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KNWA-TV is the NBC-affiliated television station for Northwest Arkansas and the Arkansas River Valley. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 50 (virtual channel 51.1 via PSIP) from a transmitter southeast of Garfield. Owned by the Nexstar Broadcasting Group, the station is sister to the Fort Smith-based Fox affiliate KFTA-TV. The two stations share a studio on Dickson Street in Downtown Fayetteville.〔http://nwahomepage.com/fulltext-news/?nxd_id=376022〕 It also operates a satellite studio in Rogers, its city of license, as well as on Kelley Highway in Fort Smith. Syndicated programming on KNWA includes ''Anderson'', ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'', ''Entertainment Tonight'', ''Judge Judy'', ''The People's Court'', and ''The Doctors''. KNWA also airs the statewide news program ''Arkansas Today'', along with Nexstar sister stations KARK, KTAL, and KTVE. ==History== The station began on October 1, 1989 as KFAA-TV as a satellite of KPOM-TV in Fort Smith.〔(AP: NBC Affiliates in Arkansas Re-Launch Local News with AP's ENPS )〕 Both stations were owned by the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma-based Griffin Television. Its sign-on marked the first time that NBC had been seen over-the-air in much of the northern part of the market since KFSM-TV lost the area's NBC affiliation to KPOM in 1983. KPOM only provided Grade B coverage of Fayetteville and could not be seen at all in Rogers and points north. In 2004, Griffin Television sold KPOM-TV and KFAA-TV to Nexstar,〔(Nexstar plans to buy Fayetteville's NBC 24/51; Griffin Holdings Co. to sell Fayetteville television station ), ''Arkansas Business'' (via HighBeam Research), September 8, 2003.〕 and the stations changed their calls to KNWA-TV and KFTA-TV respectively in 2004 and KNWA became the main station. At the same time, the two stations' operations both were merged in a new studio located in the historic Campbell-Bell building on South Block Avenue in Downtown Fayetteville. KFTA's original studio on Kelley Highway in Fort Smith remained in use as KNWA's Arkansas River Valley bureau. In April 2006, Nexstar announced that it would sell KFTA to Mission Broadcasting, though it would continue to operate the station under a local marketing agreement with KNWA. Under the plan, KFTA would become the Fox-affiliate for the area leaving KNWA as the sole NBC-affiliate for Northwest Arkansas. Equity Broadcasting, owner of the Class A Fox-affiliate KPBI-CA, challenged the sale of KFTA to Mission with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Nonetheless, the separation occurred on August 28 while both were under Nexstar ownership. Until the sale of KFTA to Mission was approved, the stations continued to simulcast from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. KFTA now runs a separate programming schedule from KNWA, even though Nexstar () still owns both KNWA and KFTA outright. This station took its analog transmitter off-the-air for a few days in mid-August to relocate it to another site for improved coverage.〔(Channel 51 Off Air ) (August 14, 2006)〕 This did not pose as much of a problem as it may have seemed, given the high penetration of cable and satellite service in this area. The only station that has adequate coverage throughout the market from a single transmitter is Arkansas Educational Television Network's KAFT. Cable and satellite are all but essential for acceptable television in Northwest Arkansas due to its rugged terrain. For example, Dish Network and DirecTV carried KPBI-CA while it was the Fox affiliate even though those carriers usually do not offer low-power stations. After the split, KPBI-CA was dropped in favor of KFTA. On the other hand, the split improved Fox's coverage and enables high definition Fox programming in this market as KPBI-CA is low-power and does not have a digital transmitter, unlike KNWA and KFTA. According to their FCC filings, both stations have digital transmitters licensed for one million watts each compared to five million watts for an analog UHF transmitter. Thus, their digital coverage areas well exceed the analog coverage areas of both KFTA (2.5 million watts) and especially KNWA. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「KNWA-TV」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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