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| City | West Monroe, Louisiana |
| Channels | |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| KTVE | |
| History | |
First air date | August 19, 1967 (58 years ago) (1967-08-19) |
Former call signs |
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Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | Arkansas Delta, also alludes to "card" |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 3658 |
| ERP | 691kW |
| HAAT | 523.5 m (1,718 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 32°5′42.6″N92°10′34.3″W / 32.095167°N 92.176194°W /32.095167; -92.176194 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
KARD (channel 14) is atelevision station licensed toWest Monroe, Louisiana, United States, serving theMonroe, Louisiana–El Dorado, Arkansasmarket as an affiliate of theFox network and anowned-and-operated station ofThe CW Plus. It is owned byNexstar Media Group, which acquired the station in 2003 as part of its purchase of Quorum Broadcasting, and also holds a majority stake in The CW. Nexstar provides certain services to El Dorado–licensedNBC affiliateKTVE (channel 10) through alocal marketing agreement (LMA) withMission Broadcasting. The two stations share studios on Pavilion Road in West Monroe; KARD's transmitter is located inColumbia, Louisiana.
In addition to its own digital signal, KARD's primary channel issimulcast inhigh definition on KTVE's seconddigital subchannel (10.2) from a transmitter northwest ofHuttig, Arkansas.
The station that became KARD first signed on on August 19, 1967, as KUZN-TV on channel 39 and was owned by Howard E. Griffith as a television counterpart ofKUZN radio.[2] This was Griffith's second foray into television, as he was the co-owner of Monroe's first TV station,KFAZ, which signed on in 1953 but wentoff the air the next year. The station aired a local newscast, theBBC seriesPanorama, and oldWesternmovies.[3] The station ceased operations on January 12, 1968, but was sold to Northeast Louisiana Broadcasting Corporation.
It resumed operations on August 31, 1970, as KYAY-TV.[4][5] During this incarnation, KYAY, again, aired news and off-network Westerns and movies, as well asABC,NBC andCBS programming not carried onKNOE-TV and KTVE, such asThat Girl,The Mod Squad,Hawaii Five-O,The Courtship of Eddie's Father,The Lawrence Welk Show,Engelbert Humperdinck,The NBC Tuesday Night Movie, andThe Merv Griffin Show.[6] KYAY proved to be no more successful than KUZN had been, and it also went dark, on August 16, 1971.
In 1974, the station returned with a newcall sign, KLAA, and a reallocation to channel 14. It was an NBC affiliate. Its owners operated the station under Monroe Television, Inc., with its largest owner being Kenneth Meyer ofSpringfield, who also owned and signed on then-ABC affiliateKMTC in that city.[7] Since 1972, when KTVE changed its affiliation to ABC, it and KNOE-TV carried selected NBC programs during the hours when their primary networks (CBS in KNOE's case) were not broadcasting (with some exceptions), but never the full NBC lineup. KLAA debuted on October 6, 1974, giving southern Arkansas and northeastern Louisiana full service from all "Big Three" networks for the first time ever.[8] Today, channel 39 is occupied byKMCT-TV, areligious station, and that station now occupies KUZN/KYAY/KLAA/KARD's former studios.
On December 6, 1981, KLAA became an ABC affiliate, while KTVE retook the NBC affiliation that it held in the 1950s and 1960s.[9] Exactly a year later, the station changed its calls to KARD, with the station manager citing the call sign change a reflection on the station's progress at the time.[10] In 1984, Woods Communications, owned byCharles Woods of Alabama, purchased KARD and KMTC, from Meyer Communications.[11] In 1986, Woods relocated the station's transmitter from its West Monroe studios toCaldwell Parish, Louisiana, and increased the station's power to 5 millionwatts. This change enabled KARD to have at least Grade B coverage in a region encompassing all of Northeast Louisiana including portions of theAlexandria andShreveport markets.[12]
KARD began airing someFox programming in late nights when that network started up in 1986 and in the same year became the first station in the Monroe area (and one of the first in Louisiana) to broadcast in stereo. Fox programs the station aired includedThe Simpsons,In Living Color,Married... with Children, andAmerica's Most Wanted.[13] In addition to KARD's secondary Fox affiliation, starting in 1991,Foxnet was available for cable subscribers in Monroe. During 1991, KARD relocated from its original studios on Parkwood Avenue to the newly built Glenwood Mall, where they remained until moving into their current studios in West Monroe's Industrial Park in 2000.[14] In its last months as an ABC affiliate, KARD preemptedNYPD Blue due to concerns about that program's content. In 1993, Woods filed for bankruptcy, and Banam Broadcasting, a subsidiary ofBankAmerica, assumed control of KARD. The next year, Banam dropped ABC to take Fox full-time, due toFox picking upNFL football that season, and it was the first station in the nation to switch from a Big Three network to Fox during theU.S. television network affiliate switches of 1994, doing so April 17 that year, citing competition from the then-glut of stronger-rated ABC stations from outlying markets.[15] Those surrounding ABC affiliates (mainly Alexandria'sKLAX-TV and Shreveport'sKTBS-TV) continued to be the main conduit for ABC in the market via antenna or cable carriage (KLAX even capitalized on its expanded footprint into the Monroe market during this time by branding itself on-air as "Louisiana's Superstation") until December 1998, whenKAQY signed on. Banam sold KARD along with three of its stations (WTVW inEvansville, Indiana,KDEB inSpringfield, Missouri, andKLBK-TV inLubbock, Texas) to Petracom Broadcasting in 1995. In 1998, Petracom sold KARD to Quorum Broadcasting, which was absorbed by Nexstar in 2003.
In 2002, Piedmont Television, then-owner of KTVE, took over KARD's operations under alocal marketing agreement (LMA). Despite KTVE being the senior partner, the two stations' operations were consolidated in KARD's newer facility in West Monroe, which opened in 2000. In addition to a common sales and promotions staff, the KTVE news department produces KARD's newscast. Piedmont's control of the duopoly officially came to an end on January 16, 2008, when KTVE was sold toMission Broadcasting. This resulted in Nexstar, already the owner of KARD, taking over control of KTVE under a local sales agreement (LSA); the Internet presence of both stations were also merged into one website.
KARD airs four hours of weekday newscasts—a two-hour morning newscast at 7 a.m., two half-hour weeknight newscasts at 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., and an hour-long newscast at 9 p.m. Its current generation of newscasts began in November 2001, shortly before it entered an SSA with KTVE.
The station's digital signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14.1 | 720p | 16:9 | KARD-DT | Fox |
| 14.2 | CW Plus | The CW Plus[17] | ||
| 14.3 | 480i | Grit | Grit | |
| 14.4 | Antenna | Antenna TV |
In March 2009, KARD and KTVE informed theFederal Communications Commission that they needed to end analog operations sooner than June 12, 2009 (the earliest they could do so is April 16). KARD stated that a transmitter tube failed, bringing power down to 50%; KTVE claimed that its power was at 40%. Used parts were deemed unreliable, and staffers had to travel 50 miles (80 km) to the transmitter from the studio; two to three visits per week were required to monitor the analog facilities, according to Nexstar.[18] The FCC denied the request based on the fact that they are the last two analog channels in the market.[19]
KARD shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 14, on April 16, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 36, usingvirtual channel 14.[20]
Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofLouisiana | ||
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Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Louisiana | ||
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Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofArkansas | ||
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Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Arkansas | ||
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** Owned by third parties but operated by Nexstar through various agreements. | ||
