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KETK-TV

KETK-TV, channel 56, is the NBC television affiliate serving the East Texas viewing area. It is owned by Communications Corporation of America (ComCorp of Tyler). KETK-TV's main offices and studios are located in Tyler at 4300 Richmond Road.

KETK also operates Fox network affiliates KFXK and KFXL-LP, and MyNet network affiliate KLPN-LP, through a local marketing agreement with White Knight Broadcasting.

KETK can be seen on the Dish Network and DirecTV networks on channel 56 (local channels) and is also available on Tyler area cable systems, including SuddenLink Communications and Communicom.

Contents

History

Originally, channel 56 was to have the call letters, KTRG, the initials of the original owner and license applicant. Unfortunately, that owner had to file for bankruptcy prior to launching the station. The new buyers put channel 56 on the air with the new call letters KETK, amid a few hurdles. The station started on March 9, 1987, from studios in Jacksonville, Texas, with its tower near Mt. Selman (between Jacksonville and Tyler). KETK moved to its current building in Tyler in 1993.

At one point KETK was owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, who acquired the station as part of its purchase of most of the Max Media Properties station group in 1998. In late 2004, Sinclair sold the station to its current owner, ComCorp.

In June 2006, KETK owner ComCorp filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Rival CBS affiliate KYTX (channel 19) sparked controversy by publicly announcing the ComCorp bankruptcy on its newscasts, for an entire week. ComCorp said in a press release viewers and staff would see no changes at the station. The company emerged from bankruptcy in late 2007.

KETK broadcasts more news than any other station in the Tyler-Longview market. Newscasts are broadcast weekdays from 5am-7am, 11am-noon, and at 5pm, 6pm and 10pm, as well as weekends from 8am-9am, and at 5pm and 10pm. It also produces a popular Friday night sports show called Friday Football Fever, featuring East Texas football teams and sports director Danny Elzner.

KETK's former logo, used from 2004 to 2010.

The station promotes its weather team as having the "only high-powered live doppler radar" in the market, Doppler 56. While this is debatable, KETK is the only station in the area to have four degreed meteorologists on its weather team, but that still does not help KETK in its ratings. From July 2008 to October 2009, KETK was the solid #2 news product in the East Texas market. KLTV leads the local news ratings by far, with over 70,000 households, while KYTX (CBS19) was a distant #3. However, since November 2009, KETK has been a distant #3 behind both KLTV and KYTX although KETK's ratings are expected to recover after NBC pulled The Jay Leno Show off of prime-time.

On April 23, 2010 KETK began producing its newscasts in high definition, becoming the second station in the Tyler-Longview television market (after KYTX) to do so.

Appearance in Brüno

In deleted scenes from the 2009 film Brüno, the title character (played by Sacha Baron Cohen) visits the KETK studios and meets with news director Neal Barton and sports director Danny Elzner. They signed releases and expected to be talking about small-town news in the United States. Instead, the interviews conducted by the flamboyant Brüno character drifted towards the topic of homosexuality. The scene culminated with an interview Brüno did with a local white supremacist who threatened to call the police on him when his behavior became too overtly homosexual.

Television of East Texas

Television of East Texas is the branding name used for the Communications Corporation of America and White Knight Broadcasting group of stations, in the East Texas market. These stations include:

Station Affiliation
KETK 56 NBC network affiliate
KETK-LP 53 NBC network affiliate
KFXK 51 Fox network affiliate
KFXL 30 Fox network affiliate
KTPN 48/KLPN 58 MyNet network affiliates

Digital television

KETK-TV began operating a full power digital television signal on UHF channel 22 on June 17, 2006. The station began High Definition (HDTV) testing on Friday, September 1, and began broadcasting a full HDTV service in 1080i from NBC on Tuesday, September 5. On September 8, 2006, KETK-DT had launched digital subchannel 22.2 to carry NBC Weather Plus; NBC ceased operating the national Weather Plus feed on December 1, 2008. Since January 1, 2009, KETK has ceased carrying the local version of Weather Plus and replaced the service with Estrella TV.

KETK-DT has been available on SuddenLink Digital Cable channel 222 since February 2006 (in time for the Winter Olympics) and on Longview Cable Television digital channel 248 since February 1, 2008.

KETK's analog channel, 56, was the highest channel allocation of any NBC affiliate. This changed, however, when the high-band UHF channels (52-69) was eliminated during the transition from analog to digital TV on June 12, 2009. There was speculation that between the original DTV transition deadline on February 17, 2009, and the new deadline on June 12, 2009, KETK change its on-air station and news branding to channel 22, to reflect its digital channel. However, KETK is still using the channel 56 designation.

KETK had planned to shut off its channel 56 analog signal on June 12, 2009. However, in the early hours of March 27, 2009, a failure in the cooling system of the analog transmitter caused the transmitter to fail. Due to the cost and time frame involved to repair the analog transmitter, KETK has filed a Notice of Suspension of Operations and has permanently terminated analog service on channel 56 as of March 27, 2009.

Channel Video Aspect Programming
56.1/22.1 1080i 16:9 KETK-HD - NBC-HD DD5.1
56.2/22.2 480i 4:3 Estrella TV
56.3/22.3 480i 4:3 KETK-NS - Blank

Notable on-air staff

Current on-air staff

(as of May 9, 2009) Anchors

Reporters

SkyWatch Weather Team

Sports team

Notable former staff

News/station presentation

Newscast titles

Weekday News

Weekend News

News branding

Station slogans

This film, television or video-related list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it with reliably sourced additions.

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/carey.richelle.html

External links

v • d • Broadcast television in East Texas (Tyler / Longview / Lufkin / Nacogdoches)
Stations

KLTV 7 / KTRE 9 (ABC) • KYTX 19 (CBS, RTN on DT2, AZA on DT3) • KLNM-LP 42 (TBN) • KTPN 48 / KLPN 58 (MNTV) • KFXK 51 / KFXL 30 (Fox) • KCEB 54 (CW) • KETK 56 / KETK-LP 53 (NBC)
Distant Stations

(reception pending on location) Dallas-Fort Worth: KDFW 4 (Fox) • KXAS 5 (NBC) • WFAA 8 (ABC) • KERA 13 (PBS) • KXTX 39 (TEL) Houston: KPRC 2 (NBC) • KUHT 8 (PBS) • KHOU 11 (CBS) • KTRK 13 (ABC) • KETH 14 (TBN) • KRIV 26 (Fox) • KIAH 39 (CW) Shreveport: KTBS 3 (ABC) • KTAL 6 (NBC) • KSLA 12 (CBS) • KLTS 24 (PBS/LPB) • KMSS 33 (Fox) Alexandria: KALB 5 (NBC) Bryan/College Station: KBTX 3 (CBS)
Texas Broadcast television areas by city:

Abilene/Sweetwater • Amarillo (Texas Panhandle) • Austin • Beaumont/Port Arthur • Corpus Christi • Dallas-Fort Worth • Del Rio, TX • El Paso • Houston • Laredo • Lubbock • Midland-Odessa (Permian Basin) • Rio Grande Valley • San Angelo • San Antonio • Sherman/Ada, OK • Texarkana/Shreveport, LA • Tyler/Longview (East Texas) • Victoria • Waco/Bryan (Brazos Valley) • Wichita Falls/Lawton, OK

See also Lake Charles TV
v • d • NBC Network Affiliates in the state of Texas

KPRC 2 (Houston) • KFDX 3 (Lawton / Wichita Falls) • KSAN 3 (San Angelo) • KAMR 4 (Amarillo) • WOAI 4 (San Antonio) • KXAS 5 (Fort Worth / Dallas) • KCEN 6 / KMAY-LP 23 (Temple / Bryan) • KRIS 6 (Corpus Christi) • KTAL 6 (Texarkana) • KGNS 8 (Laredo) • KRBC 9 (Abilene) • KTSM 9 (El Paso) • KWES 9 / KWAB 4 (Midland / Big Spring) • KCBD 11 (Lubbock) • KBMT-DT 12.2 (Beaumont) • KMOL-LP 17 (Victoria) • KVEO 23 (Brownsville) • KXAN 36 (Austin) • KETK 56 / KETK-LP 53 (Tyler / Jacksonville)
See also: ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, ION, MyNetworkTV, NBC, PBS and Other stations in Texas

Categories: NBC network affiliates | Television stations in Texas | Channel 56 TV stations in the United States | Television channels and stations established in 1987

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