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KETK-TV
KETK-TV (channel 56) is a television station licensed to Jacksonville, Texas, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for East Texas. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Tyler-licensed low-power MyNetworkTV affiliate KTPN-LD (channel 36); Nexstar also provides certain services to Longview-licensed Fox affiliate KFXK-TV (channel 51) under a shared services agreement (SSA) with White Knight Broadcasting. The three stations share studios on Richmond Road (at Loop 323) in Tyler; KETK-TV's transmitter is located near FM 855 in northwestern Cherokee County.
KETK-TV began broadcasting in March 1987. Its sign-on gave East Texas full affiliates of all of the Big Three television networks for the first time; several groups had attempted to start NBC affiliates in the market in the preceding years. Texas American Broadcasting, the founding owner, sold the station in 1989 to Lone Star Broadcasting, a group headed by general manager Phil Hurley. That company launched KLSB in Nacogdoches, which at first served to rebroadcast most of the station's programming in the Nacogdoches–Lufkin area.
Lone Star Broadcasting sold KETK-TV to Max Media in 1997. Max Media sold its stations to Sinclair Broadcast Group the next year, but KETK-TV was small and geographically isolated from its other stations, so Sinclair leased and then sold it to regional broadcaster Communications Corporation of America (ComCorp). KETK continued to lease KLSB until it was sold in 2004 and relaunched as separate CBS affiliate KYTX. Nexstar acquired the ComCorp stations at the start of 2015. The station is generally the second-rated outlet for local news in the market, behind longtime market leader KLTV and KTRE.
In 1984, the Tyler–Longview area gained its second network affiliate, CBS outlet KLMG-TV. As that occurred, the battle was on to build a third network-affiliated station to bring NBC to East Texas. The first contender was Sunrise Broadcasting, which applied in 1980 and merged with a competing applicant for channel 14 in December 1982; East Texas Broadcasting, which was building another station, KTET (channel 60), was described as doing "too much, too soon" with no agreement in hand with the network: it went as far as hiring a news department before it was foreclosed on.
However, as other groups sought the NBC nod, it was held the entire time by another permittee: Thomas Robert Gilchrist, who won a construction permit in early 1985 for KTRG (using his initials). Gilchrist went bankrupt, and the construction permit and NBC affiliation agreement were sold to Texas American Broadcasting, in which two of the three partners were owners of KTEN in Ada, Oklahoma. Texas American proceeded to change the call letters to KETK and begin construction. Even before channel 56 was on the air, TAB was operating a low-power station providing NBC programming to the Jacksonville area.
KETK was originally planned to start in February, but equipment delays and high winds led it to be pushed back. Even with the delays, a tragedy occurred in the final stretch of construction when a crew repairing damage to the studio-transmitter link tower at the studios in Jacksonville from cold weather suffered an equipment accident, causing one man's death. It finally signed on March 9, 1987. KETK-TV joined KXAS-TV of Fort Worth on the Tyler cable system, though it did not invoke network non-duplication requiring the cable company in Tyler to make KETK the only source of NBC programming. The station made steady inroads in audience share in its early months on air. A tornado damaged the offices near Jacksonville in November 1987; the station was on the air the next day. Texas American Broadcasting sold the station to Region 56 Network, a subsidiary of Lone Star Broadcasting, in 1989; Region 56 was co-owned by the general manager, Phil Hurley, and TDH Capital Corporation.
In September 1991, KETK launched a satellite station, KLSB-TV (channel 19), in Nacogdoches. It had its own studios in Nacogdoches, employing 40 people and producing separate evening newscasts. The launch of the Nacogdoches station led to changes in the regional composition of channel 56's newscasts. There were plans to split the news anchors between Tyler and Longview, but instead it was decided to not have a local anchor in Longview. KETK relocated its studios to a site in Tyler on Loop 323 in December 1991. In January 1994, separate Nacogdoches newscasts were discontinued, resulting in a net loss of about nine jobs with a continuing presence there.
Max Media (a successor in name only to the previous Max Media, which had owned KETK-TV in the late 1990s) acquired KLSB from KLSB Television LLC, a company which had leased its air time to KETK-TV, in 2003. It announced it would move its transmitter to cover Tyler and Longview and become the region's first CBS affiliate in more than a decade. This occurred in April 2004, when it became KYTX.
KETK-TV
KETK-TV (channel 56) is a television station licensed to Jacksonville, Texas, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for East Texas. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Tyler-licensed low-power MyNetworkTV affiliate KTPN-LD (channel 36); Nexstar also provides certain services to Longview-licensed Fox affiliate KFXK-TV (channel 51) under a shared services agreement (SSA) with White Knight Broadcasting. The three stations share studios on Richmond Road (at Loop 323) in Tyler; KETK-TV's transmitter is located near FM 855 in northwestern Cherokee County.
KETK-TV began broadcasting in March 1987. Its sign-on gave East Texas full affiliates of all of the Big Three television networks for the first time; several groups had attempted to start NBC affiliates in the market in the preceding years. Texas American Broadcasting, the founding owner, sold the station in 1989 to Lone Star Broadcasting, a group headed by general manager Phil Hurley. That company launched KLSB in Nacogdoches, which at first served to rebroadcast most of the station's programming in the Nacogdoches–Lufkin area.
Lone Star Broadcasting sold KETK-TV to Max Media in 1997. Max Media sold its stations to Sinclair Broadcast Group the next year, but KETK-TV was small and geographically isolated from its other stations, so Sinclair leased and then sold it to regional broadcaster Communications Corporation of America (ComCorp). KETK continued to lease KLSB until it was sold in 2004 and relaunched as separate CBS affiliate KYTX. Nexstar acquired the ComCorp stations at the start of 2015. The station is generally the second-rated outlet for local news in the market, behind longtime market leader KLTV and KTRE.
In 1984, the Tyler–Longview area gained its second network affiliate, CBS outlet KLMG-TV. As that occurred, the battle was on to build a third network-affiliated station to bring NBC to East Texas. The first contender was Sunrise Broadcasting, which applied in 1980 and merged with a competing applicant for channel 14 in December 1982; East Texas Broadcasting, which was building another station, KTET (channel 60), was described as doing "too much, too soon" with no agreement in hand with the network: it went as far as hiring a news department before it was foreclosed on.
However, as other groups sought the NBC nod, it was held the entire time by another permittee: Thomas Robert Gilchrist, who won a construction permit in early 1985 for KTRG (using his initials). Gilchrist went bankrupt, and the construction permit and NBC affiliation agreement were sold to Texas American Broadcasting, in which two of the three partners were owners of KTEN in Ada, Oklahoma. Texas American proceeded to change the call letters to KETK and begin construction. Even before channel 56 was on the air, TAB was operating a low-power station providing NBC programming to the Jacksonville area.
KETK was originally planned to start in February, but equipment delays and high winds led it to be pushed back. Even with the delays, a tragedy occurred in the final stretch of construction when a crew repairing damage to the studio-transmitter link tower at the studios in Jacksonville from cold weather suffered an equipment accident, causing one man's death. It finally signed on March 9, 1987. KETK-TV joined KXAS-TV of Fort Worth on the Tyler cable system, though it did not invoke network non-duplication requiring the cable company in Tyler to make KETK the only source of NBC programming. The station made steady inroads in audience share in its early months on air. A tornado damaged the offices near Jacksonville in November 1987; the station was on the air the next day. Texas American Broadcasting sold the station to Region 56 Network, a subsidiary of Lone Star Broadcasting, in 1989; Region 56 was co-owned by the general manager, Phil Hurley, and TDH Capital Corporation.
In September 1991, KETK launched a satellite station, KLSB-TV (channel 19), in Nacogdoches. It had its own studios in Nacogdoches, employing 40 people and producing separate evening newscasts. The launch of the Nacogdoches station led to changes in the regional composition of channel 56's newscasts. There were plans to split the news anchors between Tyler and Longview, but instead it was decided to not have a local anchor in Longview. KETK relocated its studios to a site in Tyler on Loop 323 in December 1991. In January 1994, separate Nacogdoches newscasts were discontinued, resulting in a net loss of about nine jobs with a continuing presence there.
Max Media (a successor in name only to the previous Max Media, which had owned KETK-TV in the late 1990s) acquired KLSB from KLSB Television LLC, a company which had leased its air time to KETK-TV, in 2003. It announced it would move its transmitter to cover Tyler and Longview and become the region's first CBS affiliate in more than a decade. This occurred in April 2004, when it became KYTX.
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