Construction and early years
On a petition from the Allandale Baptist Church of Texas, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocated channel 54 to Austin on January 27, 1984.[2] A group owned by the church, Capital City Community Interests Inc., applied for the channel on May 22. It proposed a family-oriented program lineup using fare from the American Christian Television System.[3] Its application led to a stampede, and by the time the FCC had designated all of the applications for comparative hearing, there were nine different groups seeking the channel.[4] These included ATV Associates, Balcones Broadcasting (majority-owned by Houston attorney Billy B. "Paz" Goldberg and chaired by local news anchor Ronnell H. "Ron" Oliveira), Capital City Community Interests, Capitol Area Broadcasting, Channel 54, Ltd., DB Broadcasting, Isabel Chávez, Lake Country Telecasters Inc., and Television 54 Corp.[5][6] Lake Country dropped out of the proceeding on September 3, 1985.[7]
FCC administrative law judge Joseph Chachkin rendered an initial decision favoring Balcones on July 10, 1986. The grant was conditional on Goldberg divesting his interests in KVEO-TV in Brownsville—where Oliveira had become an assistant general manager in early 1985[8] and which Goldberg was in the process of acquiring at the time Balcones filed its application—and KPEJ in Odessa.[9] In the meantime, Oliveira returned to KVUE (channel 24) in 1987. The original decision was affirmed on October 30, 1987, when the FCC approved a settlement agreement between the seven applicants and granted Balcones's amended application for UHF channel 54.[10] The FCC upheld the grant in May 1988, after Frontier Southwest Broadcasting—which had held a construction permit to build a low-power TV station on channel 55—objected.[11] An economic downturn stalled progress on constructing channel 54. The permit, then known as KCFP, was transferred from Balcones Broadcasting to 54 Broadcasting in an application filed in 1990 and approved in 1992, bringing in several new investors including the Houston-based 21st Century Corporation.
In 1994, 54 Broadcasting entered into a local marketing agreement with LIN TV Corporation—owner of NBC affiliate KXAN-TV (channel 36)—to provide sales and technical support to channel 54, now bearing the call sign KNVA. In July, Oliveira announced his departure from KVUE, effective in September, to manage the new station.[14] To meet an FCC-imposed construction deadline, KNVA made its first test broadcast on August 31, 1994, before adopting a program format consisting of weather information from KXAN meteorologists.[15]
As a WB affiliate
The weather programming was never intended to be a full-time format. 54 Broadcasting stated its intention to bid for an affiliation with CBS, which had become available amid a major affiliation realignment in the Austin market, but was seen as well behind the established KBVO (channel 42) in what it could offer to the network. In November 1994, it signed an affiliation agreement with the startup WB network, to debut in January 1995, and announced that it would have a full-time entertainment schedule and a cable channel position on January 9.[16] Outside of WB programming, KNVA featured family-oriented classic TV series, children's programs, movies, a limited amount of Spanish-language programming, and reruns of KXAN newscasts. The weather information, which had proven unexpectedly popular, aired in overnight hours.[17][18]
A live newscast joined the KNVA lineup on October 16, 1995, with the debut of the 5:30 Report, produced by KXAN from a dedicated news set with Oliveira as co-anchor and using KXAN's reporting, weather, and sports staffs.
As a CW affiliate
On January 24, 2006, The WB announced it would shut down and effectively merge with UPN to form The CW. The nearest UPN station was KBEJ in Fredericksburg, which was identified with the San Antonio market.[25] The merger left many stations, most notably UPN stations owned by Fox Television Stations, without programming. The next month, News Corporation announced the creation of its own secondary network, MyNetworkTV, to serve these stations and others that had not been selected for The CW.[26] Though KBEJ obtained a CW affiliation and became KCWX,[27] so too did KNVA, as part of a four-station agreement with LIN announced in April 2006.[28]
