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City | Fredericksburg, Texas |
Channels | |
Branding | KCWX |
Programming | |
Affiliations |
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Ownership | |
Owner | Corridor Television, L.L.P. |
History | |
Founded | May 15, 1998 |
First air date | August 3, 2000 |
Former call signs | KBEJ (2000–2006) |
Former channel number(s) |
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Call sign meaning | The CW Texas (former affiliation) |
Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
Facility ID | 24316 |
ERP |
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HAAT | 412 m (1,352 ft) |
Transmitter coordinates | 30°8′13.7″N 98°36′36.1″W / 30.137139°N 98.610028°W |
Translator(s) | |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Website | www |
KCWX (channel 2) is a television station licensed to Fredericksburg, Texas, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. Although Fredericksburg is within the Austin DMA, the station is officially assigned by Nielsen to the larger San Antonio market, and its signal covers the San Antonio and Bexar County area. KCWX is owned by Austin-based Corridor Television and maintains main studios in Austin on West Avenue. Its main transmitter is located on the Gillespie–Kendall county line, with additional transmitters in Austin and San Antonio.
Channel 2 was inserted into Fredericksburg in 1986, leading to a twelve-way battle for the allotment, which had the potential to serve Austin and San Antonio from one transmitter. In 1993, the Federal Communications Commission review board favored a consortium of former San Antonio Spurs owner Red McCombs and broadcast executive Bob Roth. Roth died in 1995 on a scouting trip near the proposed transmitter site. Appeals from the comparative hearing process continued until 1998, when the commission awarded the permit to Corridor Television, a merger of the McCombs–Roth group and a company owned by the Tawil family of Austin. The group contracted with the Belo Corporation, owner of TV stations in both cities, to run channel 2, which began broadcasting as a UPN affiliate on August 3, 2000. The station also served as a home for San Antonio Spurs basketball games in its first season on the air. The station struggled on several fronts. The station was carried on cable almost from the beginning in San Antonio but was not added for a full year in Austin. By then, the Spurs had moved their games off of KBEJ, citing issues with its signal in the San Antonio market and a decline in ratings.
UPN and The WB merged to form The CW in 2006. KBEJ changed its original sequential call sign to KCWX and became the CW affiliate in the San Antonio market. The new network also affiliated with Austin's ex-WB outlet, KNVA, leading to KCWX's removal from Austin cable systems. In 2010, Corridor lost the CW affiliation to KMYS of San Antonio, and Belo ceased programming the station. Since then, it has been a MyNetworkTV outlet.