KARD (TV)
KARD is a television station licensed to West Monroe, Louisiana, United States, serving the Monroe, Louisiana–El Dorado, Arkansas market as an affiliate of the Fox network and an owned-and-operated station of The CW Plus. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which acquired the station in 2003 as part of its purchase of Quorum Broadcasting, and also holds a majority stake in The CW. Nexstar provides certain services to El Dorado–licensed NBC affiliate KTVE through a local marketing agreement with Mission Broadcasting. The two stations share studios on Pavilion Road in West Monroe; KARD's transmitter is located in Columbia, Louisiana.
In addition to its own digital signal, KARD's primary channel is simulcast in high definition on KTVE's second digital subchannel from a transmitter northwest of Huttig, Arkansas.
History
The station that became KARD first signed on on August 19, 1967, as KUZN-TV on channel 39 and was owned by Howard E. Griffith as a television counterpart of KUZN radio. This was Griffith's second foray into television, as he was the co-owner of Monroe's first TV station, KFAZ, which signed on in 1953 but went off the air the next year. The station aired a local newscast, the BBC series Panorama, and old Western movies. The station ceased operations on January 12, 1968, but was sold to Northeast Louisiana Broadcasting Corporation.It resumed operations on August 31, 1970, as KYAY-TV. During this incarnation, KYAY, again, aired news and off-network Westerns and movies, as well as ABC, NBC and CBS programming not carried on KNOE-TV and KTVE, such as That Girl, The Mod Squad, Hawaii Five-O, The Courtship of Eddie's Father, The Lawrence Welk Show, Engelbert Humperdinck, The NBC Tuesday Night Movie, and The Merv Griffin Show. KYAY proved to be no more successful than KUZN had been, and it also went dark, on August 16, 1971.
In 1974, the station returned with a new call sign, KLAA, and a reallocation to channel 14. It was an NBC affiliate. Its owners operated the station under Monroe Television, Inc., with its largest owner being Kenneth Meyer of Springfield, who also owned and signed on then-ABC affiliate KMTC in that city. Since 1972, when KTVE changed its affiliation to ABC, it and KNOE-TV carried selected NBC programs during the hours when their primary networks were not broadcasting, but never the full NBC lineup. KLAA debuted on October 6, 1974, giving southern Arkansas and northeastern Louisiana full service from all "Big Three" networks for the first time ever. Today, channel 39 is occupied by KMCT-TV, a religious station, and that station now occupies KUZN/KYAY/KLAA/KARD's former studios.
On December 6, 1981, KLAA became an ABC affiliate, while KTVE retook the NBC affiliation that it held in the 1950s and 1960s. Exactly a year later, the station changed its calls to KARD, with the station manager citing the call sign change a reflection on the station's progress at the time. In 1984, Woods Communications, owned by Charles Woods of Alabama, purchased KARD and KMTC, from Meyer Communications. In 1986, Woods relocated the station's transmitter from its West Monroe studios to Caldwell Parish, Louisiana, and increased the station's power to 5 million watts. This change enabled KARD to have at least Grade B coverage in a region encompassing all of Northeast Louisiana including portions of the Alexandria and Shreveport markets.
KARD began airing some Fox programming in late nights when that network started up in 1986 and in the same year became the first station in the Monroe area to broadcast in stereo. Fox programs the station aired included The Simpsons, In Living Color, Married... with Children, and America's Most Wanted. In addition to KARD's secondary Fox affiliation, starting in 1991, Foxnet was available for cable subscribers in Monroe. During 1991, KARD relocated from its original studios on Parkwood Avenue to the newly built Glenwood Mall, where they remained until moving into their current studios in West Monroe's Industrial Park in 2000. In its last months as an ABC affiliate, KARD preempted NYPD Blue due to concerns about that program's content. In 1993, Woods filed for bankruptcy, and Banam Broadcasting, a subsidiary of BankAmerica, assumed control of KARD. The next year, Banam dropped ABC to take Fox full-time, due to Fox picking up NFL football that season, and it was the first station in the nation to switch from a Big Three network to Fox during the U.S. television network affiliate switches of 1994, doing so April 17 that year, citing competition from the then-glut of stronger-rated ABC stations from outlying markets. Those surrounding ABC affiliates continued to be the main conduit for ABC in the market via antenna or cable carriage until December 1998, when KAQY signed on. Banam sold KARD along with three of its stations to Petracom Broadcasting in 1995. In 1998, Petracom sold KARD to Quorum Broadcasting, which was absorbed by Nexstar in 2003.
In 2002, Piedmont Television, then-owner of KTVE, took over KARD's operations under a local marketing agreement. Despite KTVE being the senior partner, the two stations' operations were consolidated in KARD's newer facility in West Monroe, which opened in 2000. In addition to a common sales and promotions staff, the KTVE news department produces KARD's newscast. Piedmont's control of the duopoly officially came to an end on January 16, 2008, when KTVE was sold to Mission Broadcasting. This resulted in Nexstar, already the owner of KARD, taking over control of KTVE under a local sales agreement ; the Internet presence of both stations were also merged into one website.
Newscasts
KARD airs four hours of weekday newscasts—a two-hour morning newscast at 7 a.m., two half-hour weeknight newscasts at 5:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., and an hour-long newscast at 9 p.m. Its current generation of newscasts began in November 2001, shortly before it entered an SSA with KTVE.Technical information
Subchannels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
| 14.1 | 720p | 16:9 | KARD-DT | Fox |
| 14.2 | 720p | 16:9 | CW Plus | The CW Plus |
| 14.3 | 480i | 16:9 | Grit | Grit |
| 14.4 | 480i | 16:9 | Antenna | Antenna TV |
In March 2009, KARD and KTVE informed the Federal Communications Commission that they needed to end analog operations sooner than June 12, 2009. KARD stated that a transmitter tube failed, bringing power down to 50%; KTVE claimed that its power was at 40%. Used parts were deemed unreliable, and staffers had to travel to the transmitter from the studio; two to three visits per week were required to monitor the analog facilities, according to Nexstar. The FCC denied the request based on the fact that they are the last two analog channels in the market.