History
K22DP began broadcasting on channel 22 on December 10, 1992. The station was owned by Shelley Media of Fort Worth; it was the second low-power TV station in the Bryan–College Station area and broadcast the Video Jukebox Network.[2] The outlet was described by 1996 as airing programming from the American Independent Network, with "sporadic" hours of operation.[3] Meanwhile, KXXV's hold on the eastern part of the market had at times been tenuous. In 1991, TCA Cable, the main cable system in the Brazos Valley, threatened to drop the station from its lineup altogether.[4] This would have left Houston's KTRK-TV as the only ABC affiliate on TCA's lineup. In response, KXXV threatened to invoke FCC market exclusivity rules that would have forced TCA to black out any ABC programming on KTRK. TCA relented, and opted to have KXXV trade places with CBS affiliate KBTX-TV on the lineup.[5]
Centex Television Limited Partnership, the subsidiary of Drewry Communications that owned KXXV, purchased K22DP from TV Channel 22, Inc.[6] In February 1998, the station became KRHD-LP. Initially, it rebroadcast KXXV with local commercials and later localized weather cut-ins during Good Morning America.[7] It moved to channel 34 during the course of 1999 as part of a signal upgrade.[8] [9][10]
KXXV/KRHD added a secondary affiliation with The WB on January 11, 2002, following the sale of the market's previous WB affiliate, KAKW (channel 62), to Univision. KXXV/KRHD aired The WB's prime time lineup after ABC's late night programming, as well as two hours of Kids' WB programming on Sunday mornings.[11][12] In July 2002, KXXV/KRHD ceded the secondary WB affiliation to Fox affiliate KWKT (channel 44) and its Brazos Valley satellite KYLE (channel 28), which would air the network's prime time programming in an earlier time slot but did not pick up Kids' WB.[13]
In December 2002, Cox Communications, successor to TCA's Bryan–College Station cable system, announced its intent to drop KRHD from its lineup and replace it with KXXV from Waco at year's end. Drewry Broadcasting vigorously objected to this maneuver and denied it retransmission consent approval to carry KXXV directly, having invested $2.5 million since 1999 to station three news reporters, a sports reporter, and two advertising sales representatives in Bryan.[14] Cox never dropped KRHD, continuing to carry the station in its lineup on a series of short-term extensions;[15] a long-term agreement was reached in April 2003, under which Cox also began broadcasting Telemundo on its system.[16] In 2003, KRHD moved from channel 34 to channel 40.[17]
Drewry had planned to sell its stations to London Broadcasting in 2008;[18] however, by January 2009, the deal fell through,[19] and London instead bought KCEN-TV. It was another six years before Drewry sold its broadcasting portfolio to Raycom Media for $160 million in 2015.[20] The sale was completed on December 1.[21]
Raycom announced a $3.6 billion merger[22] into Atlanta-based Gray Television on June 25, 2018.[23][24] Gray opted to retain KBTX-TV and KWTX-TV in Waco[25] and sold KXXV–KRHD, as well as WTXL-TV in Tallahassee, Florida, to the E. W. Scripps Company for $55 million.[26] The sale was completed on January 2, 2019.[27] One consequence of the sale was that KRHD lost the Telemundo affiliation to KBTX.[28]
By 2021, the station was branding as "KRHD 25".
On April 3, 2023, the station changed branding to "15ABC", while retaining virtual channel 40.[29]
