KUPX

KUPX is a full-service television station licensed to Provo, Utah and serving the Salt Lake City market. It is owned and operated by ION Media Networks, formerly Paxson Communications, and owners of the ION Television network. The station broadcasts in analog on UHF channel 16, in digital on UHF channel 29 and is rebroadcast on two translator stations in southern Idaho.

History

There are two methods of accounting the station's history: by license and by "intellectual unit", which is the combination of a station's call letters, programming, network affiliation and staff. As the result of 1998 Local Marketing Agreements (LMAs), which launched a process that culminated in a station swap in 1999, the KUPX license history differs from the intellectual unit history prior to April 21, 1998.

License history

On April 24, 1985, the FCC granted an original construction permit to build a full-power television station on UHF channel 16 to serve the city of Provo, Utah, and the Salt Lake City television market. The new station, originally owned by Morro Rock Resources, Inc., was given the call letters KZAR-TV, then was sold to Royal Television of Utah, Inc. in October 1985. Royal Television had considerable difficulty in constructing the station, as evidenced by several applications to change transmitter location and several construction permit extensions, and even replacements of expired construction permits. In 1988, the station’s callsign was deleted, then restored four months later. In July 1990, Royal Television applied to replace the construction permit that was to expire the following month. The application was not granted until February 1996, more than five years later. In September 1995, Roberts Broadcasting agreed to buy the station from Royal Broadcasting, and the deal was consummated in May 1996. In February 1996, the same day that the FCC approved the sale of the station from Royal Television to Roberts Broadcasting, Paxson Communications sent a proposal to Roberts Broadcasting to acquire a 50% share in the station. The proposal was unsuccessful.

On August 22, 1997, ACME Communications agreed to acquire a 49% stake in KZAR-TV, with an agreement to purchase the other 51% once the television station was on the air. The CEO and co-founder of ACME, Jamie Kellner, was also co-founder and at the time, CEO of The WB Television Network (The WB), so it was natural that KZAR-TV would affiliate with The WB. In February 1998, KZAR-TV changed its call letters KUWB in anticipation of the upcoming WB affiliation.

On April 20, 1998, Paxson entered into an agreement with Roberts Broadcasting and ACME Communications where each station would acquire the other's assets, but WB programming would remain on channel 30. To expedite the process, the parties immediately entered into Local Marketing Agreements (LMAs), whereby the stations would swap call signs and would begin to operate each other’s stations until the FCC could approve the assignments of license. The following day, the stations executed the LMAs. KUPX channel 30 of Ogden became KUWB 30 and KUWB channel 16 of Provo became KUPX 16. Roberts and ACME continued to own the Provo station, now KUPX, but operated the new Provo station, KUPX. Meanwhile, Roberts and ACME continued to own KUPX, but operated KUWB. Two days following the execution of the LMAs, KUPX applied for a license for channel 16 Provo and the station became operational. The license was approved by the FCC on May 29, 1998. Paxson and Roberts Broadcasting/ACME filed formal assignment of license applications in May 1998 and the FCC approved the swap in March 1999. ACME Communications followed through on its agreement to acquire the remaining 51% of KUPX in November 1998 and the deal was consummated in February 1999. ACME and Paxson consummated the station swap agreement in September 1999 and took full ownership of the stations that they had already been operating under the LMAs.

Originally, KUPX was an outlet for inTV, a shopping and infomercial network owned by Paxson Communications, but on August 28, 1998, Paxson launched a family network called Pax TV, and KUPX became a Pax TV station, airing network programming 14 hours per day on weekdays, 13 hours on Saturdays and ten hours on Sundays. KUPX aired programming from The Worship Network during the overnight hours. The remainder of the non-network programming was devoted to infomercials and religious programs. The new network was not as successful as hoped for and in mid-1999, Pax TV ended an hour-long weekday morning show. A three-hour Saturday morning children’s and educational block disappeared in 2000. By 2002, the network had cut down to nine hours on weekdays and seven hours on weekends, and by 2004, network programming was six hours a day during the late afternoon and primetime, with the remainder of the programming day mostly given to infomercials.

By 2005, the network’s syndicated programming had gone over to other networks, and its first-run programming was ended. Later in 2005, Paxson Communications became ION Media Networks and Pax TV became the i Network. Network programming shrunk to five hours a day, between 5PM and 10PM, and the rest of the programming day was infomercials and religious programming. The network again renamed itself to ION Television on January 29, 2007.

KUPX intellectual unit history prior to the swap

The KUPX intellectual unit began September 6, 1996, when Paxson Communications agreed to acquire channel 30, then known as KOOG-TV, from Alpha & Omega Communications LLC. The station had previously been the WB affiliate in the Salt Lake City, and Paxson continued that affiliation, but also replaced HSN programming with Paxson’s infomercial network, inTV, and religious programming. KOOG-TV changed call letters to KUPX in February 1998, and the intellectual unit moved over to channel 16 in April 1998, when ACME Communications and Roberts Broadcasting, co-owners of channel 16, and Paxson Communications, owners of channel 30, agreed to allow each other to manage their stations leading up to the station swap, which was completed in September 1999.

Programming

During the second half of 2006, the i Network has begun a transformation away from a network of mostly infomercials by adding new syndicated programming during primetime hours, however paid programming still dominates the KUPX schedule as of November 2006.

Digital Television

On April 3, 1997, the FCC adopted its Sixth Report and Order

, establishing digital television service allotments

In the initial allotment, the FCC assigned UHF channel 29 for KOOG-DT, the companion channel to UHF channel 30 in Ogden, later to become KUPX-DT. In the station swap, which was initiated in April 1998, the allocation for KUPX-DT was treated as part of the KUPX intellectual unit, and became the companion channel for Provo UHF channel 16, although channel 29 was still officially assigned to Ogden in the Digital Table of Allotments. Paxson Communications filed an application for KUPX-DT in July 1998. As part of a significant reallocation of DTV stations approved by the FCC in May 2000

, the city of license for KUPX-DT officially moved from Ogden to Provo in the DTV Table of Allotments. The FCC granted a construction permit to build KUPX-DT in March 1999 and Paxson Communications applied for a license for the DTV station in May 2002, which the FCC granted on November 7, 2002. As of November 2006, KUPX-DT broadcasts two feeds, a simulcast of analog station KUPX on 16.1, and The Worship Network on 16.3. KUPX also plans to add qubo, a children's channel featuring E/I-compliant programming, on channel 16.2 in early 2007.