Affiliation shuffle

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Come New Year’s Day, Nexstar’s KBTV-TV will end a half-century-plus of affiliation with NBC and become the Fox outlet in the Beaumont-Port Arthur market. Still to be determined is just where the Peacock network will wind up. Fox is currently on an LPTV, KUIL-LP, owned by National Communications, which has full-power KVHP-TV as the Fox affiliate in the adjacent Lake Charles, LA market.


The official announcement from Nexstar is due out today. KBTV has had different call letters over the years, but the same network since it signed on in 1957. That’s about to change.

Will NBC move to the LPTV? That’s only one option. With DTV multicasting it could actually remain with Nexstar and those talks are ongoing. Also in the market, Freedom Communications owns full-power KFDM-TV, which has CBS plus a DTV multicast of The CW, McKinnon Broadcasting Company has full-power KBMT-TV as the ABC affiliate, and Minority Broadcasting Company has the MyNetworkTV affiliation on KLMY-LP.