KCWX

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KCWX

Fredericksburg / San Antonio, Texas
Branding	CW2
Channels	2 (VHF) analog
Affiliations	The CW
Owner	Corridor Television, LLP (Managed by Belo)
Founded	2000
Call letters meaning	K CW Network TeXas
Former callsigns	KBEJ (2000-06)
Former affiliations	UPN (2000-06)
Website	mysanantonio.com

KCWX (formerly KBEJ) is the San Antonio CW affiliate licensed to Fredericksburg, Texas. Owned by Corridor Television and managed by Belo Corporation, the station originally served as the UPN affiliate for both the San Antonio and Austin television markets.

It broadcasts on VHF channel 2. Although Fredericksburg is located in the Austin market, the station's signal slightly favors San Antonio. It airs on Time Warner cable systems as cable 4 in San Antonio (not to be confused with WOAI-TV on VHF channel 4) and cable 23 in Austin. It is operated out of the studios of sister station KENS-TV in San Antonio. KCWX's transmitter is located near Albert, Texas. An official website for the station is not currently live, however the URL kcwx.tv has been registered to Corridor Television since April 2006.

1 History
2 Previous logos
3 External links

[edit] History

KCWX went on the air in 2000 as KBEJ, the UPN affiliate for both San Antonio and Austin.

[edit] Before KBEJ went on the air...

In San Antonio, KMOL-TV (then owned by former UPN part-owner Chris-Craft Industries, now WOAI-TV owned by Clear Channel) had the secondary UPN affiliation late at night after KRRT (now KMYS) dropped UPN for The WB.

In Austin, UPN was available on a network of low-powered TV stations called HPN (Hill Country [in place of "United"] Paramount Network) from 1995 to 1998, a joint partnership with LIN TV stations KXAN and KNVA by simulcast channels which would air separate network programming from the main channel numbers. That affiliation afterwards was picked up by low powered station K13VC, a.k.a. KVC 13, a sister station to KTBC before dropping it two years later to make way for a digital signal on channel 13.

[edit] Special programming

KBEJ originally had a separate cable feed for Austin viewers, which presented repeats of KVUE's syndicated programming, instead of repeats of KENS' newscasts. Once the Austin Cable system dropped their UPN affiliate station, KBEJ started broadcasting the same signal to both cable systems. The KBEJ signal has always originated from the Dallas Belo campus, but some of its programming is provided from KENS and content decisions are controlled from the KENS studios. KVUE provides the microwave link for the transmitter located in Stonewall and to the Austin cable system. Syndicated fare in general is usually lower-value and older syndicated programming, in a way to avoid Syndex blackouts in either market. The KENS and KVUE master controls are located in their respective cities and are completely independent from the Dallas campus and KBEJ.

[edit] Austin and The Voyager Controversy

In August of 2000, programming for UPN was transferred from K13VC to KBEJ. Time Warner Cable not willing to place KBEJ-TV on the Austin cable system, caused significant protest from fans of Star Trek: Voyager, who would not be able to watch the series' final season. The final season of Voyager was not seen in its original airing in the Austin market. This led to many fans downloading illegal copies of the episodes from the Internet or trading taped copies with friends in other television markets. Although UPN frowned officially upon this practice, unofficially the network and its parent company, Paramount, turned a "blind eye" in this instance due to the circumstances of the situation. In 2002,Time Warner cable agreed to carry KCWX-TV and viewers in the market were once again able to view UPN programming.

[edit] Becoming an affiliate of The CW

On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced they would merge. The newly combined network would be called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. The merger would take effect on-the-air in September 2006.

On March 28, KBEJ was announced as the CW Network affiliate for San Antonio ([1],[2]). Originally speculated to serve Austin also, on April 18, it was announced that LIN TV's KNVA will also be joining The CW ([3]). On April 7, 2006, the call letters changed to KCWX to reflect its new affiliation. [4] The CW was officially launched in September 2006.

Due to SyndEx guidelines, KCWX only serves San Antonio with programs from the CW. As a result, Time Warner's Austin-area systems began blacking out CW programming on KCWX, to protect KNVA, on October 2, 2006. However, most of KCWX's syndicated lineup is still available in Austin.

[edit] Previous logos

UPN 2 logo, used from its 2000 launch until early 2006.

[edit] External links

Broadcast television in the San Antonio market (Nielsen DMA #37)
KCWX 2 (The CW) - WOAI 4 (NBC) - KENS 5 (CBS) - KLRN 9 (PBS) - KSAT 12 (ABC) - K14LM 14 (3ABN) - KNIC 17 (TFU) - KHCE 23 (TBN) - KPXL 26 (ION) - KABB 29 (Fox) - KVDF-CA 31 (AZA) - KNIC-CA 34 (Silent) - KMYS 35 (MNTV) (The Tube on DT2) - KWEX 41 (UNI) - KQVE-LP 46 (DS) - K52EA 52 (Multimedios) - KVDA 60 (TEL)
See also, Broadcast television in Del Rio / Eagle Pass