WKBN-TV
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WKBN-TV

WKBN-TV (channel 27) is a television station in Youngstown, Ohio, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside low-power Fox affiliate WYFX-LD (channel 62); Nexstar also provides certain services to ABC affiliate WYTV (channel 33) through joint sales and shared services agreements (JSA/SSA) with Vaughan Media, LLC. The three stations share studios on Sunset Boulevard in Youngstown's Pleasant Grove neighborhood, where WKBN-TV's transmitter is also located.

The station went on-the-air January 11, 1953, as the first UHF station in Ohio and the sixth in the nation. It was owned by the Williamson family along with WKBN radio (AM 570 and FM 98.9, now WMXY) as part of the WKBN Broadcasting Corporation. The radio station was a CBS Radio affiliate, and the television station has remained a primary CBS affiliate. It also had secondary affiliations with ABC and DuMont. Shortly afterward, WKST-TV in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania (now WYTV), signed-on and took the ABC affiliation. With DuMont off-the-air three years later, WKBN was solely affiliated with CBS by the end of 1956.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996, which deregulated television station ownership, affected WKBN-TV heavily, as it has had an unusual number of owners for a full-power American television station since then, having seen its ownership change six times.

In 1997, the Williamsons sold the station to Gocom, which later became Piedmont Television. Although most of the Williamsons have moved away from Youngstown, the family still makes major donations to the area. Most notably, Youngstown State University's Williamson College of Business Administration, which is housed in Williamson Hall, is named in their honor. The Williamsons held onto WKBN-AM-FM until 1999. However, WKBN-TV does retain a news and weather sharing partnership with iHeartMedia, the current owners of its former radio sisters.

On April 19, 2006, WKBN began airing its digital signal on UHF channel 41. The digital broadcast features CBS programming in high definition (when available) and also carries a simulcast of low-powered sister station WYFX-LP. On November 15, Piedmont Television announced the sale of WKBN and WYFX to New Vision Television based in Atlanta. The sale closed in early March 2007. Shortly afterward, WKBN began operating longtime rival WYTV in a shared services agreement.

On February 8, 2009, the station did a "dual HD" test airing both college basketball on its main digital signal and the Gatorade Duel (the qualifying race for the Daytona 500) on 27.2 (which simulcasts WYFX) in a possible attempt to broadcast both signals in high definition full-time. WKBN had to compress both signals to the 720p format in order to make it possible. It began broadcasting both channels in high definition full-time the next day making WKBN the eighth station nationally to broadcast two subchannels on the same signal in high definition. This continued until October 4, 2011, when New Vision moved the WYFX-HD transmission to the WYFX-LD antenna.

WKBN's powerful signal provides viewers in the eastern half of the Cleveland DMA an alternative to WJW (Fox) and WOIO (CBS) which broadcast on channels 8 and 10, respectively. VHF has proven to be a problem with digital television and frustrated viewers have had better luck picking up WKBN's UHF signal than with WJW and WOIO's VHF signals.

On May 7, 2012, LIN TV Corporation announced that it would acquire the New Vision Television station group for $330.4 million and the assumption of $12 million in debt. Along with the outright ownership of WKBN-TV and WYFX-LD, the agreement includes the acquisition of New Vision's shared services agreement with Parkin Broadcasting, giving LIN operational control of WYTV. LIN and Vaughan also entered into a joint sales agreement between WKBN and WYTV. On October 2, the FCC approved the proposed sale to LIN TV. The transaction was closed on October 12, 2012.

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