KPDX - History

History

KPDX launched on October 9, 1983, as a general entertainment station, airing a number of cartoons, sitcoms, old movies, drama shows, and religious shows. It was originally licensed under the call letters KLRK, but the station changed to the present calls prior to launch. The station was bought by First Media in the mid-1980s. Even though then-rival KPTV was easily the market's leading independent station, KPDX still received decent ratings.

KPDX gained the Fox Network affiliation on August 29, 1988, after KPTV disaffiliated from the network. The station began to add more talk and children's programs in the 1990s. The station, along with WHNS in Greenville, South Carolina, was acquired by Meredith Corporation in 1997.

Meredith acquired KPTV in 2002 following a station swap with Fox Television Stations, Inc. in exchange for WOFL in Orlando, Florida (and its satellite WOGX in Ocala). This resulted in the first "duopoly" operation in the Portland TV market, and precipitated an affiliation switch on September 2 in which the market's Fox affiliation went to KPTV (the higher-rated station of the two), and the UPN affiliation went to KPDX. However, Fox's Saturday morning lineup remained on KPDX, where it continued to air under the title 4Kids TV until its shutdown on December 27, 2008.

On January 24, 2006, the UPN and WB networks announced they would merge into a new network, to be called The CW. The merger would take effect on-the-air in September 2006, and WB station KWBP (now KRCW-TV), owned by the Tribune Company, became the CW's Portland affiliate. One month later, Fox announced that it would form a new network, MyNetworkTV, and on March 9, 2006, it was announced that KPDX would switch affiliations to the new network.

KPDX dropped the UPN branding on April 1, 2006, by changing its name from UPN 49 to PDX 49, and adopted a new logo in the process. This change of branding had been planned before UPN's shutdown was announced, but the timing of the change was convenient for the upcoming affiliation switch. KPDX's move mirrored those implemented at future MyNetworkTV stations WDCA in Washington, D.C. (DCA 20) and KUTP in Phoenix (PHX 45), which began using the station's last three letters as station branding. KPDX is one of nine MyNetworkTV affiliates not to adopt the network's "blue TV" logo and/or branding style (the others being KTRV, KCWX, KAUT, KARZ-TV, WSTR-TV, sister station KSMO-TV, WPME-TV, and Madison, Wisconsin's Digital subchannel of WISC-TV). Since joining MyNetworkTV, KPDX has become responsible for carrying Fox network programs whenever KPTV cannot in the event of an emergency.

On September 8, 2008, KPDX moved MyNetworkTV programming from 8-10 p.m. to 9-11 p.m., making it one of five MyNetworkTV stations at the time not to air the network programming in its normal 8-10 p.m. timeslot. (KEVU-LP in Eugene, KRON-TV in San Francisco, KQCA in Sacramento (which has since moved MyNetworkTV programming back to its normal 8-10 p.m. timeslot), and KMYQ (now KZJO) in Seattle were the others). Concurrent with the schedule change and in anticipation of the station's 25th anniversary, KPDX's on-air brand was modified from 'PDX 49' to 'PDX TV'.