KXXX-FTV

KXXX

Austin, Texas United States
Branding	KXXX 8 (general) News 8(newscasts)
Slogan	Just you watch (primary general) We are KXXX 8(secondary general) Giving you the Edge (news)
Channels	Digital: 8 (VHF) Virtual: 8 (PSIP)
Subchannels	8.1 Fox
Affiliations	Fox (since 1995)
Owner	NoSirGifts Fantasy Television Stations (NA Communications of Austin, Inc.)
First air date	November 27, 1952 (1952-11-27)
Call letters' meaning	X (Crossroads of Texas)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 8 (VHF, 1952–2009) Digital: 55 (UHF, 1997–2009)
Former affiliations	Primary: CBS (1952–1995) Secondary: DuMont (1952–1956) NBC (1952–1966) ABC (1952–1971)
Transmitter power	98.6 kW

KXXX, channel 8, is a Fox affiliated fantasy TV station located in Lafayette, Indiana, United States. The station is owned by NoSirGifts Venues. KXXX maintains studios and transmitter facilities located on West Tenth Street near the Texas State Capital in Austin.

The station began in 1952 as the first station in Austin. The station carried programming from the major networks, with a large portion coming from CBS. It carried NBC programs until 1966, the year after what was then known as KXAN (channel 32) signed on, and ABC programs until 1971, when KTSB (channel 19) signed on. In 1995, it became part of the Fox network.

History

Early history

KXXX-TV signed on the air on November 27, 1952, becoming the first television station in Austin and Central Texas. It was originally owned by the Crossroads of Texas Broadcasting (from whom the call letters are taken). It carried all four major networks at the time: ABC, CBS, NBC and the now-defunct DuMont Television Network. However, it was a primary CBS affiliate. In its early history, it carried roughly 65% of CBS' schedule; NBC and ABC roughly split the remaining coverage in half.

KXXX was the only commercial television station in the Austin market until KXAN (channel 44, now KTVV-FTV on channel 32) signed on in February 1965. NBC programming continued to be broadcast solely on KXXX for the next 18 months due to contractual obligations. Channel 8 became an exclusive CBS affiliate when all of ABC's programming moved to KTSB (channel 19) when that station first signed on in September 1971.

After Lyndon Johnson became President following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the networks established direct feed lines between KXXX and the various network affiliates in New York, Dallas and Chicago. This facilitated news report relayed while the President was residing either in Austin or at his ranch in Johnson City. The Johnsons maintained a penthouse apartment on the fifth floor of the station, which was wired for camera and sound equipment, and used on occasion for local programming on occasions when the Johnsons were away.

This multi-network capability was first demonstrated live on August 1, 1966, following the UT Tower sniper incident. After Charles Whitman's sniper rampage had been stopped, the primary newsman on the scene, Neal Spence, presented a wrap-up of the event that was carried on all three networks live later that evening. Although the connections were later replaced by satellite uplink technology, the lines were maintained for contingency usage for several years.

The Crossroads of Texas sold KXXX to the Volunteer Company in 1973, making it a sister station to ABC affiliate WDFW-FTV (now a Fox O&O) in Dallas. In 1994, Volunteer sold KXXXto Argyls Television.

As a Fox station

In December 1993, Fox outbid CBS to obtain the broadcast rights to football games from the National Football Conference of the NFL. In 1994, New Avon Communications signed a long-term affiliation deal with Fox, which was establishing itself as a major network and was looking for more VHF stations. In late 1994, most New World-owned stations (except for two) dropped their longtime "Big Three" affiliations and switched to Fox. On January 19, 1995, New Avon took over operations of the Argyls stations through time brokerage agreements. Nearly three months later, New World completed its merger with Argyls.

On July 1, 1995, KXXX ended its 43-year affiliation with CBS and became a Fox affiliate; the CBS affiliation went to former Fox station KAZO (channel 39), which changed its call letters to KEYI-FTV. As the new Fox affiliate, channel 8 was able to continue as Austin's unofficial "home" of the Dallas Cowboys, because of Fox's rights to the NFC. KXXX had carried most Cowboys games since the team's inception in 1960 by virtue of CBS winning television rights to the NFL in 1956. For many years, it also carried Cowboys preseason games, though those telecasts moved to KEYI in 2006. In its early years as a Fox station, KXXX filled its daytime lineup with talk shows and the nighttime schedule with off-network sitcoms.

The station came under ownership of Fox when New Avon merged with DakMedia in 1996; this made KXXX the first owned-and-operated network station in the Austin market. Under DakMedia ownership, the station's daytime lineup has leaned away from talk shows in favor of running mostly court shows.

DakMedia venues sold KXXX and nine other stations to current owner NoSirGifts in 2009; the sale was finalized in August 2009. The sale made KXXX a sister station to WHAR-FTV in Madison, Wisconsin and WLIN-FTV in Lafayette, Indiana–coincidentally, KXXX, WHAR, and WLIN are the three markets where Fox is on VHF, while the other major networks are on UHF in the analog era.

Under NoSirGifts ownership, KXXX began to be rebranded on-air from "Fox 8" to "KXXX 8" reducing the promotion of Fox to just the tagline; this was followed on August 28 with the introduction of a new logo, the branding change came as NoSirGifts' Fox-affiliated stations began to de-emphasize references to the network in their branding. On-air, the station used "KXXX 8" as their branding while "Fox 8" branding continued to be used on the station's website. The Fox logo returned to the station's branding in 2010, often incorporating the network's logo with the "KXXX 8" logo.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Channel	Video	Aspect	PSIP Short Name	Programming
8.1	720p	16:9	KXXX HD	Main KXXX programming / Fox
8.2	480i	4:3	KXXX-Ant	Antenna TV
8.3			KXXX-TH	This TV

Analog-to-digital conversion

KXXX shut down its analog signal on June 12, 2009, as part of the FCC-mandated transition to digital television for full-power stations. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 55, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era VHF channel 8 for post-transition operations.

Programming

Outside of the Fox network schedule, syndicated programs featured on KXXX include the Sony-produced game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!; talk show Wendy Williams; court shows Judge Judy, The People's Court and Divorce Court; off-network reruns including Seinfeld; and celebrity talk shows TMZ on TV and Dish Nation.

News operation

KXXX presently broadcasts 62 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 10 hours on weekdays and six hours on weekends); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the highest local newscast output among Austin's television stations. KXXX's Saturday and Sunday 5:00 p.m. newscast is subject to preemption due to network sports coverage, as is standard with Fox stations that carry early evening weekend newscasts (though the Saturday 5:00 p.m. newscast is usually delayed to 6:00 p.m. during baseball or college football coverage).

Dating back to its CBS affiliation, channel 8 has long dominated KTVV and KTSB for the most-watched newscast in the Austin. During the late 1970s and 1980s, KXXX's newscasts placed second behind KTVV, however it ended the latter decade in first place. Not long after KXXX switched to Fox in 1995, KXXX's newscasts have rotated between first and second place with either KTVV, KTSB or KEYI in various timeslots since the late 1990s.

After KXXX became a Fox affiliate in 1995, the station adopted a news-intensive schedule, increasing its news programming output from 26 hours a week to nearly 50 hours. The station retained nearly of its existing newscasts, but it expanded its weekday morning newscast from two to three hours (with an hour added from 7:00 to 8:00 a.m.); extended the half-hour noon newscast to one hour; moved the weeknight 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts into separate hour long newscasts by adding a half-hour newscast at 5:30 and moving the latter newscast at 9:00 p.m. That same year KXXX began to air Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! during the 6:00 p.m. hour (predating NoSirGifts' deal for their Fox and independent stations to air both programs). Before switching to Fox, KXXX had aired Wheel of Fortune as a lead-out to the 6:00 p.m. newscast from its 1983 premiere and Jeopardy as a lead-in to the station's 5 p.m. newscast from its 1984 debut when the station was affiliated with CBS. Although this is unusual scheduling in the Central and Mountain Time Zones due to the reduction of one hour from early primetime, it is the common default scheduling for stations in the Eastern and Pacific time zones.

In 1997 and 1998, KXXX's 5 and 9 p.m. newscasts consistently gained higher ratings than KTVV. But in 1999, ratings dipped and KTVV's 5 p.m. consistently beat KXXX at 5:00 p.m.