KEYE-TV

KEYE-TV, virtual channel 42 (UHF digital channel 34), is a dual CBS/Telemundo-affiliated television station licensed to Austin, Texas, United States. The station is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. KEYE-TV's studios are located on Metric Boulevard in North Austin (it is one of two area television stations whose studios are located in that section of town—ABC affiliate KVUE, channel 24, being the other), and its transmitter is located on Waymaker Way on the west side of Austin.

For the television station in Llano, Texas which currently uses the callsign formerly used by KEYE-TV, see KBVO (TV).
KEYE-TV
Austin, Texas
United States
ChannelsDigital: 34 (UHF)
Virtual: 42 (PSIP)
BrandingCBS Austin (general)
CBS Austin News (newscasts)
Telemundo Austin (DT2 general)
Noticiero Austin (DT2 newscasts)
SloganCentral Texas Trusted
Programming
Affiliations42.1: CBS
42.2: Telemundo
Ownership
OwnerSinclair Broadcast Group
(KEYE Licensee, LLC)
Sister stationscable: Fox Sports Southwest[1]
History
First air dateDecember 4, 1983 (1983-12-04)
Former call signsKBVO-TV (1983–1995)
Former channel number(s)Analog:
42 (UHF, 1983–2009)
Digital:
43 (UHF, 2003–2019)
Former affiliationsAnalog/DT1:
Independent (1983–1986)
Fox (1986–1995)
DT2:
RTN (2008–2009)
Call sign meaningThe CBS EYE
Technical information
Licensing authorityFCC
Facility ID33691
ERP1,000 kW
HAAT395 m (1,296 ft)
Transmitter coordinates30°19′19.3″N 97°48′12.6″W
Links
Public license informationProfile
LMS
Websitecbsaustin.com
KEYE-TV studios.

On cable, the station is available on Charter Spectrum, Suddenlink and Grande Communications channel 5.

History

Early years

The UHF channel 42 allocation in Austin had originally been used by NBC affiliate KHFI-TV, when that station signed on in February 1965. That station moved to channel 36 in 1973 and is now KXAN-TV.

KEYE-TV signed on the air on channel 42 on December 4, 1983 as KBVO-TV; the call letters came from the University of Texas at Austin's mascot, Bevo. It was Austin's first independent station. The station was originally owned by Steve Beard, an Austin advertising executive, and a small group of investors. On October 6, 1986, the station became a charter affiliate of the upstart Fox network and began branding itself as "Fox 42" on-air in the late 1980s. In 1993, Beard sold KBVO to Granite Broadcasting for $54 million—a handsome return on his original investment.

From Fox to CBS

In 1995, New World Communications purchased KTBC, which was included in a groupwide affiliation deal to switch most of New World's stations to Fox (which later purchased the New World holdings). On July 1, 1995, KTBC and KBVO swapped affiliations, with Fox moving to KTBC and the CBS affiliation going to KBVO, which changed its call letters to the current KEYE-TV the next day. The callsign refers to the iconic CBS Eye logo, as well as to "The Eyes of Texas", one of several songs associated with the University of Texas. It branded itself as "K-EYE 42, Your Eye on Austin" until 1999, when the branding was shortened to simply "K-EYE" on account of the fact that it was now available to all Austin area cable subscribers on cable channel 5.

In 1999, Granite put KEYE up for sale in order to meet debt obligations; that April, CBS agreed to buy the station for $160 million.[2] The sale closed that August,[3] making KEYE the second owned-and-operated station of any major network in the market (after KTBC). The next year, Viacom bought CBS; at that time, KEYE became part of a cluster of television stations in Texas owned by Viacom, alongside fellow CBS station KTVT and then-UPN affiliate KTXA (now an independent station) in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and Houston UPN station KTXH. The latter station was then swapped to Fox (alongside WDCA in Washington, D.C.) in 2001 in exchange for San Francisco's KBHK.

In 2005, the station modified its branding to "CBS42 K-EYE" to reflect its CBS ownership and for cable subscribers to avoid confusion with San Antonio's CBS outlet KENS-TV, seen on VHF analog channel 5. The "K-EYE" branding was phased out altogether in 2006, with references to the KEYE-TV call sign limited to station identifications and the station's website address.

KEYE logo, used from August 2009 to August 1, 2016.

On February 7, 2007, CBS agreed to sell seven of its stations to Cerberus Capital Management, L.P., for $185 million. Cerberus formed a new holding company for the stations, Four Points Media Group, which took over the operations of the stations through local marketing agreements in late June 2007. The sale to Four Points was consummated on January 10, 2008; Four Points operated the stations outright until March 20, 2009, when it entered into a three-year local service agreement with the Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Broadcasting Group. The latter company then took over the management of all of the Four Points stations, including KEYE. In August 2009, the "CBS42" branding was dropped and the station returned to branding with its call letters; the station website address was concurrently changed to weareaustin.com.

On September 8, 2011, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced its intent to purchase Four Points from Cerberus Capital Management for $200 million; Sinclair began managing the stations, including KEYE, under local marketing agreements after receiving antitrust approval from the U.S. Department of Justice, until the sale's closure. The sale made KEYE-TV the third Sinclair-owned television property in Texas, as the group already owned Fox affiliate KABB and CW affiliate KMYS (and has since acquired NBC affiliate WOAI-TV) in San Antonio (it has also since bought Fox affiliate KFOX-TV[4] and CBS affiliate KDBC-TV[5] in El Paso).[6] The deal was completed on January 3, 2012.[7] In August 2016, the station dropped its call sign branding again and began referring to itself as "CBS Austin".[8]

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[9]
42.11080i16:9CBSMain KEYE programming / CBS
42.2T-MundoTelemundo

It was announced on March 29, 2008 that KEYE would begin carrying the Retro Television Network on a new digital subchannel 42.2, running a customized schedule for the Austin market.[10]

On October 1, 2009, digital channel 42.2 switched its affiliation to Telemundo and debuted locally produced Spanish-language newscasts at 5 and 10 p.m. weeknights, displacing RTV.[11] It was the second Sinclair property upon their purchase associated with a Spanish-language network after West Palm Beach sister station WWHB-CA with Azteca America.

Analog-to-digital conversion

KEYE-TV shut down its analog signal in November 2008.[12] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 43, using PSIP to display KEYE-TV's virtual channel as 42 on digital television receivers.

Due to the 2016-2017 FCC TV spectrum auction, KEYE moved from RF channel 43 to RF channel 34 on June 21, 2019 [13]

Programming

As of September 2019, syndicated programming seen on KEYE includes Tamron Hall and The Kelly Clarkson Show among others.

NFL preseason coverage

From 2002 to 2008, KEYE held local broadcast rights to Houston Texans pre-season games, in addition to airing CBS' coverage of NFL games from the Texans' home conference, the American Football Conference. On April 3, 2006, the station signed a deal to become the official home of the Dallas Cowboys in Austin; KEYE airs pre-season games as well as several Cowboys-related shows during the NFL season.[14]

News operation

Before it switched to CBS, KEYE (as KBVO) had no newscasts with the exception of nightly, three-minute updates aired during Fox prime time programming from a small closet studio. After the affiliation swap, on July 3, 1995, KEYE immediately launched a full slate of newscasts. Since that time, the first newscast to be dropped was the noon newscast. The station has also added and since dropped three hours of newscasts on weekend mornings. KEYE originally used the Eyewitness News format (titled K-EYEwitness News), which was used until 2000 (the newscast title was shorted to KEYE News in late 1998, became CBS 42 K-EYE News in 2005, and then simply CBS 42 News in 2006).

KEYE-TV presently broadcasts 19½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 3½ hours on weekdays and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays); unlike most CBS stations in the Central Time Zone, KEYE does not carry a midday newscast on weekdays. In addition, the station produces five hours of newscasts each week (consisting of 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts on weeknights, which are broadcast in Spanish) for its Telemundo-affiliated digital subchannel.

KEYE became the first television station in the Austin market—and the first station in the Four Points Media Group—to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition on November 1, 2007. However, while the in-studio video is in high definition, most of the field video remains in pillarboxed 4:3 standard definition.

The station canceled its 5 p.m. newscast in September 2009, replacing it with We Are Austin LIVE, an hour-long 4 p.m. lifestyle show anchored by Michelle Valles and Jason Wheeler. A few weeks later, the weekday morning newscast was cancelled and later replaced with a simulcast of the J.B. and Sandy Morning Show from KAMX (94.7 FM; which was formerly owned alongside KEYE during its CBS ownership until CBS Radio sold KAMX, KKMJ, KXBT and KJCE to Entercom Communications in August 2006); this left KEYE with only the 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts and a 5:30 p.m. newscast on Sunday evenings.[15] On June 30, 2011, the simulcast of the J.B. and Sandy Morning Show was replaced by the in-house newscast We Are Austin Mornings, a morning extension of We Are Austin LIVE that was similar in format to that of the national network morning news programs; the replacement was due in part to KEYE and Entercom-owned KAMX being unable to reach a renewal agreement for Channel 42 to continue airing the JB and Sandy Morning Show simulcast.[16]

On May 31, 2012, KEYE-TV announced the reversal of its September 2009 late afternoon news programming changes with cancellation of We Are Austin LIVE effective June 15 (which was replaced by The Insider and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire); the 5 p.m. newscast also returned to the schedule on June 18, 2012.[17]

In contrast to former Fox stations on UHF that are now CBS, ABC or NBC stations—which often have had little to no success against their better-established news competitors, resulting in some stations even shutting down their news departments outright—KEYE's news department has made a very good account of itself in the quarter-century since the switch. It has benefited from CBS pouring significant resources into the news department when the network owned the station. Since the turn of the century, KEYE has been one of the fastest-growing stations in central Texas. It wages a spirited battle for second place in the local Nielsen ratings with KXAN, and occasionally beats out KVUE for first.

Notable former on-air staff
gollark: Observe, a rednet-addled user.
gollark: Spoofing!
gollark: There should at least be some sort of *warning*, like "note: IDs are spoofable".
gollark: Okay, that is true.
gollark: Security.

References
  1. Miller, Mark K. (August 23, 2019). "Sinclair Closes $10.6B Disney RSN Purchase". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheckMedia. Retrieved August 23, 2019.
  2. http://www.upi.com/Archives/1999/04/29/CBS-buys-KEYE-TV/8631925358400/
  3. http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/1999/08/30/daily7.html
  4. Sinclair Broadcast Group Closes on Cox Media Group Stations Archived 2013-06-10 at the Wayback Machine
  5. Application For Consent To Transfer Control Of Entity Holding Broadcast Station Construction Permit Or License Federal Communications Commission, August 7, 2013, Retrieved August 12, 2013
  6. Sinclair Buys Four Points Media For $200M, TVNewsCheck, September 8, 2011.
  7. "Sinclair Closes Four Points Media Acquisition". TVNewsCheck. January 3, 2012. Retrieved January 3, 2012.
  8. Hill, Michael P. (August 3, 2016). "Austin station loses an 'eye' in new branding". NewscastStudio. Retrieved May 18, 2020.
  9. RabbitEars TV Query for KEYE
  10. http://www.austin360.com/tv/content/tv/stories/2008/10/1021tvcolumn.html
  11. KEYE to air Telemundo programming on Channel 42.2, Austin American-Statesman, August 31, 2009.
  12. List of Digital Full-Power Stations Archived 2013-08-29 at the Wayback Machine
  13. FCC TV spectrum Phase Assignment Table, FCC Incentive Auction Television Transition Data Files, April 13, 2017.
  14. "Dallas Cowboys align with KEYE". April 3, 2006.
  15. KEYE-TV Kills Early Morning News Program, Broadcasting JB and Sandy Show Instead Archived 2010-12-31 at the Wayback Machine, Austinist.com, September 2, 2009.
  16. Newscast will replace 'JB and Sandy Morning Show' simulcast on KEYE, Austin American-Statesman, April 29, 2011. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
  17. KEYE ending 'We Are Austin Live,' adding 5 p.m. newscast, Austin American-Statesman, May 31, 2012.
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