KTXA
KTXA, branded TXA 21, is an independent television station in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS outlet KTVT. The two stations share primary studio facilities on Bridge Street, east of downtown Fort Worth, and advertising sales offices at CBS Tower on North Central Expressway in Dallas. KTXA's transmitter is located in Cedar Hill, Texas.
KTXA began broadcasting in January 1981 and was one of three new television stations in the Metroplex in six months. All three broadcast advertiser-supported commercial programming during the day and scrambled subscription television at night; KTXA's service, from ON TV, was hamstrung by the most intense competition in any STV market in the United States and by a dispute over adult programming, closing after two years. The station found success as an independent in a hot market and was sold twice in rapid succession for large amounts. However, when the independent station trade, advertising market, and regional economy cooled, it was sold again for less than half of its previous value. The Paramount Stations Group acquired KTXA and other stations in two parts between 1989 and 1991, bringing much-needed stability.
KTXA was one of several Paramount-owned stations to be charter outlets for the United Paramount Network in 1995 and merged its operations with KTVT in 2001 after a corporate buyout of CBS. When UPN merged into The CW in 2006, KTXA was not selected to affiliate with the network, and KTXA retooled its local programming around prime time news and professional sports coverage.
Prior history of UHF channel 21 in Fort Worth
The UHF channel 21 allocation in the Dallas–Fort Worth market was originally occupied by KFWT, an independent station licensed to Fort Worth that signed on the air on September 14, 1967. Owned by W. C. Windsor's Trinity Broadcasting Company alongside KFWT-FM 102.1, the station was the first of three new UHF independents in six months in the Metroplex. Within two years, however, the station had gone silent for financial reasons. No buyer was ever found, and Trinity declared bankruptcy in March 1970, with the channel 21 equipment repossessed.History
Early years
In 1975 and 1976, two groups, both calling themselves Channel 21, Inc., filed applications with the Federal Communications Commission proposing new television stations to use Fort Worth's channel 21. One application was headed by Robert S. Block, the other by Sidney Shlenker. The Block and Shlenker groups each proposed subscription television operation. Shlenker's consortium signed a deal with Oak Industries, owner of the ON TV subscription television service, to outfit its proposed STV system in the Metroplex in 1979; on March 31, 1980, the FCC granted a joint settlement by which Block's group was reimbursed for its expenses and dropped out to allow the Shlenker group to be granted the construction permit. This allowed Shlenker to proceed with building the station for a projected November 1980 launch. Construction proceeded more slowly than that; in October, the newly named KTXA purchased an industrial building on Randol Mill Road in nearby Arlington to be occupied by its own operation as well as that of ON TV itself.KTXA began broadcasting on January 4, 1981, making it the second of three new UHF stations within six months in the Metroplex. In addition to sharing a transmitter tower, KTXA had much in common with Dallas-based KTWS-TV and KNBN-TV. All three were part-time STV operations, KTWS-TV carrying Preview from American Television and Communications and KNBN-TV providing VEU, owned by Golden West Broadcasters. ON TV did not start broadcasting until the end of February, and KTXA temporarily broadcast an advertiser-supported prime time schedule until that date, in addition to its permanent daytime lineup with movies, live sports, and a heavy dose of syndicated reruns. When ON TV started, it made Dallas–Fort Worth the only market with three over-the-air STV services. Anthony Cassara, who headed VEU, called the market "total insanity".
ON TV ran third in the Metroplex's subscription television wars. By June 1982, the general zenith of STV nationally, VEU had 42,000 subscribers, Preview 30,000, and ON TV 24,800. Of the eight ON TV-branded services nationally, the Dallas–Fort Worth market was the second-smallest behind the newer franchise serving Salem and Portland, Oregon, and of those owned by Oak, it also had the worst relationship between station and STV franchise. Milton Grant, who had joined the Shlenker group and became intimately involved in operations, built up channel 21 as an aggressive independent in program purchasing. When ON TV launched in the Metroplex, as in other cities and with other STV services, it broadcast late-night adult programming as an add-on to the subscription. In 1982, KTXA—already unwilling to cede more hours to subscription broadcasting—and Oak entered into a dispute over these broadcasts, which the station felt were indecent, and KTXA won in a court fight to uphold its right to cancel ON TV programs to which it objected. ON TV characterized the legal battle as an attempt to prevent the subscription service from continuing with plans to lengthen its programming hours. This was followed in February 1983 by the station pulling such adult films as The Pleasure Palace, New Day in Eden, and Portrait of a Seduction from the schedule. KTXA's development as a station outside of ON TV had also been robust. At KTXA, Grant minted a reputation for being extremely promotion-oriented. In contrast to the other two hybrid startups in the Metroplex that "merely appeared", Ed Bark of The Dallas Morning News wrote that channel 21 had "burst into living rooms like a world-champion encyclopedia salesman", with nearly ubiquitous billboards, high-profile programming, and an emphasis on weekend movies.
As this dispute escalated, the STV industry began to experience a significant reversal nationally due to increased cable television penetration and an ongoing recession. In the Metroplex, VEU had bought Preview's business in September 1982, integrating the two systems over the next several months; further, the loss of the adult programming led to subscriber cancellations. The Dallas–Fort Worth ON TV operation and that in Phoenix, which suffered from similar issues over cable and adult programming, were Oak's first to be put out of business, with ON TV's last day of programming on KTXA on April 30, 1983.
An ownership revolving door
The Shlenker–Grant group had set up another Texas television station in late 1982, KTXH in Houston, which carried a similar mix of programming. Grant's aggressive programming and promotions strategy, plus a favorable climate for independent stations nationally, made the two stations highly profitable and attracted major bidders. Outlet Communications, the broadcasting division of The Outlet Company of Rhode Island, was one of several parties negotiating to buy KTXA and KTXH. However, negotiations fell through, and Grant instead sold the pair to the Gulf Broadcast Group for $158 million in May 1984. The sale was held up for several months at the FCC, which conditioned the purchase on Gulf divesting FM stations in both cities. The sale price was considered unprecedented given the short period of operation of the stations.Gulf had scarcely owned the stations when it sold its entire stations group for $755 million to Taft Broadcasting in 1985. At the same time Taft acquired a Fort Worth television station, it attracted the attention of an activist investor from the city who increased his stake over the course of 1985 and 1986: Robert Bass, who sought to raise his ownership in the company to 25 percent. Meanwhile, in addition to a worsening regional economy, the independent television market nationally was softening; by this time, many believed that Taft had overpaid for KTXA and that Dallas–Fort Worth had become one of the worst markets for independent stations in the United States. Bill Castleman, KTXA's general manager, believed that the station's programming costs—estimated at $30 million a year—had been deliberately increased as part of a strategy by Grant to pump the station up for a buyer by expanding its programming inventory, a situation which Taft had not anticipated discovering prior to the acquisition.
Taft put its broadcast group up for sale in August 1986 due to agitation by Bass, and while it asked $500 million for five independent stations, the winning bidder—TVX Broadcast Group—only paid $240 million, and Taft estimated its after-tax loss for the sale at $45 to $50 million. TVX implemented budget cuts, laying off about 15 percent of the staff at the acquisitions, and renegotiated programming costs, though Tim McDonald, the president of TVX, noted that KTXA was among the better operations Taft had sold.
Through the 1980s, KTXA continued to air local sports programming. The NBA's Dallas Mavericks moved to KTXA in 1984 after their previous station, KXAS-TV, came under pressure to stop preempting NBC network shows; channel 21 carried 10 games and WFAA-TV another five. However, the next year, the team signed a three-year deal with KTVT, citing disappointing ratings on KTXA, that station's sale to Taft, and the opportunity to air all of their telecasts on one station. In 1985, KTXA entered into a three-year agreement for football and basketball telecasts of the SMU Mustangs. However, disciplinary problems involving SMU's football team resulted first in a probation that prevented KTXA from airing football games live and then in the temporary cancellation of the football program, at which time KTXA exited the contract, noting that many sponsors had shied away from any association with SMU athletics.
The Taft stations purchase left TVX highly leveraged and highly vulnerable. TVX's bankers, Salomon Brothers, provided the financing for the acquisition and in return held more than 60 percent of the company. The company was to pay Salomon Brothers $200 million on January 1, 1988, and missed the first payment deadline, having been unable to lure investors to its junk bonds even before Black Monday. While TVX recapitalized by the end of 1988, Salomon Brothers reached an agreement in principle in January 1989 for Paramount Pictures to acquire options to purchase the investment firm's majority stake. This deal was replaced in September with an outright purchase of 79 percent of TVX for $110 million.