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| Channels | |
| Branding | Fox SA Puro San Antonio |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| WOAI-TV,KMYS | |
| History | |
| Founded | April 19, 1985 (1985-04-19) |
First air date | December 16, 1987 (37 years ago) (1987-12-16) |
Former call signs |
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Former channel number(s) |
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| Independent (1987–1995) | |
Call sign meaning | Alamo Broadcasting |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 56528 |
| ERP | 1,000kW |
| HAAT | 441 m (1,447 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 29°17′28″N98°16′12″W / 29.29111°N 98.27000°W /29.29111; -98.27000 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | foxsanantonio |
KABB (channel 29) is atelevision station inSan Antonio, Texas, United States, affiliated with theFox network. It is owned bySinclair Broadcast Group alongside dualNBC/CW affiliateWOAI-TV (channel 4); Sinclair also provides certain services toKerrville-licensedDabl affiliateKMYS (channel 35) underjoint sales andshared services agreements (JSA/SSA) withDeerfield Media. The three stations share studios between Babcock Road and Sovereign Drive (offLoop 410) in northwest San Antonio; KABB's transmitter is located in northwestWilson County (nearElmendorf).
KABB first signed on the air on December 16, 1987, as the firstindependent station in the San Antonio market since KRRT (channel 35, now Dabl affiliate KMYS)—which by that point, was the market's original Fox affiliate—debuted in November 1985. Channel 29 was originally owned by the Alamo Broadcasting Corporation, from which its call letters were taken.
Alamo Broadcasting sold the station toRiver City Broadcasting in 1989. In 1994,Paramount Pictures, then-owners of KRRT through itsParamount Stations Group subsidiary, entered into a partnership withChris-Craft Industries—which owned NBC affiliate KMOL-TV (channel 4, now WOAI-TV) at the time—to create the United Paramount Network (UPN), with KRRT serving as the network's San Antonio affiliate. River City subsequently signed an affiliation agreement with Fox for KABB to become the network's new area affiliate; on January 16, 1995, KRRT dropped Fox programming to become the market's original affiliate of UPN, with KABB assuming the Fox affiliation, thus ending the latter's status as the longest serving independent television outlet in San Antonio after over seven years. Shortly afterward, KRRT entered into alocal marketing agreement (LMA) with KABB after Paramount sold channel 35 to Jet Broadcasting. In 1996, the Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired River City Broadcasting's television stations.
The following year, Glencairn, Ltd. (which evolved intoCunningham Broadcasting) bought KRRT; the family of Sinclair Broadcast Group founder Julian Sinclair Smith owned 97% of Glencairn's stock (Glencairn was, in turn, to be paid with Sinclair stock for the purchases), effectively making KABB and KRRT aduopoly in violation ofFederal Communications Commission (FCC) rules of the period. Glencairn had owned eleven television stations nationwide that Sinclair operated under LMAs; a later plan to sell five of its stations to Sinclair outright prompted theRainbow/PUSH coalition (headed byJesse Jackson) to file challenges, citing concerns over a single company holding two broadcast licenses in one market and arguing that Glencairn passed itself off as a minority-owned company (its president, former Sinclair executive Edwin Edwards, isAfrican American) when it was really an arm of Sinclair, and used the LMA to gain control of the station.[2][3] The FCC levied a $40,000 fine against Sinclair in 2001 for illegally controlling Glencairn.[4] Sinclair purchased KRRT outright in 2001, creating the market's first television duopoly with KABB.
The station originally carried Fox's children's program blockFox Kids when it switched to the network in January 1995 and also carried its successorsFoxBox and 4Kids TV; the network later discontinued the Fox Kids weekday blocks in 2002,[5] with the Saturday morning lineup remaining until September 2006, when KABB became the eighth Fox station that was not involved in the switches resulting from the network's1994 affiliation agreement withNew World Communications (afterWSVN inMiami,KMSP-TV inMinneapolis,KPTV inPortland, Oregon,WFLD inChicago,KMSB-TV inTucson,KMPH-TV inFresno andKPTM inOmaha) to stop carrying the network's children's program block; Fox Kids successor 4Kids TV block was moved to sister station KMYS to accommodate a short-lived weekend expansion of its morning newscastFox News First. The lineup remained on KMYS until 4Kids TV was discontinued by Fox (due to a dispute between the network and the block's lessee4Kids Entertainment) in December 2008, after which Fox permanently discontinued providing network-supplied children's programming.
On May 15, 2012, the Sinclair Broadcast Group and Fox agreed to a five-year extension to the network's affiliation agreement with Sinclair's 19 Fox stations, including KABB, allowing them to continue to carry the network's programming through 2017.[6]
On July 19, 2012, Sinclair announced that it would acquire NBC affiliate WOAI-TV (channel 4) from High Plains Broadcasting as part of its purchase of six television stations, along with the assumption of the operations of two others, fromNewport Television.[7] Since FCC duopoly regulations forbid common ownership of more than two full-power stations in a single market from being under the same ownership, Sinclair spun off KMYS to Deerfield Media; however, Sinclair retained control of KMYS through ashared services agreement (SSA). In addition, while FCC rules disallow ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in the same market, which normally precludes duopolies involving two "Big Four" network affiliates, Sinclair cited in its FCC purchase application that WOAI ranked as the fourth highest-rated station (behindUnivisionowned-and-operated stationKWEX-DT (channel 41)) and KABB the fifth-rated station in the San Antonio market in total day viewership. The Sinclair and Deerfield Media deals were consummated on December 3, 2012.
The operations of KABB and KMYS initially remained separate from WOAI-TV, with the two stations retaining competing news operations.[8] However, in October 2013, theSan Antonio Express-News reported that Sinclair planned to move WOAI's sales, promotions and executive offices from itsdowntown San Antonio studios on Navarro Street to a new building adjacent to KABB and KMYS' shared Babcock Road facility; the transition of WOAI employees to the KABB/KMYS complex was finalized in the summer of 2014, with the completion of a shared newsroom on the second floor of the building that accommodates both WOAI and KABB's respective news staffs. The combined Sinclair news operation is the largest in the city.[9][10]
In October 2023, KABB changed its on-air branding from "Fox 29" to "Fox SA".[11]
KABB presently broadcasts27+1⁄3 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with5+1⁄3 hours each weekday and 30 minutes each on Saturdays and Sundays); in addition, the station produces the sports highlight programMaximum Sports, which airs on weeknights during the final ten minutes of the 9:00 p.m. newscast and as a standalone half-hour program on Saturdays and Sundays at 9:30 p.m. as well as the lifestyle programDaytime at Nine, which airs weekday mornings at 9:00 a.m.
River City Broadcasting started a news department for KABB shortly before the company's merger with the Sinclair Broadcast Group. On March 20, 1995, the station began producing a half-hour prime time newscast at 9:00 p.m. each weeknight, originally titledThe Nine O'Clock News. The station expanded the weeknight broadcast ofThe Nine O'Clock News to one hour in 1998; this was followed by the addition of hour-long weekend editions of the 9:00 p.m. broadcast by 1999. In 1999, the station began to produce a half-hour late afternoon newscast at 5:30 p.m. for sister station KRRT, which utilized the same anchors, meteorologist and sports staff as that seen on KABB's 9:00 p.m. newscast. The program was canceled in 2001 due to low ratings.
KABB programmed news outside its established 9:00 p.m. timeslot for the first time on channel 29 on January 2, 2006, when it premieredFox News First, a three-hour morning newscast that aired weekdays from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m., replacing infomercials and children's programs that had previously aired that time period. On September 8, 2008, the program was expanded to four hours, with the addition of an hour-long block from 5:00 to 6:00 a.m.
KABB is one of the few local television newscasts in the United States to have syndicated its newscasts to other stations in nearby markets. Its morning and prime time newscasts also aired on Fox affiliatesKIDY inSan Angelo andKXVA inAbilene from September 2009 to September 2013 (simulcasts ofFox News First were added by both in October 2010) when the owner of those stations, London Broadcasting Company, launched half-hour prime time newscasts during the 9:00 p.m. hour; KXVA's MyNetworkTV-affiliated sister stationKIDZ-LD rebroadcast KABB's 9:00 p.m. newscast nightly on a one-hour delay at 10:00 p.m. during the same timeframe.
On August 3, 2011, KABB became the fourth English-language television station in the San Antonio market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts inhigh definition. One month later on September 6, KABB launched an hour-long lifestyle programDaytime @ Nine, as a lead-out of its weekday morning newscast.[12]
Upon Sinclair's purchase of fellow Fox affiliateKSCC inCorpus Christi, KABB's morning block of news from 7 to 10 a.m. began to be simulcast on that station.[citation needed]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29.1 | 720p | 16:9 | KABB-HD | Main KABB programming /Fox |
| 29.2 | 480i | 4:3 | COMET | Comet |
| 29.3 | Rewind | Rewind TV | ||
| 35.2 | 720p | 16:9 | TBD | TBD (KMYS) |
| 35.3 | 480i | Stadium | The Nest (KMYS) |
On August 24, 2010, Sinclair signed a groupwide affiliation deal with The Country Network (which rebranded as ZUUS Country in July 2013), a digital subchannel network featuringcountry music videos, to the 28 of the company's stations.[14] On October 31, 2015, the station switched its subchannel to the Sinclair-owned Comet network. On February 13, 2017, the station added a third subchannel with the soft launch of TBD.
On September 1, 2021, after the Launch ofAntenna TV (which is carried on WOAI 4.2)'s spinoff Rewind TV, Comet was replaced by that network. 19 days later, Comet returned to 29.2 after TBD was moved to KMYS-DT2, causing Rewind TV to move to KABB-DT3.
On February 2, 2009, Sinclair told cable and satellite television providers via email that regardless of the exactmandatory switchover date to digital-only broadcasting for full-power stations (which Congress rescheduled for June 12 days later), the station would shut down its analog signal on the original transition date of February 17,[15] making KABB and KMYS the first stations in the market to convert to digital-only broadcast transmissions.
KABB discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, overUHF channel 29, on February 17, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 30,[16][17] usingvirtual channel 29.
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