KTXD

KTXD-TV, virtual channel 47 (UHF digital channel 23), is a television station licensed to Greenville, Texas, United States and serving the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex showing the general entertainment format. The station is a flagship of London Broadcasting. Sinclair Broadcast Group operator the station under a cable duopoly of Diamond Sports Southwest. In case of London, it's a duopoly of another Independent format, KFNY-TV.

KTXD's and KFNY's studios are located on Dallas Parkway (west of the Dallas North Tollway) in Addison, and its transmitter is located south of Belt Line Road in Cedar Hill, Texas. On cable, KTXD's main signal is available on Charter Spectrum channel 24 (channel 22 in some areas) and in high definition on Spectrum channels 24 and 1289 and Verizon FiOS channels 18 and 518.

Early years[edit]
This station first signed on the air on April 1, 1994 as KTAQ. During its early years, the station carried programming from shopping networks such as The Jewelry Network and Shop at Home. In 2000, the station affiliated with the America's Collectibles Network, though most of the shopping programming was relegated to the nighttime hours. In 2004, the station switched to ShopNBC. In late 2006, KTAQ switched to a 24-hour religious programming format as the flagship station of the Promiseland Television Network after being acquired by Promiseland founder Mike Simons (through Simons Broadcasting, LP).

It was reported in February 2007 that KTAQ was fined $10,000 for failing to place its 2005 Biennial Ownership Report, all required TV issues/programs lists, and Children's Television Programming Reports in the station's public inspection file. The station admitted in its license renewal application that during the previous term, it had failed to timely place all of the documentation required by Section 73.3526 of the rules in its public inspection file.[1]

In November 2008, Simons Broadcasting, LP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Texas in Waco,[2] Simons Broadcasting, LP debtor-in-possession sold the station to Platinum Equity, LLC in mid-2010.[3] In early November 2010, KTAQ switched to an infomercial format.

Purchase by London Broadcasting/First Independent Era[edit]
Platinum Equity later sold the station to the Addison-based London Broadcasting Company, which changed the station's call sign to KTXD-TV. London Broadcasting retained Continental Television to act as "national and local [advertising] sales" for the station, which suggested that KTXD would adopt a general entertainment format rather than a brokered, or foreign language format. The purchase was completed on January 19, 2012.[4]

On March 16, 2012, KTXD (under the verbal K-Tex branding at the time) became an affiliate of MeTV (a digital broadcast network specializing in classic television series, which is nominally carried as a multicast channel in most markets, but is optionally carried as a main channel affiliation in a few cities), carrying its programming part-time on its main channel and MeTV's complete schedule on digital subchannel 47.4. Under London, the station also began to place an emphasis on locally produced lifestyle and entertainment programs.

On October 31, 2013, KTXD declined to renew its affiliation contract with MeTV and dropped the network's programming, which by association, resulted in the 47.4 subchannel going dark.[5] Channel 47 converted to a general entertainment independent station, effectively competing with KTXA (channel 21), featuring local programs as well as a mix of recent and classic television series (including some that have been carried in recent years on MeTV and one of its chief rivals, Antenna TV). The station also acquired the local rights to a Dallas Cowboys regular season road game against the Chicago Bears on December 9, which is part of the ESPN Monday Night Football package.[6] MeTV would return to the Dallas-Fort Worth area on KTXA in December 2013 over a new second digital subchannel.[7]

On May 14, 2014, the Gannett Company announced the purchase of six of London Broadcasting's Texas television stations for $215 million. London exempted KTXD and Longview sister station KCEB from the deal; in the case of KTXD, the company's retention of KTXD was decided by management; Gannett's existing ownership of ABC affiliate WFAA (channel 8; which was acquired in 2013 as part of the company's merger with Belo),[8][9] however, did not play a factor as the Dallas-Fort Worth market has enough full-power television stations to allow a fourth duopoly and neither did the FCC's newspaper-television cross-ownership restrictions as the company does not own a newspaper within the market.[10][11]

Sale to Cunningham Broadcasting/Stadium Era[edit]
On September 15, 2017, London agreed to sell KTXD-TV to Cunningham Broadcasting, a partner company of Sinclair Broadcast Group, for $9.5 million.[12] Sinclair, which at the time was seeking to acquire KDAF (channel 33) as part of its merger with Tribune Media (which was abandoned on August 9, 2018), indicated that it intended to use KTXD as a lighthouse station during the transition to the ATSC 3.0 broadcast standard.[13] The sale was completed on January 11, 2018.[14]

On March 7, 2018, KTXD replaced its general entertainment format with programming from Sinclair-owned digital network Stadium. There was no formal announcement of the programming change, except on Stadium's Facebook page, welcoming viewers in the Dallas area making KTXA 21 the only general entertainment format station in Dallas, but not until 2021 when 3 Independent Stations launched

Sold back to London Broadcasting/Return to Independence
On September 15, 2021, it was announced that Stadium will move to the 47.3 subchannels of KTXD 47. It was also decides to sell the station back to Addison based London Broadcasting and return to airing general entertainment format and locally programming serving Addison. KTXD decides to aired different syndicated programming instead of the 2015-2018 KTXD Schedule as KFNY chooses that programming schedule.

Programming
Upon adopting an entertainment-based schedule, the station began carrying MeTV programming on its main channel from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. weekdays, and from 1:00 p.m. to midnight on weekends. The network was later expanded to 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. on weekdays and noon to 11:00 p.m. on Sundays, and reduced to 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. on Saturdays.

From the time MeTV programming was dropped until March 7, 2018 and since 2022, classic television series were added to the schedule, alongside some more recent and barter syndicated programs, giving the station a format mildly similar to KFWD (channel 52, now a SonLife Broadcasting Network affiliate)'s format during its years as an English language independent station. The remainder of KTXD's schedule consisted of locally produced programs on weekdays; syndicated E/I programming on Saturday mornings as well as local interest programming, college sporting events in the afternoon hours on Saturdays thanks to Stadium syndicated block; along with religious programming, infomercials.

Syndicated Programming on KTXD as of 2022 included a rerun of The Jeffersons, Hot In Cleveland, 5 Untitled Court Show, 4 Untitled Talk Show, 2 Untitled Off Network Sitcoms, Community, Hollywood Tonight, Everybody Hates Chris, a Untitled Game Show among others.