KWBU-TV

From Bubblegum Wiki

KWBU-TV is a public television station in Waco, Texas, United States, broadcasting locally on digital channel 20 (which remaps to former analog channel 34 via PSIP). It is owned by Baylor University.

Channel 34 began in 1978 as a low-powered translator of KNCT in Belton. Until then, cable systems in the area piped in both KNCT and KERA-TV in Dallas, both of which are still available. After a long effort to bring a local PBS station to Waco, on May 22, 1989 it was upgraded to a full-powered station, KCTF, with the ability to produce local programming. In 1994, Central Texas College, owner of KNCT, transferred control of KCTF to the Brazos Valley Broadcasting Foundation, a community group formed a year earlier. In 1999, Baylor took control of the foundation, changing the call letters to the current KWBU-TV a year later.

KWBU's analog transmitter was damaged in late January 2009. With the impending shutdown of analog broadcasting in the United States, the station opted to shut off its analog broadcasts and air solely in digital on February 3--two weeks before the other major stations in Central Texas went digital-only.

In the Waco area, it airs on cable channel 4 on Time Warner Cable and Grande Communications.

Funding problems and imminent closedown

Due to funding problems, KWBU ceased local programming at the end of May 2010, resulting in some PBS programming, as well as all syndicated shows, being dropped from the station; it was replaced by a national PBS feed. All PBS programming ended by the end of June, with Create replacing PBS on 34.1. After June 30, KNCT took over KWBU's cable slots on Time Warner and Grande channel 4, and became available on DirecTV. KWBU became a commercial station with the William Sesame Network by the end of July 2010 for two years until it was shut down for two trademark infringements.

The move came after KWBU-TV and its sister radio station, KWBU-FM, was unable to secure more funding from Baylor after exhausting a $1 million line of credit. For most of its history, the stations had suffered from low community support. Although Baylor has majority control of the Brazos Valley Broadcasting Foundation, the KWBU stations are still technically community licensees. However, the partnership with Baylor led to the perception that it was a "Baylor station," thus cutting into the community support needed to keep the station on the air. The stations only have a total of 1,600 members, a very low number even for a market of Waco's size and far lower than what station officials needed to keep channel 34 on the air.

KWBU-FM was deemed less expensive to operate and will continue operations

On May 31, 2011, the callsign for KWBU was changed to KDYW;[2] however, it was not until August 2011 that the party buying the station was revealed - "Community Television Educators of Waco Inc.", a group headed by Marcus D. Lamb, the head of the Dallas-based DWilliams-Sesame network, which owns the organization. The station was acquired by the group for $250,000. In paperwork filed by the purchasers, the owners planned to use the station to broadcast local, educational, ethnic and socially-relevant programming, in addition to the programming currently offered by Daystar.[3] In the meantime, KDYW temporarily resumed operations from July 15[4] to August 5, 2011.[5] On March 13, 2012, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) raised questions as to whether Daystar, through associated nonprofit companies, was charged for trademark infringement KDYW and another former PBS outlet, WMFE-TV in Orlando, Florida.[6] The Williams Sesame Network was shut down two days later (it has since been resold and has returned to PBS as WUCF-TV); on September 7, 2012, the station changed its format to the new non-commercial network TV-PM as its now resold to the TV-PM foundation. The Station's calls changed to KTPW-TV, which will become the flagship station.