History
This station is Little Rock's second oldest having started on April 15, 1954. KATV was the first beating KARK to the airwaves by almost five months. In 1966, its original owners sold the station to Mullins Broadcasting, the owner of KBTV (now KUSA-TV) in Denver. When John C. Mullins (owner of the company) died in 1969, the Mullins estate sold both stations in 1972 to Combined Communications which merged with the Gannett Company (which, ironically, currently owns rival station KTHV) seven years later. In 1983, Gannett sold KARK to Southwest Media, a subsidiary of United Broadcasting, a one-time owner of WMUR-TV in Manchester, New Hampshire which also owned KDBC-TV in El Paso, Texas and WTOK-TV in Meridian, Mississippi.
In 1988, United Broadcasting sold off all of its stations with KARK going to Morris Multimedia. In 2003, Morris Multimedia sold KARK and WDHN in Dothan, Alabama to Nexstar who eventually consolidated most sports operations from KARK with those of its sister stations in Northwest Arkansas: NBC affiliate KNWA-TV and Fox affiliate KFTA-TV. The two NBC affiliates additionally share certain news resources with some reports filed by KNWA personnel occasionally used during KARK broadcasts. Since 2007, the two stations have also co-produced a daily newscast at Noon Monday through Friday, Arkansas at Noon, with news anchors in Little Rock and Fayetteville.
In October 2008, Nexstar announced that it would purchase MyNetworkTV affiliate KWBF from Equity Media Holdings for $4 million. This purchase was granted Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval on December 23 of that year. However, although the purchase was to have been completed at the end of January 2009, its consummation was ultimately delayed nearly a month and a half until March 12. In the interim, Nexstar took over the operations of KWBF through a time brokerage agreement.
As of February 1, KWBF changed its calls to KARZ-TV and began airing an hour-long prime time newscast at 7 pm that is produced by KARK. MyNetworkTV programming airs one hour later (from 8 to 10 pm) than most other Central Time Zone affiliates. KARZ may also take on the responsibility as an alternate NBC affiliate by airing that network's programs when KARK cannot do so such as during a breaking news emergency.
Read more about this topic: KARK-TV
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