KNLC - History

History

The station began operation on September 12, 1982 founded by New Life Evangelistic Center founder Reverend Larry Rice and featured a wall-to-wall religious programming format that included shows such as The 700 Club, The PTL Club, Richard Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart and locally-produced religious shows. In 1984, KNLC began mixing in secular classic television series including sitcoms and westerns from the 1950s and early 1960s, most of which were not airing in many other U.S. markets. These programs ran in an unusual manner, as while most religious stations that run secular programs air a single block of these secular shows (for example, weekdays from 3-7 p.m.), KNLC was utilized a hodgepodge schedule running religious and secular syndicated shows (with secular programming airing from 7-7:30 and 9-10:30 a.m., 2-3, 5-6 and 9-9:30 p.m., with religious shows filling the remaining timeslots between 5 a.m. and 1 a.m. when secular shows were not airing).

However in the late 1980s, the station began mixing the religious and secular shows in a more consistent pattern, and acquired a lot of barter cartoons and relatively more recent sitcoms. While the daytime schedule may have featured a mixed format from 9 a.m.-3 p.m., the 7-9 a.m. and 3-5 p.m. time periods featured cartoons and the 5-7 p.m. slot featured classic sitcoms. As the United Paramount Network was preparing to make its January 1995 debut, KNLC turned down an affiliation with the network. But that fall, the station picked up Fox Kids programming which they ran 7-8 a.m. and 3-5 p.m. weekdays and Saturday mornings. The station also acquired more recent programming as well. However, its growth would not last.

By the spring of 1996, KNLC refused to sell local advertising during Fox Kids programming because it objected to the content featured within the programs and the national advertising included along with it. The time that would normally be allocated to local commercials was instead replaced with messages from Rice's ministry regarding issues such as the death penalty and abortion. Fox felt that its children's programming was not appropriate for such subjects to be discussed upon. Ultimately regretting putting Fox Kids programs on a conservative religious station, the network moved both the weekday afternoon and Saturday morning Fox Kids blocks to the network's local affiliate KTVI in 1996, becoming then-owner New World Communications' only Fox-affiliated station to run Fox Kids programming after switching to the network (the remainder of New World's Fox affiliates chose to run local newscasts and/or syndicated programs in place of the children's program block).

As children's programming on broadcast television was on the decline and the more popular classic television shows migrated to cable television, KNLC began to spend less on secular shows. It chose to carry UPN programming from 1997 to 1999, but refused to air much of its programming because management felt that the network's series and advertisements were offensive. KPLR subsequently picked up UPN as a secondary affiliation in 1998, until the network found a new full-time affiliate, commercial station WRBU in the Fall of 2002.

Today, the programming on KNLC consists of mostly locally-produced and syndicated religious shows (such as Ed Hindson), along with a mix of public domain classic television shows and movies. Pax TV) offered KNLC an affiliation after losing its St. Louis area affiliate, KUMO-LP, in 2004, but the station also turned it down. From 1986 to 2007, the New Life Evangelistic Center owned another religious station KNLJ in New Bloomfield, Missouri (which offered a direct simulcast of KNLC's programming), that station has since been sold to the Christian Television Network.