Slogan Covering our Community | First air date March 15, 1990 | |
Branding KSPR ABC 33 (general)
KSPR News (newscasts)
Ozarks CW (primary, on LD2)
KCZ (secondary, on LD2) Channels Digital: 15 (UHF)
Virtual: 33 (PSIP) Subchannels 33.1 ABC
33.2 The CW
33.3 Antenna TV Owner Gray Television
(Gray Television Licensee, LLC) | ||
KSPR-LD, UHF digital channel 15, virtual channel 33, is an ABC and CW-affiliated television station located in Springfield, Missouri, United States. The station is owned by Gray Television, and is a sister station to NBC affiliate KYTV (channel 3); Gray also operates Antenna TV affiliate KGHZ (virtual channel 15) under a shared services agreement with owner Schurz Communications. All three stations share studio facilities located on West Sunshine Street in Springfield; KSPR-LD maintains transmitter facilities located on East Kearney Street (MO 744), near Doling Park. Syndicated programs broadcast by KSPR-LD include Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, Family Feud, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Castle, Family Guy, and Steve Harvey.
Contents
KSPR-LD's low-powered digital broadcasting radius does not reach the entire market. Therefore, the station's first subchannel is simulcast on a digital subchannel of KYTV displaying as virtual channel 33.1. KSPR-LD's CW-affiliated subchannel broadcasts on the second digital subchannel of KGHZ in order to reach the entire market. This signal can be seen on UHF channel 19.2 (or virtual channel 33.2 via PSIP) from a transmitter on Switchgrass Road, north of Fordland.
History
The station first signed on the air on March 15, 1990 as K15CZ; it originally operated as an independent station. K15CZ formerly operated a repeater station, K17DL in Branson; in 2009, that station was transferred to Branson Visitors TV, LLC (a company in which Schurz holds a 50.1-percent interest) and now airs tourist information for the Branson area. The station became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN) when the network launched on January 16, 1995; the station changed its on-air branding to "UPN 15". In the late 1990s, K15CZ entered into a local marketing agreement with South Bend, Indiana-based Schurz Communications, owners of NBC affiliate KYTV (channel 3); Schurz eventually bought the station outright in 2002.
On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW. K15CZ became the Springfield market's CW affiliate when the network launched on September 18, 2006; Harrison, Arkansas-licensed KWBM (channel 31) became a charter affiliate of MyNetworkTV, which launched two weeks earlier on September 5 as a secondary replacement for The WB and UPN.
In May 2006, the station obtained the website domain name, theozarkscw.com; this web address redirected to The CW's network website for a time until the station's website officially launched.
Since the station was licensed as a low-powered translator, it did not originally offer a digital signal of its own. In 2006, KYTV began carrying a standard definition simulcast of K15CZ; this was subsequently moved to KSPR digital subchannel 33.2. The Federal Communications Commission granted a construction permit for K15CZ to build digital transmitter facilities, with the digital signal being "flash-cut" into operation on its former analog UHF channel 15 when the transmitter was completed; the digital license was issued on January 23, 2015.
Schurz announced on September 14, 2015 that it would exit broadcasting and sell its television and radio stations, including K15CZ-D, KYTV, and the SSA with KSPR, to Gray Television for $442.5 million. On March 10, 2016, K15CZ-D was authorized by the FCC to change their call letters to KYCW-LD. The call letters were again changed, to KSPR-LD, on February 1, 2017; the original KSPR on channel 33 changed its call letters to KGHZ on the same day, while the KYCW-LD call sign was transferred to K25BD-D (channel 25) in Branson. Shortly after the change in callsigns, KSPR-LD traded virtual channel positions with KGHZ, with KGHZ's primary subchannel becoming 15.1 and KSPR-LD's becoming 33.1. The ABC affiliation shifted to KSPR-LD at this time.
News operation
KSPR-LD presently broadcasts 24½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 4½ hours on weekdays and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). Unlike most ABC affiliates, the station does not air a local newscast in the 5:00 p.m. timeslot on weekdays (syndicated programming fills the half-hour between its 4:00 p.m. newscast and ABC World News). KSPR (then on full-power channel 33) launched its news department in 1983; when the station assumed the market's ABC affiliation in 1986, the station expanded its news programming to include newscasts at 6:00 p.m. on weekdays and 10:00 p.m. seven nights a week.
On November 1, 2009, when KSPR moved its operations into a renovated portion of KYTV's studio facility, channel 33 became the second television station in the Springfield market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; the newscasts are produced out of a secondary set at the Sunshine Street facility. The two stations maintain separate news departments; however, both KSPR-LD and KYTV occasionally share footage for certain news stories.
KYTV produces 11½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with two hours on weekdays, a half-hour on Saturdays and one hour on Sundays) for KSPR-LD2; in addition, the station produces the half-hour sports highlight program O-Zone Sports, which airs Saturdays at 9:30 p.m.
On August 22, 2011, KYTV began producing an hour-long extension of its weekday morning newscast (from 7:00 to 8:00 a.m.) and a nightly half-hour 9:00 p.m. newscast for K15CZ. The 9:00 p.m. newscast was expanded to one hour in June 2013.