As a Fox affiliate
In the summer of 1986, News Corporation approached Wilson Industries about turning KCIT into a charter affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company. Channel 14 joined Fox when the network inaugurated programming on October 9, 1986. Though it was technically a network affiliate, KCIT continued to be programmed as a de facto independent station as Fox's initial programming lineup consisted solely of a late-night talk show, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers. Even after its programming expanded with the launch of a three-hour Sunday night lineup in April 1987, Fox aired its prime time programming exclusively on weekends until September 1989, when it began a five-year expansion towards a nightly prime time schedule. Until Fox began airing prime time programs on all seven nights of the week in January 1993, KCIT continued to air a movie at 7 p.m. on nights when the network did not offer any programming.
On January 18, 1991, Wilson announced it would sell KCIT to the KCIT Acquisition Co. subsidiary of Wichita Falls-based Epic Broadcasting Corporation – owned by Peter D'Acosta, the Martha Steed Lyne Management Trust, Charles R. Hart and eventual Texas House Representative F. Lanham Lyne Jr. (the latter two of whom owned Wichita Falls Fox affiliate KJTL) – for $2.3 million in cash to be paid upon closing; the sale was approved by the FCC on March 11, 1991.[8][9][10][11] In the summer of 1991, the station retired the "TV-14" branding in favor of identifying exclusively as "Fox 14," a brand that KCIT had been using on an alternating basis since 1988; with the change, the station also implemented a logo similar to that used by KJTL — then Epic's flagship station — that remained in use until 1994.[12] In September 1993, KCIT began maintaining a secondary affiliation with the Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN), carrying first-run drama series from the programming service in late night until September 1995.[13]
In October 1994, channel 14 gained a sister station when Epic Broadcasting signed on low-power independent station K65GD (channel 65, now a MyNetworkTV affiliate KCPN-LD on UHF channel 33). In May 1995, Epic Broadcasting sold KCIT, K65GD, KJTL and its Wichita Falls sister station K35BO (now MyNetworkTV affiliate KJBO-LD) to New York City-based Wicks Broadcast Group – then a primarily radio-based broadcasting division of private equity firm The Wicks Group, which intended the purchases to be a stepping stone to build a group of middle-market television stations complementary to its nine existing radio properties – for $14 million; the sale was finalized on August 31, 1995.[14][15][16]
On January 6, 1999, Wicks announced that it would sell KCIT and KCPN-LP to Bexley, Ohio–based Mission Broadcasting for $13 million, as part of a four-station transaction that also included KJTL and KJBO-LP. The acquisition of KJTL and KJBO was among the first station acquisitions for Mission (part of a four-station transaction that also involved the purchases of KCIT and KCPN-LP); developed as an arm of its creditor Bastet Broadcasting, the group had formed partnerships with the Nexstar Broadcasting Group and Quorum Broadcasting to operate many of Mission's stations in markets that did not have enough television stations to allow a legal duopoly between two commercial outlets. In the Amarillo market, Boston-based Quorum had announced its intent to acquire KAMR-TV from Wichita Falls-based Cannan Communications the day before the Mission purchase was announced (on January 5), in a $64-million, three-station deal. Quorum took over the operations of KCIT and KCPN on June 1, 1999, under joint sales and shared services agreements with Mission, under which KAMR would handle news production, engineering, security and certain other services as well as handling advertising sales for the two stations.[17][18][19][20][21]
Even though it was the senior partner in the outsourcing agreement, KAMR subsequently vacated its longtime studio facility on North Polk and Northeast 24th Streets, and relocated its operations 7 mi south to KCIT/KCPN's Fillmore Street facility.[22] On September 12, 2003, Irving, Texas–based Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced it would acquire the Quorum stations and all of its associated JSA/SSAs for $230 million; when the sale was finalized on December 31, 2003, Mission transferred the SSA involving KCIT and KCPN to Nexstar in conjunction with that group's acquisition of KAMR.[23][24][25]
On February 25, 2013, the over-the-air signals of KCIT, KAMR and KCPN were knocked off the air for more than 18 hours as a result of electricity fluctuations that shut off cooling pumps on the stations' transmitter tower off of US 287 during a major blizzard that crippled much of the Texas Panhandle. Snow drifts of up to 4 ft prevented station employees from accessing the site until the morning of February 26, in order to restore power to the transmitters. All three stations remained available to Suddenlink systems in the area through a direct fiber feed.[26]
