KPBI (TV)

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KPBI
(former logo, no current logo available)
Eureka Springs / Fayetteville / Fort Smith, Arkansas
Channels	34 (UHF) analog
Translators	KPBI-CA Fort Smith (46, UHF)
Affiliations	MyNetworkTV
Owner	Equity Broadcasting
Founded	June 25, 1999
Call letters meaning	K Pharis Broadcasting Inc. (calls came from KPBI-CA, which Pharis owned while it was on KFDF-CA's license
Former callsigns	KWBS (1999-2004) KWFT (2004-2006) KBBL-TV (2006)
Former affiliations	Pax (1999-2003) Lick TV (2003-04) The WB (2004-06)
Transmitter Power	1200 kW
Height	224.4 m

For the former KWFT-TV in Texas, see KAUZ-TV. "KBBL-TV" redirects here, for the fictional KBBL-TV of "The Simpsons", see Media in The Simpsons.

KPBI is a television station in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, serving the Fayetteville market on channel 34 as an affiliate of MyNetworkTV. While the station's city of license is located in the Springfield, Missouri market, ACNielsen considers this station to be part of the Fayetteville-Fort Smith market. The station is currently owned by Equity Broadcasting, and also serves Fort Smith, Arkansas via low-powered repeater station KPBI-CA (channel 46).

[edit] History

Channel 34 began operations in 1999 as KWBS, which stood for WB Springfield; however, Equity decided to make another new station, KWBM (channel 31) the WB affiliate for Springfield, forcing KWBS to sign on as a Pax (now i) affiliate. KWBS dropped the Pax affiliation in 2003 in favor of the Equity-owned Lick TV network, but one year later the station dropped the network and finally affiliated with The WB as its Fayetteville-Fort Smith affiliate; this was accompanied by a call change to KWFT. (Lick TV has since ceased operations.)

After it was announced in January 2006 that The WB and UPN would close down to form The CW that September, KWFT changed its calls to KBBL-TV on July 6, 2006, but its old Fort Smith repeater retained the KWFT-LP call sign, which it still uses to this day; it is unknown if that repeater is still operating. The KBBL-TV call letters were almost certainly not inspired by the KBBL-TV of The Simpsons, even though both stations are located in a DMA with the same name as the Simpsons' fictional hometown. Equity likes to use former radio call letters from its hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas as TV call letters, and KBBL was once used by a Little Rock radio station.

Around the same time as the call change, KBBL-TV was announced as joining the Equity-owned Retro Television Network after The WB ceased operations, but as a result of KPBI-CA (channel 46) losing its FOX affiliation to KFTA-TV (channel 24) and joining MyNetworkTV, channel 34 changed its call letters to KPBI on September 22, 2006 and began to carry KPBI-CA's programming schedule (KFDF-CA, the station that was originally scheduled to join MNTV, ended up becoming the RTN affiliate).

[edit] Digital television

Because it was granted an original construction permit after the FCC finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997 [1], the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. Instead, on or before February 18, 2009, which is the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, KPBI will be required to turn off its analog signal and turn on its digital signal (called a "flash-cut").

[edit] External links

• Query the FCC's TV station database for KPBI
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KWFT