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|---|---|
| City | St. Cloud, Minnesota |
| Channels | |
| Branding | Ion |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner | |
| History | |
First air date | November 24, 1982 (1982-11-24) |
Former call signs | KXLI (1982–1997) |
Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | Pax Minnesota |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 35907 |
| ERP | 470kW |
| HAAT | 289.4 m (949 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 45°20′11.9″N93°23′31.2″W / 45.336639°N 93.392000°W /45.336639; -93.392000 |
| Translator(s) | see§ Translators |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | iontelevision |
KPXM-TV (channel 41) is atelevision station licensed toSt. Cloud, Minnesota, United States, broadcasting theIon Television network to theMinneapolis–Saint Paul area. The station isowned and operated by theIon Media subsidiary of theE. W. Scripps Company, and maintains a sales office on 176th Street NW nearBig Lake; its transmitter is located inNowthen, Minnesota.
KPXM-TV also serves theMankato market (viaK20LP-D in nearbySt. James[2] through the localmunicipal-operated Cooperative TV [CTV] network of translators[3][4]), as that area does not have an Ion station of its own.
The station originally signed on the air in 1982 as KXLI ("XLI" is 41 inRoman numerals). The station branded as "K-41" and showedsyndicated fare andcartoons. KXLI was alsosimulcast onKXLT-TV channel 47 inRochester, and by the late 1980s,Minnesota North Starshockey broadcasts would also air on the stations.
KXLI and KXLT were owned by Halcomm Inc., whose majority stockholder and president was Dale W. Lang.[5] Lang was also the chairman of magazine publisher Lang Communications Inc.[6] Lang and several partners attempted to create the "Minnesota Independent Network" (MIN) with 11 stations, but this was never realized.[5]
Lang also made a $9.6 million loan to Halcomm. When KXLI and KXLT closed down in December 1988, Lang called the loan a year later and took possession of the stations.[5]
In 1989, Lang became the primary investor in a new television network based inOrlando, Florida, theStar Television Network.[6] KXLT returned on September 29, 1990, again simulcasting KXLI programming as an owned and operated Star station. Both stations were broadcasting 22 hours a day with 10 hours from Star, which consisted of at least four hours of infomercials and eight hours of classic shows under theTV Heaven banner.[5]
Following Star's closure in January 1991,[6] KXLI/KXLT replaced its schedule withreligious and infomercial programming, as well as programming from theHome Shopping Network, which continued through their purchase byLowell "Bud" Paxson in the mid-1990s. Saturday afternoons during this time consisted of local and national hunting programs. Programming originated from the transmitter building during this time in Big Lake.
Once it was decided to bring back the moniker of TV Heaven, money was spent on a new building near the tower. TV Heaven was brought back with programs from the 1950s, '60s, '70s, '80s and some new shows during the '90s. It also had agreements to air programming from an upstart conservative network NET (National Empowerment Television) run byPaul Weyrich. To that end, the stations nicknamed themselves the Political News Network. Late evenings were taken up by many different shopping networks.
In 1998, Paxson broke the KXLI/KXLT simulcast by selling KXLT to Shockley Communications, who converted that station into a full-powerFox affiliate for the Rochester–Austin–Mason City market; that station would replace two Minneapolis-based stations,WFTC andKMSP-TV, on cable and satellite providers in the Rochester market. Paxson also changed KXLI's callsign to KPXM, and the station would join the Pax TV network (later i: Independent Television and now Ion Television) later in 1998. The station also got a significant technical overhaul, replacing the 1970s-vintage La Kart tape switching equipment. It also moved to a new, much more powerfultower in Big Lake. It is the tallest structure in Minnesota, standing 1,505 feet (459 m) tall—nearly twice as high as the skyscrapers of downtown Minneapolis. The new tower more than doubled the station's coverage area, which was now comparable to those of the major Twin Cities stations.
KPXM originally had a marketing agreement withKARE (channel 11) in which KPXM repeated KARE's evening newscaststape-delayed by half an hour, and also repeated KARE's morning show again in the afternoon. Similar arrangements were in place between other Pax andNBC stations across the country. This agreement ended in June 2005, when Paxson chose to end such agreements for all its stations.
In 2009 and 2012, the FCC authorized the station to move to a tower closer to the Twin Cities tower farm inShoreview. However, that facility was never built.
During late May 2018, the station simulcast on RF channel 16 from the Anoka tower shared with radio stationKQQL,[7][8] encouraging viewers to re-scan their TVs. This change only affected those who use an antenna to receive KPXM. The station permanently moved to channel 16 on June 1, 2018, as part of thedigital television repack.[9] While both channels were still on the air, viewers saw two identical sets of channels.[10] This move forced K16HY-D off the air in the Twin Cities, as that station broadcast from the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis, and the two stations would interfere with each other. After the repack is complete,T-Mobile will own the spectrum vacated by the station.
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 41.1 | 720p | 16:9 | ION | Ion Television |
| 41.2 | Bounce | Bounce TV | ||
| 41.3 | 480i | Grit | Grit | |
| 41.4 | Mystery | Ion Mystery | ||
| 41.5 | Laff | Laff | ||
| 41.6 | CourtTV | Court TV | ||
| 41.7 | Busted | Busted | ||
| 41.8 | QVC | QVC |
KPXM-TV shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 41, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 40,[12] usingvirtual channel 41.
On June 1, 2018, the station signed off its transmitter on channel 40, relocating to 16 permanently after moving towers.
The broadcast signal of KPXM is extended by way of five digitaltranslators in central and southern Minnesota.
Lang and some partners previously tried to put together a Minnesota Independent Network with 11 stations strung from Rochester in the southeast toBemidji in the north. However, that network never was organized.
Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofMinnesota | ||
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Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Minnesota | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS |
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| Spanish | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofWisconsin | ||
|---|---|---|
Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Wisconsin | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS |
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| Religious | ||
| Spanish | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofWisconsin | ||
|---|---|---|
Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Wisconsin | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS |
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| Religious | ||
| Spanish | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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