Texas |
| Channels | |
| Branding | CBS 4; My 4.2 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| KFOX-TV | |
| History | |
First air date | December 14, 1952 (72 years ago) (1952-12-14) |
Former call signs | KROD-TV (1952–1973) |
Former channel number |
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Call sign meaning | Doubleday Broadcasting Company[1] |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 33764 |
| ERP | 1,000 kW |
| HAAT | 602 m (1,975 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 31°48′55″N106°29′22″W / 31.81528°N 106.48944°W /31.81528; -106.48944 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | cbs4local |
KDBC-TV (channel 4) is atelevision station inEl Paso, Texas, United States, affiliated withCBS andMyNetworkTV. It is owned bySinclair Broadcast Group alongsideFox affiliateKFOX-TV (channel 14). The two stations share studios on South Alto Mesa Drive in northwest El Paso; KDBC-TV's transmitter is located atop theFranklin Mountains on the El Paso city limits.
The station firstsigned on the air on December 14, 1952, as KROD-TV. It was the first television station in the El Pasotelevision market. The station was founded by Dorrance Roderick, owner ofKROD radio (600 AM) and theEl Paso Times newspaper. KROD-TV's original studio facilities were located at 2201 Wyoming Avenue, currently the home ofKSCE (channel 38), now offI-10.
Early programs on the station included thechildren's showsRed Brown and Anna Lee andBozo's Big Top. For adults, there waswrestling programMitchell's Mat Time. The station has been a CBS affiliate since its sign-on, as KROD radio had been a longtime affiliate of theCBS Radio Network. KROD-TV also maintained secondary affiliations withABC and theDuMont Television Network until 1956. It lost the ABC affiliation when KILT (channel 13; nowKVIA-TV on channel 7) became an affiliate of that network in November. KROD-TV lost DuMont when the network ceased operations in August 1956.[3] During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with theNTA Film Network.[4] Roderick sold the station to Trigg-Vaughn ofDallas in 1959.
The station was sold again in 1967, toDoubleday Broadcasting Co., a subsidiary of publisherDoubleday and Company. On May 29, 1973, it changed itscall sign to KDBC-TV, reflecting the change in the station's ownership. Doubleday sold the station to Portal Communications, a subsidiary of theEvening Post Publishing Company in 1974.
The original transmitter site was located south of Comanche Peak in El Paso. A road was built to the site, and a 288-foot (88 m)tower was constructed. A building was assembled from the rock chipped from the site. The station went on the air with a temporary transmitter (smallRCA) and eventually added a 10 kW RCA TT-10AL transmitter, broadcasting at aneffective radiated power (ERP) of 61 kilowatts at 1,150 feet (350 m). That site is now used as a backup facility for channel 4, and many local FM radio stations transmit from this building.
In 1984, the transmitter was moved farther up the hill to Comanche Peak. A 440-foot (130 m) tower was built and a new transmitter was installed (one of the last of the RCA TT-25GLs to become operable). The station increased its ERP to 100 kW and increased the height of its transmitter to 1,540 feet (470 m). BTSC stereo also began with the move to the new site.
In 1986, the station was acquired by United Broadcasting, then-owners ofKARK-TV inLittle Rock, Arkansas, andWTOK-TV inMeridian, Mississippi.Columbus, Mississippi–based Imes Broadcasting bought KDBC in 1988 for $33 million after United Broadcasting was taken over by investment firmMerrill Lynch.
Imes began to exit the television business in the late 1990s and announced that they would sell KDBC toPappas Telecasting in September 2000, who intended to convert the station into a charter affiliate ofAzteca América, a fledglingSpanish-language network that was co-owned at the time by Mexican networkTV Azteca and Pappas.[5][6] Plans for the affiliation were canceled following an outcry from viewers, advertisers, and station employees, especially over the fact that no other station in El Paso was interested in joining CBS; most crucially, the Azteca América plan to acquireKXTX-TV in Dallas and use it as the hub of the network fell through, prompting Imes to initially pull KDBC off the market.[7] As a result, the station renewed its affiliation contract with CBS.
On November 17, 2003, two years later, Pappas agreed to buy KDBC from Imes—which had been desiring to sell the station for some time—for $20 million.[8][9] Pappas began operating KDBC under atime brokerage agreement that same day, with the sale closing on April 2, 2004.[10] Azteca América and Pappas ended their affiliation relationship in mid-2007.[11] Azteca América has been carried on the fourth digital subchannel of ABC affiliate KVIA-TV since early December 2010.[12]
On January 16, 2009, Pappas announced that it would sell several of its television stations, including KDBC, to New World TV Group (later renamed Titan TV Broadcast Group). The sale would be consummated after it receivedUnited States bankruptcy court approval.[13]
On October 19, 2009,Communications Corporation of America, owner ofNBC affiliateKTSM-TV (channel 9), entered into ashared services agreement with Titan TV for KTSM-TV to provide advertising sales and administrative services as well as some news resources for KDBC-TV. Titan retained KDBC'sbroadcast license,[14] while both stations would nominally employ separate news departments. However, KTSM-TV was heavily criticized for reducing KDBC's newscasts to near-rebroadcasts with heavy story sharing with its own newscasts. Critics said this made both news departments indistinguishable from one another on-air.
On April 23, 2013, Titan TV Broadcast Group filed an application with theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) to sell KDBC and its low-power repeaters toCunningham Broadcasting. Nearly all of Cunningham Broadcasting's stock is controlled by trusts held in the names of the children of Sinclair Broadcast Group founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Sinclair had finalized its purchase ofFox affiliateKFOX-TV (channel 14) from theCox Media Group by this time. For all intents and purposes, this would have created aduopoly in the El Paso market that circumvented FCC ownership rules.
The following day, it was announced that the Communications Corporation of America stations, including KTSM-TV, would be sold toNexstar Broadcasting Group. The sale of KDBC was consummated on July 31.[15] One week later, Sinclair exercised its option to purchase KDBC outright from Cunningham Broadcasting.[16]
FCC duopoly regulations normally disallow two of the four highest-rated stations (which usually constitute stations affiliated with the "Big Four" networks) from being directly owned by a single entity. However, in this case, Sinclair cited that KDBC is ranked fourth overall in the El Paso market while KFOX-TV placed sixth in total-day viewership.[17] In addition, FCC regulations require a market to be left with eight unique owners after a duopoly is formed. Sinclair noted in its application that the El Paso–Las Cruces market would still have eight unique owners (not counting Mexican stations that also serve the market) after Sinclair completed its acquisition of KDBC. The FCC approved the sale on September 23.[18] The transaction was formally completed on October 1, creating a duopoly between KDBC and KFOX-TV.[19] Despite being longer established, KDBC is considered the junior partner in the duopoly, a rarity for a Big Three network affiliate.[citation needed]
Sinclair announced plans to purchase a new studio facility, using an existing building to house the two stations on South Alto Mesa Drive on the city's west side. The new facility opened at the end of September 2014. Sinclair also announced its intention to invest heavily in KDBC to make it a factor in the market for the first time in several years, bringing its payroll to 40 people.[20]
On February 22, 2006,News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network calledMyNetworkTV, which would be operated byFox Television Stations and itssyndication division20th Television. MyNetworkTV was created to compete against another upstart network that would launch at the same time that September,The CW (an amalgamated network that originally consisted primarily of UPN and The WB's higher-rated programs) as well as to give UPN and WB stations that were not invited to join The CW to have another option besides converting toindependent status.[21][22] On April 18, Pappas Telecasting signed an affiliation agreement with Fox Entertainment Group for KDBC to serve as the market's charter MyNetworkTV affiliate.[23] KDBC began carrying MyNetworkTV programming on a newly launched second digital subchannel that debuted on September 5, 2006; rather than program a general entertainment format consisting of syndicated content in the style of other MyNetworkTV affiliates (particularly those which carry the service's programming on their main channel), Pappas also signed an affiliation agreement withAmerica One to provide supplementary programming during the remainder of KDBC-DT2's schedule.
On January 1, 2010, KDBC-DT2 became an affiliate of movie and classic television multicast networkThis TV, while continuing to offer the MyNetworkTV schedule from 7 to 9 p.m. weeknights. From 2015 to 2017, KDBC-DT2 carried selected sports events from Sinclair's hybrid sports syndication and multicast serviceAmerican Sports Network, sharing local television rights to selected ASN event content with sister station KFOX's 14.2 subchannel (then affiliated with theRetro Television Network).[24][25] On March 1, 2017, KDBC-DT2 began carrying Sinclair's internet content networkTBD (now focused on acquired linear and internet-originated reality programming) outside of MyNetworkTV programming hours. The subchannel continued to air selected ASN sports programming until August 21, 2017, when KFOX-TV launched its 14.4 subchannel as a full-time affiliate ofStadium (the multicast network successor of ASN, jointly owned by Sinclair andChicago White Sox subsidiary Silver Chalice).
KDBC-TV clears most of the CBS network schedule; however, the station airs theCBS Evening News a half-hour earlier than the majority of the network's stations at 5 p.m. (this is the reverse order of the traditional late afternoon scheduling of major network affiliates in theCentral andMountain Time Zones, in which the network newscast airs after a local newscast) and airs the network's Sunday morning news programsCBS News Sunday Morning andFace the Nation one hour earlier than most CBS stations (CBS normally feeds the programs starting at 8 a.m. in each time zone; KDBC instead transmits both programs live via the network'sEastern Time Zone feed).
KDBC-TV presently broadcasts24+1⁄2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week; its early evening newscast airs nightly at 5:30 p.m. instead of as two half-hour broadcasts at 5 and 6 p.m.
On December 7, 2005, near the end of that night's 6 p.m. news, then-anchor Nichole Ayoub accepted a marriage proposal by her boyfriend Travis Hughes live on-air.[26]
On December 15, 2009, KDBC became the third television station in the El Paso market to begin broadcasting its newscasts inhigh definition.
In January 2010, Communications Corporation of America announced that it would shut down the news department of its sister station,KVEO-TV inBrownsville, Texas, other than maintaining a few locally based reporters for stories in the Brownsville area. The locally produced newscast on that station would originate from KDBC, using its staff with reports filed by Brownsville-based reporters. The new newscast, which debuted on KVEO on January 18, 2010, was able to be broadcast live in Brownsville without interfering with the production of KDBC's newscasts due to the one-hour time difference between El Paso (in the Mountain Time Zone) and Brownsville (in the Central Time Zone).[27] KTSM took over responsibility for the production of KVEO's newscasts upon the sale of the station to Cunningham in 2013.
On October 16, 2014, KDBC's news operation was consolidated at the new facilities of sister station KFOX-TV, and re-launched asCBS 4 News.[28] All newscasts were retained.
On August 17, 2015, KDBC debuted a two-hour weekday morning newscast calledCBS 4 News Daybreak from 5 am to 7 am, along with the return of the station's newscast at noon.
On July 19, 2024, as part of cutbacks, Sinclair announced that most of KDBC's newscasts would end on August 5, and would be replaced by simulcasts of their KFOX counterparts. Only the 10 p.m. newscast remained in the short term, with Sinclair stating that a "reconceptualized" newscast would premiere on KDBC later in the year.El Paso Matters suggested that Sinclair planned to introduce its lifestyle-orientedarc format, as it had done on some of its other stations.[29] In November 2024, KDBC launchedarc El Paso, which airs as its noon and 10 p.m. newscasts on weekdays.[30]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | CBS | CBS |
| 4.2 | 720p | ROAR | MyNetworkTV /Roar[24][32] | |
| 4.3 | 480i | Antenna | Antenna TV | |
| 4.4 | Dabl | Dabl | ||
| 14.4 | 480i | 16:9 | TheNest | The Nest (KFOX-TV) |
KDBC-TV shut down its analog signal, overVHF channel 4, on June 2, 2009 (ten days before most full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate on June 12).[33][34] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transitionUHF channel 18, usingvirtual channel 4.[35][36]
For many years, KDBC has operatedlow-powertranslator stations inAlamogordo and Las Cruces. The Alamogordo translator, KKNJ-LP, originally broadcast on channel 71, before relocating to UHF channel 36 in 1989 after the FCC removed high-band UHF channels 70 to 83 from broadcasting use. It changed call letters five times in 2006 to facilitate the warehousing of CW-specific call letters on sister Pappas stations in theDes Moines, Iowa market before the network's September 2006 launch; the station was assigned KCWI-LP for two separate periods, KDMI-LP and then KPWB-LP. Sinclair Broadcast Group surrendered KKNJ-LP's license to the FCC for cancellation on May 7, 2021. The Las Cruces relay, KCWF-LP, originated on UHF channel 61 in the late 1970s; it moved to channel 68 in 1997 and to channel 20 in 2000.
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** Owned by third parties and operated by Sinclair through various operating agreements. *** Owned by Sinclair and operated byMarquee Broadcasting. JV Joint venture. | ||||||||||||||||||
