KXAS-TV
KXAS-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Fort Worth, Texas, United States, serving as the NBC outlet for the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Dallas-licensed Telemundo station KXTX-TV (channel 39). The two stations share studios at the CentrePort Business Park in eastern Fort Worth; KXAS-TV's transmitter is located in Cedar Hill, Texas.
- Fort Worth–Dallas, Texas
- United States
- Fort Worth–Dallas, Texas
- United States
Fort Worth, Texas
NBC 5
- 5.1: NBC
- for others, see § Subchannels
September 27, 1948
WBAP-TV (1948–1974)
- Analog: 5 (VHF, 1948–2009)
- Digital: 41 (UHF, 1998–2018)
- ABC (secondary, 1948–1957)
Texas
49330
925 kW
496 m (1,627 ft)
History[edit]
Early history under Carter Publications[edit]
Amon G. Carter, Sr.—the founding publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram—first submitted an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a license to build and operate a television station on VHF channel 5 in late October 1944, mere days after Karl Hoblitzelle, owner of Interstate Circuit Theatres, filed an application to operate a station on channel 8 on October 23, the first such license application for a television station in the Southern United States. When the FCC awarded the construction permit for Channel 5 to Carter on June 21, 1946, he originally requested to assign KCPN (for "Carter Publications News") as the station's call letters; three months before it signed on, however, Carter chose instead to assign the television station the calls that were used by the radio station that he also owned, WBAP (820 AM).
The station began test broadcasts on June 20, 1948, originally transmitting over a closed-circuit television system. Channel 5 informally signed on the air as WBAP-TV on September 27, to broadcast coverage of President Harry S. Truman's re-election campaign speech at the Texas & Pacific terminal building in downtown Fort Worth. WBAP-TV officially commenced regular programming two days later on September 29, 1948, with two 10-minute specials at 7 p.m. that evening, respectively featuring speeches from Carter and general manager Harold Hough and a film from NBC dedicating the station's launch. Carter owned the television and radio properties through the Star-Telegram's corporate parent, Carter Publications. It was the first television station to sign on in the state of Texas; the second to be located between Los Angeles, St. Louis and Richmond, Virginia (after NBC/DuMont affiliate KDYL-TV – now ABC affiliate KTVX – in Salt Lake City); and the 25th to sign on in the United States.
When the station made its formal debut, its first night of regular broadcasts did not go smoothly. On the date of its sign-on, the station's studio facilities were in the latter stages of construction; at one point, Amon Carter accidentally stepped into an unmarked hole in the studio floor that led to the building's basement, narrowly saved from enduring potential injury by Star-Telegram cartoonist Johnny Hay. A power outage near the transmitter facility also knocked WBAP-TV off the air for 17 minutes around 8 p.m. Angry viewers subsequently called into the station, blaming engineers for an outage that was beyond their control; after the power problems were fixed, another viewer calling into the station complained to a receptionist about not being able to receive WBAP-TV's signal, not realizing that the television station could not be picked up through their radio receiver. Even still, Fort Worth Press reporter Jack Gordon wrote regarding the station's first night of programming that "part of Fort Worth's inaugural television show [...] looked like our first roll of home movie film. But a good deal more of it was excellent – enough so to convince the stubbornest critic that television is here to stay."
Programming[edit]
Sports programming[edit]
From 1970 to 1997 (with the AFL–NFL merger), KXAS aired Dallas Cowboys games in which they played host to an AFC opponent at Texas Stadium (two games each year for the station [including their Thanksgiving games in some years]; prior to 1970, all Cowboys games were exclusively broadcast on KDFW [then KRLD-TV]); during this time, they aired five of the Cowboys' Super Bowl appearances (Super Bowls V, XIII, XXVII, XXVIII, and XXX [the latter three were won by the Cowboys]). Since 2006, the station airs Cowboys games when they play on NBC's Sunday Night Football. The station also aired any Dallas Stars games as part of NBC's NHL broadcast contract from 2006 to 2021; this included the team's appearance in the 2020 Stanley Cup Finals. Channel 5 also aired Texas Rangers games as part of NBC's broadcast contract with Major League Baseball from their arrival in 1972 until 1989, and again for the postseason only from 1994 to 2000. The station also carried any Dallas Mavericks games as part of NBC's broadcast contract with the NBA from 1990 to 2002.
News operation[edit]
As of September 2020, KXAS presently broadcasts 37+1⁄2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with six hours each weekday, four hours on Saturdays, and 3+1⁄2 hours on Sundays). In addition, the station also produces the half-hour political discussion program Lone Star Politics, which debuted in 2014 and airs at 8:30 a.m. after its Sunday morning newscast. Before the move to its current studio and offices on Amon Carter Boulevard, KXAS maintained a Dallas news bureau located on McKinnon Street in central Dallas.
Technical information[edit]
Subchannels[edit]
The station's signal is multiplexed: