KWBM (channel 31) is areligioustelevision station licensed toHarrison, Arkansas, United States, serving theSpringfield, Missouri, area as anowned-and-operated station of theDaystar Television Network. It is the only full-power television station in the Springfield market that is licensed in Arkansas. KWBM's offices are located on Enterprise Avenue in southeast Springfield, and its transmitter is located in ruralTaney County, just northeast ofForsyth.

The station first signed on the air on January 26, 2001; it originally served as the market's affiliate ofThe WB. The station was founded by theEquity Broadcasting Corporation. Prior to the station's sign-on, southwestern Missouri residents could only receive WB network programs oncable andsatellite throughChicago-based superstationWGN, which carried WB programming nationally from the network's launch on January 11, 1995; the network was unavailable in the market between the period when WGN dropped WB programming in October 1999^[2][3] and KWBM launched. The station formerly operated twolow-powertranslator stations: KBBL-CA (channel 56, later KBBL-LP) in Springfield (which adopted the calls on July 14, 2006; coincidentally, theKBBL calls were used fictionally as the radio station in the fictional town ofSpringfield on the animated seriesThe Simpsons), and KNJE-LP (channel 58) inAurora.

On January 24, 2006, theWarner Bros. unit ofTime Warner andCBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB andUPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network calledThe CW.^[4][5] One month later on February 22, 2006,News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network calledMyNetworkTV, which would be operated byFox Television Stations and its syndication divisionTwentieth Television.^[6][7] Equity refused in full to affiliate their stations with The CW due to the network's carriage costs, handing the affiliation to UPN affiliateK15CZ (channel 15); KWBM thus became the market's MyNetworkTV affiliate when the network launched on September 5, 2006.

On December 8, 2008, Equity Media Holdings filed forChapter 11bankruptcy protection; it then began to sell off its television station properties. KWBM was sold to at auction toreligious broadcaster Daystar in early 2009; the MyNetworkTV affiliation later moved to upstart stationKRBK (channel 49; now aFox affiliate) when that station launched on August 1, 2009.

The station's digital signal ismultiplexed:

Daystar leased the second and third subchannels of KWBM toNexstar Media Group (formerly Koplar Communications) to extend the signal coverage of Fox affiliate KRBK, which until 2018 did not cover Springfield proper with its main signal licensed toOsage Beach, Missouri. What would usually be channel 31.2 instead remapped as avirtual channel to KRBK's channel 49.1. KWBM also broadcast KRBK'sMeTV subchannel as 49.2.^[9] This arrangement ended in 2020 with the launch of the Daystar Español channel on KWBM-DT2. KRBK has since moved to theFordland antenna farm.

Because it was granted an originalconstruction permit after theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) finalized theDTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997,^[10] the station did not receive a companion channel for itsdigital signal. Instead, at the end of the digital conversion period for full-power television stations, On June 12, 2009, KWBM would have been required to turn off itsanalog signal and turn on its digital signal (called a "flash-cut") almost one month later on July 3.

The termination of KWBM's analog signal resulted in the station being dropped from satellite providersDish Network andDirecTV, due to the lack of unique local programming from the main Daystar national feed, and a revocation of the station'sretransmission consent agreement after the sale from Equity to Daystar.Mediacom,Suddenlink andCharter Spectrum continue to receive a direct satellite feed of the station, and Daystar maintains carriage of the station on those systems viamust-carry declaration.

KBBL-LP and KNJE-LP, as low-power stations, were not required to cease analog transmissions upon the 2009 transition deadline, but were required to move their channel positions as their channel allocations were among the high band UHF channels (52–69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition. These stations were not sold to Daystar as part of its purchase of KWBM. The FCC cancelled KNJE-LP's license on August 6, 2010, and deleted the KNJE-LP call sign from its database; KBBL is currentlydark with a construction permit to build digital transmitter facilities on UHF channel 24.

• 2001 establishments in Arkansas
• Daystar Television Network stations
• Television channels and stations established in 2001
• Television stations in Arkansas
• Television stations in Springfield, Missouri

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