Product Code Database
KEYE-TV (channel 42) is a television station in Austin, Texas, United States, affiliated with CBS and Telemundo. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, the station maintains studios on Metric Boulevard in North Austin and a transmitter on Waymaker Way on the city's west side.
Channel 42 began broadcasting on December 4, 1983, as KBVO-TV. Owned by Austin Television, a consortium of three groups that sought the license, it was Austin's first new commercial TV station since 1971 and its first local independent station. Originally emphasizing movies in its schedule, the station affiliated with the new Fox network at its launch in October 1986.
In 1994, Fox announced it would move its local affiliation to KTBC, the previous CBS affiliate, in July 1995. Austin Television, by this point owned by Darrell Cannan of Wichita Falls and KBVO-TV general manager Steve Beard, sold the station to Granite Broadcasting; Granite in turn secured an affiliation with CBS. The affiliation switch in Austin took place on July 2, 1995. On that day, channel 42 became KEYE-TV and began broadcasting local newscasts, which typically have been in third- or fourth-place positions in local ratings. After Granite purchased two large-market The WB affiliates, it sold KEYE-TV to the CBS network in 1999.
CBS sold four of its smaller-market media properties, including KEYE-TV, to Cerberus Capital Management in 2007; the stations were grouped under the Four Points Media Group name and later run under contract by Nexstar Broadcasting Group. During this time, the station flipped one of its digital subchannels to an affiliate of Telemundo, complete with Spanish-language local newscasts produced by the KEYE-TV newsroom. Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired the Four Points stations in 2012.
Pappas dropped out, and the four other applicants reached a settlement agreement—announced in June 1982 but not approved until March 1983 by which Television Corporation of Central Texas would be a consultant to a merger of Austin Telecasting, Mountain Laurel, and Texas Television, known as Austin Television. Steven Beard was hired as the general manager and led a search for studio space that delayed channel 42's launch. For the new independent station, he formulated a program schedule highly dependent on movies, with an estimated 25 feature films a week. Occasional sports telecasts, syndicated shows, and religious and children's programs rounded out its offerings. The Spanish International Network moved to channel 30.
From its studios on Metric Boulevard, KBVO-TV (named for Bevo, the live longhorn steer mascot of the Texas Longhorns' sports teams) began broadcasting on December 4, 1983. It was profitable within five months of starting up. On October 9, 1986, the station became a charter affiliate of the upstart Fox network. Beard attributed the station's success to good timing and its movie identity, which helped it weather a regional economic downturn later in the 1980s.
In 1991, KBVO-TV became the first station outside of San Antonio to air a package of San Antonio Spurs basketball games. By 1994, it was one of the ten highest-rated Fox affiliates in the country; the station was now exclusively owned by Cannan and Beard.
On July 2, 1995, KTBC and KBVO swapped affiliations, with Fox moving to KTBC and the CBS affiliation going to KBVO. Simultaneously with the affiliation switch, KBVO changed its call sign to KEYE-TV. Granite wanted to bolster channel 42's ties to its new network, whose main symbol is an eye, and eliminate any confusion about where CBS programming could be found in Austin. Beard's successor as general manager, Dennis Upiah, said that with the new call letters, "CBS is literally our middle name". The new owners also wanted to shed KBVO's image as a station focused on children's programming. The station began producing local newscasts that day and broke ground on a studio expansion to house its newsroom.
At the start of 1999, Granite put KEYE up for sale to help debt obligations it incurred in acquiring two larger-market affiliates of The WB, KOFY-TV in San Francisco and WDWB in Detroit. Several large broadcast companies, including Raycom Media and Hearst-Argyle Television, expressed interest in acquiring KEYE. That April, CBS agreed to buy the station for $160 million. The sale closed that August. Under CBS, management turned over frequently, with six general managers in five years.
Sinclair Broadcast Group announced the acquisition of the Four Points stations for $200 million in September 2011. The deal was completed on January 3, 2012, at which time the Nexstar management agreement was terminated. In August 2016, the station began referring to itself as "CBS Austin".
In launching a news operation, station management hoped that the locally high ratings for CBS network news on KTBC would transfer to channel 42. This was not the case, and technical miscues in the weeks after opening alienated viewers. Early on, the station rated fourth of the four major TV news operations in town, but it soon surpassed KTBC, whose news ratings severely slumped after the switch. Its news programs were faster-paced than the competition with a higher-than-average reliance on props and unconventional methods of storytelling. Spelce retired in 2002, becoming "anchor emeritus" and a commentator with occasional contributions to KEYE's newscasts. By that time, the station was struggling in the ratings, with sitcom reruns occasionally drawing more viewers than channel 42's newscasts; it canceled its noon newscast as a result. It fired three anchors—including Cile Spelce, Neal's daughter—at the end of 2002 and hired Judy Maggio from KVUE several months later. CBS also made investments in weather forecasting and anchor salaries as well as $15 million to make KEYE the city's first TV station with high-definition local newscasts in 2007, with the Four Points sale in progress.
The station canceled its 5 p.m. newscast in September 2009, replacing it with We Are Austin Live, an hour-long 4 p.m. lifestyle show anchored by Michelle Valles and Jason Wheeler. A few weeks later, the weekday morning newscast was canceled and later replaced with a simulcast of the J. B. and Sandy Morning Show from KAMX (94.7 FM), leaving KEYE with its 6 and 10 p.m. newscasts and a 5:30 p.m. newscast on Sunday evenings. On June 30, 2011, after the station was unable to renew its agreement with KAMX owner Entercom, KEYE replaced the simulcast of the J. B. and Sandy Morning Show with the in-house newscast We Are Austin Mornings, a morning extension of We Are Austin LIVE similar in format to national network morning newscasts. We Are Austin Mornings lasted less than a year before being replaced with a more conventional morning newscast. The 2009 afternoon news changes were reversed in June 2012, when We Are Austin Live was canceled to make way for the reinstatement of a 5 p.m. newscast. The We Are Austin name was revived in 2014 when the station reintroduced it for a 9 a.m. lifestyle show; simultaneously, KEYE extended its morning news to start at 4:30 a.m., giving it a weekday news output of five hours. During this time, the station had a short-lived improvement in its ratings; in the May 2012 sweeps, it had the highest-rated 10 p.m. newscast in the market.
In 2017, the station placed third or fourth in all of the time slots where it aired a newscast. In March 2021, it tied KVUE for second place at 10 p.m. but had half as many viewers in the target demographic of viewers 25–54.
KEYE-TV also provides weeknight weather updates for Sinclair-owned WUCW in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, which are presented by KEYE's chief meteorologist Chikage Windler.
| + Subchannels of KEYE-TV ! scope = "col" | Channel ! scope = "col" | Res. ! scope = "col" | Aspect ! scope = "col" | Short name ! scope = "col" | Programming |
KEYE-TV broadcasts two subchannels of KBVO-CD as part of Austin's ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) deployment plan. KBVO-CD began 3.0 broadcasting in October 2020.
|
|
