KLRT-TV — BrandWiki

KLRT-TV

callsign	KLRT-TV
location	Little Rock, Arkansas
country	United States
branding	Fox 16 Arkansas; Fox 16 News
digital	30 (UHF)
virtual	16
affiliations	16.1: Fox for others, see
owner	Mission Broadcasting
operator	Nexstar Media Group
sister stations	KASN, KARK-TV, KARZ-TV, KTHV
airdate	June 26, 1983
former channel numbers	Analog: 16 (UHF, 1983–2009)
former affiliations	Independent (1983–1990)
callsign meaning	Little Rock Television
erp	1,000 kW
haat	449 m
facility id	11951
coordinates	34.79917°N, -92.49167°W
licensing authority	FCC
website	https://www.fox16.com/

KLRT-TV (channel 16) is a television station in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting alongside KASN (channel 38); Mission maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Nexstar Media Group—owner of KARK-TV (channel 4), KTHV (channel 11), and KARZ-TV (channel 42)—for the provision of certain services. KLRT-TV, KASN, KARK-TV and KARZ-TV share studios at the Victory Building on West Capitol Avenue and South Victory Street, near the Arkansas State Capitol, in downtown Little Rock; KLRT-TV's transmitter is located at the Shinall Mountain antenna farm.

KLRT-TV began broadcasting on June 26, 1983, as the first independent station in the market and the first UHF station in central Arkansas in nearly 30 years. It was owned by a consortium dominated by MMT Sales, a national advertising sales representative for TV stations, and featuring six other partners who had been its competing applicants. After briefly becoming a Fox affiliate in September 1989 in connection with a planned acquisition of KASN assets that fell through, the network moved its affiliation for good to KLRT-TV in 1990. The next year, Clear Channel Television acquired KLRT-TV, followed by the assets of KASN, which Clear Channel then began controlling under a local marketing agreement. A local news program debuted in 2004. Clear Channel spun out its television stations to

History

The first proposal for a channel 16 station in Little Rock reached the construction permit stage with a grant by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in March 1966.[1] The station would have been owned by the Victor Broadcasting Company, controlled by Connecticut industrialist Victor Muscat alongside Little Rock radio station KMYO.[2] Originally planned to launch in 1967, its backers opted to wait until the FCC granted them an increase in their effective radiated power.[3] The construction permit remained on the books until being deleted by the start of 1974.[4]

As an independent station

Interest in building channel 16 was rekindled in the late 1970s by groups seeking different uses. One, Arkansas Christian Television, sought to build a Christian television station; others proposed subscription television programming.[5][6] The final field of applicants for channel 16 numbered eight. Other notable bidders included Milton Grant's Grant Broadcasting Corporation; a group led by former KARK-TV news anchor Deborah Mathis; Central Arkansas Television, whose investors included former U.S. House Representative and eventual Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker; May Broadcasting of Shenandoah, Iowa; and LRTV Limited Partnership, controlled by national station representation firm MMT Sales of New York and its executive Gary Scollard.[7] Arkansas Christian Television, not wanting to face a comparative hearing process that it believed could stretch on for five years, withdrew the next month.[8]

At the end of 1981, the seven remaining applicants announced a settlement agreement to combine in a limited partnership dominated by MMT.[9] The lopsided nature of the shareholdings prompted the FCC administrative law judge assigned to the comparative hearing case to initially reject the settlement,[10][11] only to be overruled by the FCC's review board that June, an action that cleared the way for the construction permit to be granted.[12]

Little Rock Communications Associates (LRCA), the consortium of owners produced by the settlement agreement, proceeded to draft plans to construct the station on Shinall Mountain[13] and purchase a building off Markham Street.[14] The call letters KLRT-TV, for Little Rock Television, were assigned over the objections of Little Rock radio station KLRA.[15]

KLRT-TV first signed on the air on June 26, 1983.[16][17] It was the first independent station in Arkansas; the first commercial television station to sign on in the region since CBS affiliate KTHV (channel 11) debuted 28 years earlier on November 27, 1955; and the first UHF station to operate in Little Rock since pioneering KRTV on channel 17 sold its facilities to KATV in 1954.[18] It aired syndicated classic sitcoms, prime time movies, sports, and children's cartoons.[19]

Two more independents would launch in Central Arkansas to compete with KLRT during 1986. Bell Equities, Inc. signed on KRZB-TV (channel 26) in Hot Springs on February 7.[20] While that station's signal did not reach Little Rock, and it ultimately closed in March 1988,[21] TVX Broadcast Group signed on Pine Bluff–licensed KJTM-TV (channel 38) on June 17, subsequently becoming the market's original Fox affiliate on October 6 of that year. As the established independent in the market, KLRT continued to maintain a lead against its competitors.[22] During the late 1980s, KLRT also maintained an innovative partnership with Storer Cable's Little Rock system; the station occasionally leased airtime to Storer to offer free previews of programming from basic and premium cable channels carried by the system, in addition to co-sponsoring various community service projects.[23]

As a Fox affiliate

TVX sold KJTM in 1988 to MMC Television, which changed the station's call sign to KASN.[24] In September 1989, KLRT-TV management announced that Fox programming would be moving to channel 16, which caught KASN management off guard. The two had been in discussions about channel 16 acquiring channel 38's Fox affiliation and most of its programming inventory, with KASN likely to fill its broadcast day with home shopping or other content, though nothing had been finalized.[25] However, on September 27, 1989, KLRT management decided to pull out of the deal; Scollard reportedly notified MMC that the asset sale would not be moving forward in a letter faxed to station management.[26][27] Fox shifted back to KASN after 42 days under a separate contract that MMC and Fox struck during the asset negotiations, which reverted the affiliation rights to KASN if the proposed asset merger was not completed by October 21, 1989.[28]

Fox changed hands again on April 28, 1990, when the network moved its programming to KLRT on a full-time basis.

Mission ownership and Nexstar management

As part of a liquidation of Newport Television's assets, Nexstar Broadcasting Group purchased KLRT and KASN in a 12-station deal worth $285.5 million (equivalent to $ in ) announced on July 19, 2012.[50] Due to Nexstar already owning KARK-TV and KARZ-TV, KLRT and KASN were subsequently resold to Mission Broadcasting for $59.7 million (equivalent to $ in ),[51] with Nexstar effectively taking over both stations under a new LMA, continuing a business practice established between the otherwise two separate companies.[52]

The transfer for KLRT and KASN to Mission was consummated on January 1, 2013.[53] The creation of a four-station cluster in the same market resulted in substantial downsizing on January 3, 2013, with 20 employees from KLRT–KASN dismissed along with eight KARK–KARZ staffers;[54]