KTXA - History

History

KTXA began broadcasting on October 6, 1980, and was owned by Grant Broadcasting, with its original studios based in Arlington, Texas (though Fort Worth was always the city of license) near the new Rangers Ballpark. The station ran a general entertainment format of cartoons and sitcoms during the day, while at night it broadcast ONTV, a subscription TV service. By 1983, KTXA became a full-time general entertainment station which also included old movies and off network dramas. The channel 21 frequency had previously been occupied by KFWT, an independent station which went on the air in 1967, but went dark three years later.

Grant Broadcasting signed on a similarly formatted station, KTXH in Houston, in 1982. In 1984, both KTXA and KTXH were sold to Gulf Broadcasting, which itself was purchased by the Taft Television and Radio Company that same year.

Channel 21 was a money loser throughout the 1980s, but Taft kept strong programming on the station (including Hanna-Barbera cartoons and other programs owned by Taft and distributed by Worldvision Enterprises). In February 1987 Taft sold its independent stations, including KTXA, to the TVX Broadcast Group. In 1989, Paramount Pictures purchased a minority stake in TVX; two years later, Paramount acquired the remainder of TVX and renamed the company Paramount Stations Group, and KTXA adopted the on-air branding Paramount 21 during this period. Viacom bought the stations in 1994 as part of its purchase of Paramount Pictures. In January 1995, the station became a founding affiliate of the United Paramount Network, changing its branding to UPN 21. KTXA later picked up various syndicated programs from KTVT when that station, a former independent, joined CBS in July 1995.

From 1985 to 1989, KTXA operated the "Channel 21 Kids' Club." Kids were encouraged in short spots between cartoons to send off for a membership card which would entitle them to discounts at various local businesses and enable them to participate in on-air prize giveaways. The membership cards were made of a thin plastic, blue on the front side and white on the back. A "KTXA Channel 21 Kids' Club" Logo appeared on the front in red and white along with the line "I turned 21." The hostess of these shorts, K.D. Fox, was later featured in many other local promotions for various businesses in the DFW area.

In the late 1990s, more first run syndicated talk and reality shows, such as Forgive or Forget and Ricki Lake, began moving onto KTXA while the amount of sitcoms and cartoons were reduced. Viacom purchased CBS in 2000, making channel 21 a sister station to its former rival KTVT. KTXA was then moved from the Paramount Building in downtown Dallas to share studios with KTVT in Fort Worth (both are two of three stations licensed to Fort Worth, the other being NBC-owned KXAS-TV).

For a brief period in the early 2000s, KTXA served as the de facto UPN affiliate for the Waco/Killeen/Temple television market when former affiliate KAKW became a Univision station for that market and Austin market as well.

In September 2006, the UPN and WB networks were merged into The CW, and former WB affiliate KDAF and Fox-owned KDFI became the CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates in Dallas/Fort Worth, respectively. Having been reverted to independent status, KTXA joined KCAL-TV in Los Angeles and WSBK-TV in Boston (another former UPN outlet) as CBS-owned independents at the time. WSBK joined MyNetworkTV in September 2011 while CBS purchased independent station WLNY-TV in Riverhead, New York in 2012.

Channel 21's new branding was announced in two parts, starting with the introduction of the TXA 21 slogan on May 5, 2006. KTXA then launched a promotional ad campaign called "What Could it Mean?" in which a distinctive star-shaped logo showed up on buildings, sidewalks, and billboards around the Metroplex. The new KTXA logo (seen above) was unveiled on July 4. The station's website also revealed that the station plans to begin covering high school football games in the fall.

KTXA is the only station among the six originally owned by Paramount Stations Group to be owned by CBS today. The others were sold off between 1994 and 2001, now owned either by News Corporation or Sinclair Broadcast Group.