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KBSI

Cape Girardeau, Missouri Paducah, Kentucky Harrisburg, Illinois United States
City	Cape Girardeau, Missouri
Channels	Digital: 36 (UHF) Virtual: 23
Branding	Fox 23
Programming
Affiliations	23.1: Fox 23.2: MyNetworkTV for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Community News Media (Paducah Television License LLC)
Sister stations	WDKA
History
Founded	June 1, 1982 (42 years ago) (1982-06-01)
First air date	September 10, 1983 (41 years ago) (1983-09-10)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 23 (UHF, 1983–2009) Digital: 22 (UHF, 2001–2019)
Former affiliations	Independent (1983–1987) ABC (NYPD Blue only, 1993–94)
Call sign meaning	Station's coverage area of Kentucky, the (Missouri) Bootheel, and Southern Illinois
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	19593
ERP	1,000 kW
HAAT	543 m (1,781 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	37°24′23″N 89°33′44″W / 37.40639°N 89.56222°W / 37.40639; -89.56222
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	kbsi23.com

KBSI (channel 23) is a television station licensed to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for Southeastern Missouri, the Purchase area of Western Kentucky, Southern Illinois, and Northwest Tennessee. It is owned by the Community News Media subsidiary of Standard Media alongside Paducah, Kentucky–licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate WDKA (channel 49). The two stations share studios on Enterprise Street in Cape Girardeau; KBSI's transmitter is located in unincorporated Cape Girardeau County north of the city.

History

The station signed on the air on September 10, 1983, as an independent station and aired an analog signal on UHF channel 23. The station was originally owned by Cape Girardeau Family Television, Ltd., in turn 51 percent owned by Media Central of Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was not the first independent to operate in the market—two stations broadcast in southern Illinois, and a prior attempt had been made at an independent in Paducah—but it was the first to cover all of it, which was the reason Media Central had been attracted to the area.

Media Central filed for bankruptcy in 1987 to fend off a hostile takeover attempt. That same year, despite having passed on the opportunity a year prior, KBSI joined Fox on September 7, in part because of the Media Central bankruptcy. Media Central continued to own the station until a bankruptcy judge approved its acquisition by Engles Communications, owned by David Engles, a former Warner Bros. and NBC radio executive. Under Engles, KBSI picked up the first season of NYPD Blue when ABC affiliate WSIL-TV refused to air the show.

Engles then sold the station to Max Television (later Max Media Properties) in 1995. In 1998, Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired most of the Max Media Properties stations, including KBSI; it owned KBSI and later WDKA in Paducah until both were sold to Community News Media for $28 million in a transaction that closed in 2021.

Newscasts

From 2006 to September 30, 2010, NBC affiliate WPSD-TV (owned by the Paxton Media Group) produced a nightly prime time newscast for KBSI through a news share agreement. When the WPSD newscast started, KBSI competed with another nightly half-hour newscast at 9 p.m. on the area's low-powered CW affiliates WQTV-LP/WQWQ-LP. That newscast, produced by CBS affiliate KFVS-TV, focused on news from southeastern Missouri and was eventually canceled on July 29, 2007.

On October 1, 2010, KBSI entered into a new agreement with KFVS to produce the newscast, which expanded to an hour in length. This agreement ended in March 2022 with KFVS moving the newscast to KFVS-DT2. On March 28, 2022, KBSI debuted its own newscast, produced out of Lincoln, Nebraska, at sister station KLKN. The news and weather anchors are based in Lincoln while the reporters work out of the KBSI studios in Cape Girardeau.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

KBSI shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 23, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 22, using virtual channel 23.

References

1. "Application for Consent to Assignment of Broadcast Station Construction Permit or License". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. November 12, 2020. Retrieved November 16, 2020.
2. "Facility Technical Data for KBSI". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
3. Monroe, Cathy A. (September 11, 1983). "KBSI-TV: Another station cranks up Monday". Southern Illinoisan. p. 1. Retrieved August 14, 2021.
4. Nash, Francis M. (1995). Towers Over Kentucky: A History of Radio and TV in the Bluegrass State. p. 310. ISBN 9781879688933.
5. Stackhouse, Ben (May 5, 1983). "New Cape independent UHF station goes on air in July". The Paducah Sun. p. B-9. Retrieved August 14, 2021.
6. "Parent company of Cape station in bankruptcy". The Paducah Sun. July 9, 1987. p. A10. Retrieved August 14, 2021.
7. DeWitte, Dave (August 7, 1986). "Joan Rivers' network won't be carried locally". Southern Illinoisan. p. 17. Retrieved August 14, 2021.
8. "KBSI to air Fox Network programs". The Paducah Sun. August 5, 1987. p. A12. Retrieved August 14, 2021.
9. Weil, Nancy (August 16, 1987). "KBSI joins Fox; debuts Sept. 7". Southern Illinoisan. p. Television 2. Retrieved August 5, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
10. Gardner, Bruce (February 15, 1990). "KBSI-TV under new ownership". The Paducah Sun. Retrieved August 14, 2021.
11. Morgan, Lucinda (September 23, 1993). "Fox station to air 'NYPD'". The Southern Illinoisan. p. 3A. Retrieved August 14, 2021.
12. "KBSI sold to Virginia company". The Paducah Sun. March 24, 1995. p. 6A. Retrieved August 14, 2021.
13. Jacobson, Adam (January 20, 2021). "FCC OK's Sinclair Duo's Spin To Soo Kim". Radio and Television Business Report. Retrieved August 14, 2021.
14. Moyers, Scott. "WPSD, KBSI to take on KFVS12's 9 p.m. newscast". The Southeast Missourian. Retrieved August 14, 2021.
15. Sanders, Matt (August 2, 2007). "KFVS drops 9 p.m. news". The Southeast Missourian. Archived from the original on August 21, 2007. Retrieved August 14, 2021.
16. "RabbitEars TV Query for KBSI". RabbitEars.info. Retrieved December 9, 2024.
17. "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.

External links

• KBSI "Fox 23"
• WDKA
• KFVS-TV

• Fox Broadcasting Company affiliates
• 1982 establishments in Missouri
• Bounce TV affiliates
• Comet (TV network) affiliates
• Ion Plus affiliates
• MyNetworkTV affiliates
• Television channels and stations established in 1982
• Television stations in the Paducah–Cape Girardeau–Harrisburg market