Channels Digital: 8 (VHF/PSIP) Call letters' meaning Good Neighbor Station | First air date January 7, 1956 | |
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Branding KGNS 8
KGNS News
NGNS (ABC Laredo) (on DT2)
Telemundo Laredo (on DT3) Subchannels 8.1 NBC
8.2 ABC
8.3 Telemundo Owner Gray Television
(Gray Television Licensee, LLC) | ||
KGNS-TV is the NBC-affiliated television station for Laredo, Texas and the Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 8 from a transmitter northwest of Laredo. Owned by Gray Television as a sister station to low-powered CBS affiliate KYLX-LD, it maintains studios located on Del Mar Boulevard (near I-35) in northern Laredo. KGNS can be seen on Charter Spectrum channel 10 and in high definition on digital channel 860 as well as on Dish Network and DirecTV.
Contents
History
KGNS originally went on air January 7, 1956 as KHAD-TV, it has been a primary NBC affiliate since its sign on, but the station initially held secondary affiliations with CBS and ABC. CBS programming moved to KVTV in December 1973 and ABC programming moved to present-day Univision affiliate KLDO-TV in December 1984, effectively making KGNS an exclusive NBC affiliate.
Donrey Media Group (now Stephens Media Group) bought the station on September 1, 1958. One of its first moves under Donrey ownership was to change the station's call letters, Donrey management held a contest in which elementary and middle school students from both the United States and Mexico sides of the Rio Grande region to choose a new callsign; the winning entry resulted in the station changing its callsign to the current KGNS-TV (standing for "Good Neighbor Station").
In 1985, KGNS was purchased by Century Development Corporation. In 1990 the station began a Spanish language newscast.
By 1998, KGNS gained a secondary affiliation with United Paramount Network lasting at least until 2000 while definitively off the station by 2004. then move to cable only on Time Warner Cable Channel 16. While in 2000, the WB affiliate was a cable only KTXW, which by 2010 was on a subchannel of the station.
In April 2002, the Spanish news staff resigned their jobs forcing the station to initial run a sitcom then replacing it with English language news.
In 2004, the station was purchased by SagamoreHill Broadcasting. The sale to SagamoreHill was approved by the Federal Communications Commission on December 1, 2005.
On January 24, 2006, The WB and CBS Corporation-owned UPN announced that the two networks would cease broadcasting and merge into a new broadcast network called The CW. On September 18, 2006, KGNS-TV rebranded "KTXW" Time Warner Cable channel 19 as The CW Laredo starting its CW programming. With the subsequent sign-on of digital subchannel 8.2, the subchannel began broadcasting "KTXW" bringing the channel over-the-air coverage throughout the market. In 2010, local Spanish language news returned to the station on Telemundo affiliated subchannel 3.
In May 2013, SagamoreHill Broadcasting reached a deal to sell KGNS, along with KGWN-TV in Cheyenne, Wyoming and KSTF in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, to Yellowstone Holdings, a subsidiary of Frontier Radio Management. On November 4, 2013, Gray Television announced a deal to acquire Yellowstone Holdings for $23 million. The sale was competed on December 31.
On November 6, 2013, KGNS-TV reached an agreement with the ABC Television Network to add the ABC affiliation, originally slated to launch February 2014 on channel 8.2. The ABC affiliation began on July 1, 2014, making The CW available in Laredo exclusively on Time Warner Cable via the national feed of The CW Plus. The CW programming wouldn't be seen over the air in Laredo area until October 2015, as KYLX-LP picked up the affiliation.
Digital programming
It broadcasts its main programming NBC on channel 8.1 in 1080i HD, ABC programming on subchannel 8.2 in 720p HD and Telemundo programming in 480i SD on subchannel 8.3. KGNS was one of the last American television stations that continued to sign off during the overnight hours, doing so nightly from 1:35 to 5:30 a.m.; as of 2014, the station now operates 24 hours a day. However, in later years, its second and third digital subchannels remained on the air during the overnight hours even when the main channel did not.
On April 8, 2004, KGNS-TV launched its digital signal on UHF channel 15, becoming the first television station in the Laredo market to operate a digital broadcast television signal. KGNS-TV discontinued Its analog signal and began broadcasting exclusively on a digital-only signal on June 12, 2009. The station vacated its pre-transition digital channel 15, and moved its digital channel allocation to its former analog VHF channel 8. KGNS-TV began broadcasting high-definition programming on its digital signal in October 2008. KGNS-TV previously operated the area's CW affiliate on digital subchannel 8.2, branded as Laredo CW 19. On November 6, 2013, KGNS-TV reached an agreement with the ABC Television Network to add the ABC affiliation, originally slated to launch February 2014 on channel 8.2. The ABC affiliation began on July 1, 2014, leaving Laredo without a CW affiliate.
News operation
Since CBS affiliate KVTV shut down its news department in 2006, KGNS has operated the only English-language news department in the market. It currently airs three hours of newscasts every weekday and one hour per day on weekends. The station employs a number of recent college graduates. According to Nielsen Media Research, KGNS competes closely with Spanish-language station KLDO.
In 1990, the station began a Spanish language newscast at 5 PM called "Noticias en Español" with news anchor Hector Lerma. On April 29, 2002, the Spanish news staff resigned from the station forcing them to run a sitcom in that time slot. KGNS eventually replaced the Spanish news broadcast with English language news on March 1st of the following year. In 2010, local Spanish language news returned to the station on Telemundo affiliated subchannel 3. Initially, there was a Sunday morning show, “Telemundo Laredo … En tu Casa” then expanded on November 18, 2010 with a week night 10 PM show.
On June 21, 2008, KGNS-TV began producing a weeknight, 9 o'clock newscast on its CW-affiliated second digital subchannel titled "Laredo's First News at 9". This program was the only primetime newscast in the Laredo-Nuevo Laredo market until Fox affiliate KXOF-CA launched a competing 9 p.m. newscast on April 9, 2012. The half-hour newscast is anchored by Brenda Medina and Ryan Bailey. This newscast was targeted at young adults between the ages of 21 and 34 years old.