History
KVKM-TV
Two groups competed for channel 9, which in west Texas was initially allocated to the community of Monahans, Texas, southwest of Odessa. In 1957, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received two applications, which were placed in comparative hearing. The next year, the KMPS Broadcasting Company, associated with KMID-TV in Midland, withdrew its application, clearing the way for Tri-Cities Broadcasting Company to receive the construction permit. Tri-Cities Broadcasting consisted of John B. Walton and his wife Helen, as well as Ross Rucker, the general manager of Monahans radio station KVKM (1340 AM; now KCKM 1330).[2][3] While it was initially proposed to build the tower at Pyote, a site six miles (9.7 km) north of Monahans was ultimately selected to house the transmitter facility for KVKM-TV.[4] By the time a contract had been awarded to construct the station in September, KVKM-TV had signed for an affiliation with ABC.[5]
KVKM-TV began broadcasting on December 1, 1958.[6] In addition to broadcasting to such cities as Midland, Fort Stockton, and Eunice, New Mexico, cable systems carried the new station's signal as far as Hobbs, New Mexico, and Alpine, Texas. Among the station's first local programs was a Friday night dance party show.[7] From 1961 to 1963, KVLF-TV (channel 12) in Alpine operated as an ABC affiliate; reckoned by national advertising publications as a satellite station of KVKM-TV,[8] it did not air all of the Monahans station's programming.[9][10]
In 1962, KVKM-TV applied for and was granted permission to move its transmitter to a new site 17 miles (27 km) northeast of Kermit, Texas, atop the Caprock, which would be the highest transmitter site in the state east of El Paso. This site, activated the next year, improved the station's signal in the comparatively populous Odessa–Midland area.[3][11]
Walton acquired KAVE-TV, a television station in Carlsbad, New Mexico, in 1966. At the same time, Rucker, who was no longer a part-owner of KVKM-TV but continued to manage KVKM radio,[3] purchased the associated KAVE radio station in Carlsbad.[12] By November, local programming had disappeared from KAVE-TV, which began to rebroadcast KVKM-TV.[13][14]
KMOM-TV
The death of John B. Walton in 1967 came after his son, John B. Walton, Jr., had taken over the family's broadcasting properties.[15] KVKM radio was sold to Rucker, while a television station construction permit in Lubbock was also sold off.[16]
In 1968, Walton announced the sale of KVKM-TV to Grayson Enterprises, which already owned KWAB, a CBS affiliate in Big Spring, east of Odessa and Midland. The call letters were changed to KMOM-TV (Monahans–Odessa–Midland[17]) on March 15, 1969,[3] and Grayson began an 11-year ownership tenure beset with problems. (Walton retained KAVE-TV, which switched to rebroadcasting another Walton-owned ABC affiliate, KELP-TV in El Paso.[14]) In December 1969, citing economic issues with making the KMOM–KWAB business a viable one, Grayson converted KWAB to rebroadcasting KMOM-TV; while this brought color advertising and an improved network signal to the Big Spring area, the move was unpopular with Big Spring business interests and violated commitments Grayson had made to the FCC at the time of the purchase.[18] Grayson also sought to leave Monahans. In 1970, remodeling plans were made for an Odessa building that would house KMOM-TV's operations.[19] However, when the station filed to move its main studio in 1972, KOSA-TV objected, and the station had the proposal dismissed after nearly a year.[3]
More serious problems were on the horizon. In 1974, KMOM-TV filed for the renewal of its broadcast license. Midland Telecasting Company, which operated the short-lived KDCD-TV (channel 18) in Midland, filed a petition to deny the renewal with the FCC. Midland Telecasting had sued Grayson, the owners of KMID-TV and KOSA-TV, cable systems in Midland and Odessa, and other parties for what it alleged was a conspiracy to shut the company out of the broadcasting industry.[20] It also charged that Grayson had falsified program logs and engaged in "clipping", a practice whereby local commercials covered up national advertisements or were added on top of national network programs.[21] In June 1977, the FCC designated the license renewals of all four Grayson television properties—KMOM-TV and KWAB, KTXS-TV in Sweetwater, and KLBK-TV in Lubbock—for hearing, with the primary issues being KMOM-TV's program logs and a possible unapproved move of the KTXS-TV studios from Sweetwater to Abilene.[22]
A then-new FCC policy known as the "distress sale" came into play. In a distress sale, stations facing license renewal challenges could be sold to minority-controlled groups at a reduced price. In October 1978, the administrative law judge in the Grayson hearings stayed proceedings and allowed the company to begin seeking a qualified buyer.[21] Grayson announced the sale of KMOM-TV and KWAB, along with the Sweetwater and Lubbock stations, to Silver Star Communications, a Black-owned company, in April 1979.[23][24] However, Silver Star—which changed its name to Prima, Inc., to resolve a conflict with another company—decided instead to look for another minority buyer for the Monahans and Big Spring stations.[25]
The distress sale was also complicated by another minority group that was trying to buy KMOM-TV, KWAB, and KTXS-TV. Austin-based Manchaca Enterprises, headed by former U.S. representative Barbara Jordan, intervened in the case in part because guidance around the new distress sale policy had not been fully formulated. It believed that Prima, in presenting a $15 million bid for the stations, had offered too much money, something not permitted for a distress sale; Manchaca had consulted with Joe Allbritton, a television station owner in Washington, D.C., who had suggested that they lower their original bid, and one of its members, Stanley McClellan, specifically cited the need for significant equipment investments in Monahans and Big Spring.[26] Midland Telecasting also objected to the high sale price.[27] The sale application was still pending at the FCC by February 1980, when Grayson pleaded to the commission to approve its bids to sell KTXS-TV and KLBK-TV to Prima and KMOM-TV and KWAB to Permian Basin Television Corporation, a consortium of Mexican American businessmen from Albuquerque, New Mexico. New urgency was given to the sale of the television stations when Mercantile National Bank of Dallas, a major creditor of Grayson Enterprises, informed the FCC that it would foreclose on the stations by April 1 if they were not sold.[27]
KTPX
The FCC approved the Permian Basin Television Corporation purchase of KMOM-TV and KWAB on March 28, 1980; when combined with another distress sale approved that same day, the number of Hispanic-owned TV stations in the United States went from one to four.[28] After the sale took effect on July 1, the new ownership set out to improve stations in dire need of aid.[29] The call letters on KMOM-TV changed on October 20, 1980,[3] to KTPX, representing "Television for the Petroplex".[30] Further, Permian Basin Television successfully applied to move KTPX from Monahans to Odessa,[3] relocating to studios near the airport. These improvements, however, were not enough to lift the station out of third place in market television ratings. In 1982, ABC moved its affiliation to KMID-TV, with KTPX assuming the NBC affiliation.[31][32] During this time, Brian Wilson, later of Fox News, was a reporter for the station.[33]
Permian Basin Television sold the station to MSP Television in a transaction that took effect in January 1986. MSP was named for its owners, all officers in San Francisco-based Chronicle Broadcasting: Francis A. Martin III, James H. Smith, and Glen E. Pickell.[34] However, the company was unable to satisfy its lenders. In November 1987, KTPX was placed into receivership by Toronto-Dominion Bank, with sliding advertising revenues due to a poor economy and a lingering poor reputation from the KMOM-TV years cited as causes.[35]
KWES-TV
In 1991, four years of receivership finally ended when Drewry Communications made a winning $4.8 million bid for KTPX. For Drewry, it was a return to the Permian Basin market, as he had been the majority owner of KMID-TV until 1985.[36][37]
Drewry drew on its connections at KMID as it started to rebuild the station. It lured general manager John Foster, a KMID employee of 32 years, to KTPX by offering him an equity position.[38] Over the next two years, the new ownership invested $1.35 million in capital improvements, including a satellite newsgathering truck and a new news set, and the title of the stations' newscasts was changed to NewsWest 9 in July 1992.[39] The call sign was changed to KWES-TV on August 16, 1993; by the time that Drewry Communications founder Ransom H. Drewry died in January 1994, station personnel credited his ownership with revitalizing channel 9.[40]
Drewry's expansion in the Permian Basin market grew to include Hispanic media. Telemundo had been broadcast to the Odessa area by translator K60EE since February 1991.[41] Drewry assumed operations of the Telemundo station (now KTLE-LD) in 2000, and in March 2001, it debuted the first full-length Spanish-language local newscast in the market.[42] The next year, the company acquired KTXC (104.7 FM), a station in Lamesa airing a Regional Mexican format, to add to its Hispanic media portfolio.[43]
Drewry had planned to sell its stations to London Broadcasting in 2008;[44] however, by January 2009, the deal fell through.[45] It was another six years before the company sold its broadcasting portfolio to Raycom Media for $160 million in 2015.[46] The sale was completed on December 1.[47]
Raycom announced a $3.6 billion merger[48] into Atlanta-based Gray Television, owner of KOSA-TV, on June 25, 2018.[49][50] Gray opted to retain KOSA-TV as well as KWAB, KTLE, and The CW affiliation (which had aired on a subchannel of KWES since 2014)[51] and sold KWES-TV, along with WTOL in Toledo, Ohio, to Tegna Inc. for $105 million.[52] KWAB was subsequently converted to KCWO-TV, carrying CW+ programming with a simulcast on KOSA-TV's second digital subchannel.[53][54] The sale was completed on January 2, 2019.[55]
