KWBM


KWBM, virtual and UHF digital channel 31, is a Daystar owned-and-operated television station serving Springfield, Missouri, United States that is licensed to Harrison, Arkansas. The station is owned by Word of God Fellowship, Inc. KWBM's offices are located on Enterprise Avenue in southeast Springfield, and its transmitter is located in rural Taney County, just northeast of Forsyth.

History

The station first signed on the air on January 26, 2001; it originally served as the market's affiliate of The WB. The station was founded by the Equity Broadcasting Corporation. Prior to the station's sign-on, southwestern Missouri residents could only receive WB network programs on cable and satellite through Chicago-based superstation WGN, which carried WB programming nationally from the network's January 11, 1995 launch; the network was unavailable in the market between the period when WGN dropped WB programming in October 1999 and KWBM launched. The station formerly operated two low-power translator stations: KBBL-LP in Springfield, and KNJE-LP in Aurora.
On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW. One month later on February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV, which would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. Equity refused in full to affiliate their stations with The CW due to the network's carriage costs, handing the affiliation to UPN affiliate K15CZ ; KWBM thus became the market's MyNetworkTV affiliate when the network launched on September 5, 2006.
On December 8, 2008, Equity Media Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection; it then began to sell off its television station properties. KWBM was sold to at auction to religious broadcaster Daystar in early 2009; the MyNetworkTV affiliation later moved to upstart station KRBK when that station launched on August 1, 2009.

Digital programming

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP short nameProgramming
31.1480iKWBMMain KWBM programming / Daystar
49.1720pKRBKSimulcast of KRBK / Fox
49.2480i4:3METVSimulcast of KRBK-DT2 / MeTV

Daystar leases the second and third subchannels of KWBM to Nexstar Media Group to extend the signal coverage of Fox affiliate KRBK, which until 2018 did not cover Springfield proper with their main signal licensed to Osage Beach, Missouri. What would usually be channel 31.2 instead remaps as a virtual channel to KRBK's channel 49.1 via PSIP. KWBM also transmits KRBK's MeTV subchannel as 49.2. With KRBK's move to the Fordland antenna farm, it is unknown whether this arrangement will continue.
Because it was granted an original construction permit after the Federal Communications Commission finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997, the station did not receive a companion channel for its digital signal. Instead, at the end of the digital conversion period for full-power television stations, On June 12, 2009, KWBM would have been required to turn off its analog signal and turn on its digital signal almost one month later on July 3.
The termination of KWBM's analog signal resulted in the station being dropped from satellite providers Dish Network and DirecTV, due to the lack of unique local programming from the main Daystar national feed, and a revocation of the station's retransmission consent agreement after the sale from Equity to Daystar. Mediacom, Suddenlink and Charter Communications continue to receive a direct satellite feed of the station, and Daystar maintains carriage of the station on those systems via must-carry declaration.
KBBL-LP and KNJE-LP, as low-power stations, were not required to cease analog transmissions upon the 2009 transition deadline, but were required to move their channel positions as their channel allocations were among the high band UHF channels that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition. These stations were not sold to Daystar as part of its purchase of KWBM. The FCC cancelled KNJE-LP's license on August 6, 2010 and deleted the KNJE-LP call sign from its database; KBBL is currently dark with a construction permit to build digital transmitter facilities on UHF channel 24.