Slogan We've Got Your Back Affiliations NBC | Subchannels 8.1 NBC | |
Branding KSN (general)
KSN News (state news) Channels Digital: 12 (VHF)
Virtual: 8 (PSIP) Owner Nexstar Media Group
(Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc.) | ||
KSNK, virtual channel 8 (VHF digital channel 12), is an NBC-affiliated television station located in McCook, Nebraska, United States. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group. KSNK maintains offices located on US 36 in northwestern Oberlin, Kansas, and its transmitter is located along US 36 in rural northwestern Decatur County.
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KSNK is part of the Kansas State Network (KSN), a regional network of four stations relaying programming from Wichita, Kansas NBC affiliate KSNW across central and western Kansas; KSNK incorporates local advertising and news inserts aimed at areas of northwest Kansas and bordering counties in southwestern Nebraska within the Wichita–Hutchinson Plus television market. It is the only KSNW satellite to be licensed outside Kansas and also outside the Wichita market, although it covers the general Oberlin/Colby/Goodland area as well.
Although the station's city of license is in Red Willow County, Nebraska, which is in the Lincoln/Hastings/Kearney market, one county in Nebraska, Dundy County, is in the Wichita/Hutchinson market.
History
The station first signed on the air on November 28, 1959 as KOMC-TV (for Oberlin-McCook), a satellite of Great Bend's KCKT-TV, under the ownership of Central Kansas Television Co., Inc. The three stations, which were collectively branded as the "Tri-Circle Network," relayed NBC programming throughout central and western Kansas. In 1962, after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that central and western Kansas was part of the Wichita market, Central Kansas Television purchased KARD and merged it with KOMC, KCKT and KGLD-TV. The Tri-Circle Network changed its name to the "Kansas State Network" a few years later, with KARD serving as the flagship of the new four-station regional network.
The station changed its call letters to KSNK on August 16, 1982, as part of an effort to help viewers think of the four stations as part of one large network. Around this time, the station's city of license was relocated across the Kansas-Nebraska border from Oberlin to McCook. In 1988, the KSN stations were acquired by SJL Broadcast Management. The stations were then sold to Lee Enterprises in 1995. Emmis Communications bought most of Lee Enterprises' television properties in 2000. Montecito Broadcast Group, a newly formed partnership between SJL and the private equity firm Blackstone Group, acquired the KSN stations from Emmis on January 27, 2006.
On July 24, 2007, Montecito announced the sale of its five stations (KSNW, KHON-TV in Honolulu, KOIN in Portland and KSNT in Topeka, as well as satellites of KSNW and KHON) to New Vision Television; the sale was finalized on November 1, 2007. On May 7, 2012, the LIN TV Corporation announced that it would acquire the New Vision Television station group, including KSNW and its four satellite stations, for $330.4 million and the assumption of $12 million in debt; the sale – which was approved by the FCC on October 2 and was completed 1½ weeks later on October 12 – marked a re-entry into Kansas for LIN, which briefly owned the license of KLBY (channel 4), a satellite of Wichita ABC affiliate KAKE-TV (channel 10), in 2000, before selling them to Benedek Broadcasting shortly after the purchase was finalized.
On March 21, 2014, Media General announced that it would purchase LIN Media and its stations, including KSNW, in a $1.6 billion merger – giving the station its sixth owner since 2000. Like the earlier acquisition of KSNW by LIN, this deal will mark Media General's re-entry to the market, as it previously owned KBSL-TV (channel 10), a satellite of KWCH-TV (channel 12), from 2000 to 2006. The merger was completed on December 19. On September 28, 2015, Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced it had offered to purchase Media General and its stations, including KSNW and its satellites. If approved this would mark Nexstar's first entry in the Wichita market. On January 27, 2016, Nexstar Broadcasting Group announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire Media General. The acquisition of KSNK and its other satellites by Nexstar will reunite the stations with former satellite KSNF, whose ownership was split from the rest of the Kansas State Network in 1986. The deal was approved by the FCC on January 11, 2017.
Analog-to-digital conversion
KSNK shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 12, on November 26, 2008. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 12. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 8.
Newscasts
Although KSNK originated its own newscasts for many years, the station's local operations were progressively cut back from the mid-1980s onward. By the start of the 21st century, local news had been reduced to inserts in KSNW's newscasts, and separate identifications had been largely eliminated.