KFDM

KFDM (channel 6) is a television station in Beaumont, Texas, United States, affiliated with CBS, The CW Plus, and Fox. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to Port Arthur–licensed KBTV-TV (channel 4), a de facto Roar owned-and-operated station, under joint sales and shared services agreements (JSA/SSA) with Deerfield Media. The two stations share studios on Walden Road in southwest Beaumont; KFDM's transmitter is located in Vidor, Texas.

KFDM also previously served the Lake Charles, Louisiana, market as its default CBS station until KSWL-LD signed-on February 15, 2017.

KFDM-TV commenced broadcasting on April 24, 1955, and is the oldest on-air TV station in the Beaumont–Port Arthur market. UHF TV channel 31 preceded KFDM by about a year, but went off the air less than a year after its sign on. For years, channel 6 billed itself as "the first television station on the right side of Texas." It was locally owned by Beaumont Broadcasting alongside KFDM (AM 560, named KLVI since 1964). The radio station was founded by the Magnolia Petroleum Company; the calls stood for "K(C)all for Dependable Magnolene," the brand name for Magnolia's motor oil line. Although KFDM radio was an affiliate of ABC Radio, channel 6 has always been a primary CBS affiliate with ABC and NBC programs. In 1957, NBC programming moved to KPAC-TV (channel 4) upon its opening broadcast. Channel 6 would become an exclusive CBS affiliate when ABC programming moved to the re-opened KBMT-TV on channel 12 in 1961.

Original Chief Engineer Harold Bartlett, ham call sign W5KWA, oversaw all technical aspects of the station from its construction until his retirement in July 1980. His assistant, Richard Kihn, took over after Bartlett's retirement as acting Chief Engineer, and was appointed Chief Engineer on August 4, 1980. Kihn retired on October 26, 2012, and was replaced by Jim Hobbs. Hobbs did not last long and returned to radio engineering in Nebraska. Don Dobbs, former Director of Engineering at KTVT and KXAS-TV in Dallas–Fort Worth, took over as Director of Engineering at KFDM to oversee a major rebuild of the studios.

Beaumont Broadcasting sold KFDM radio in 1964 to John Hicks, father of Tom Hicks and brothers Steve and Jay. The callsign was changed to KLVI, which it remains. However, channel 6 retained the "-TV" suffix until 2009, long after the two former sister stations went their separate ways. It held onto KFDM-TV until 1969, when it sold the station to A. H. Belo Corporation, earning a handsome return on its 1939 purchase of KFDM radio.

In 1983, Belo merged with Corinthian Broadcasting, owner of Houston's KHOU-TV. This raised concern with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on two fronts. KFDM-TV provided at least Grade B coverage to much of the Houston market's eastern portion, and city-grade coverage in some locations. At the time, the FCC normally did not allow common ownership of two stations with overlapping signals, and would not even consider a waiver for a city-grade overlap. The merger also put Belo over the FCC's limit of five VHF stations per owner. As a result, Belo sold KFDM-TV, along with WTVC in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Freedom Communications in 1984.

In 1998, KFDM launched a charter The WB 100+ Station Group cable channel identified as "KWBB" to mimic a regular station's call sign. KFDM set up a separate sales department for KWBB.

From 2003 to 2006, the station carried programming from the United Paramount Network (UPN) as a secondary affiliation. In 2008, KFDM agreed to provide Southland Conference Television Network programming on Time Warner Cable Channel 35 starting on September 13. At the beginning of 2007, KFDM started broadcasting The CW on its second subchannel.