CBS moving to KVLY Fargo subchannel; KXJB to go dark?

From northpine.com:

The CBS-TV affiliation in Fargo will move to a subchannel, Gray TV announced Friday, matching moves made in two other markets.

The announcement came as Gray closed on its purchase of NBC affiliate KVLY-TV/11.1 (Fargo), along with several other stations in the Dakotas and Nebraska, from Hoak Media. Gray said it would assume Hoak's agreement to operate Parker Broadcasting CBS affiliate KXJB/4.1 (Valley City-Fargo), but that the CBS affiliation would move to a KVLY subchannel within the next few months, pending network approval.

KXJB will then go silent and Gray will work with the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council to find a minority-owned, female-owned, or non-profit organization to buy KXJB. The same applies to KHAS-TV/5.1 (Hastings), KNDX/26 (Bismarck), and KXND/24 (Minot), which all went silent Friday after their programming was moved to Gray stations.

Gray also confirmed that it bought almost all of the non-license assets of KHAS-TV from Hoak and hired KHAS-TV's employees; a similar announcement about buying the assets of KNDX/KXND had already been made.

Gray had originally planned to operate the stations under shared services agreements with Excalibur Broadcasting, which was buying the stations, but the company said Friday the deals have been abandoned amid increased FCC scrutiny of joint sales and shared services agreements.

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Knew something bad was going to happen to this station. KVLY has managed the whole thing for years now. Just like WSTM taking 100% of WTVH in Syracuse. Sad state of local TV. I'm sure someone like Trinity Broadcasting or Daystar would love to take over KXJB, just like what Daystar did to KDTN in Dallas about 10 years ago. Maybe TPT or KAWE in Bemidji will purchase KXJB and make it a PBS station for Moorhead.

-crainbebo

KXJB's transmitter was turned off last night (11/30), its programming continues to air on KVLY-DT2.
http://www.valleynewslive.com/home/headlines/284288191.html

The towers for KVLY and KXJB are the two tallest structures in North America, and for a time, each was the tallest structure in the world. I'm sure it's very expensive to maintain two of these 2000+ foot towers. Both stations originally served as the ABC and CBS outlets for Winnipeg, Canada's #5 TV market. So that was an added reason for building those tall towers, trying to get a good signal over the border to be picked up by Canadian cable companies. Now Winnipeg cable uses Minneapolis and Detroit network affiliates via satellite. Since there's no reason to maintain the two tallest structures in North America, I can see why they'd want to get rid of one of them.

According to Wikipedia, KVLY Fargo, originally Channel 11, has a 2063 foot tower in Blanchard, North Dakota, which was the tallest structure in the world when it was built and remains the tallest in the U.S. today. Nearby, KXJB Valley City, originally Channel 4, has a tower that is three feet shorter. When it was completed, workers put a four foot flagpole on top, temporarily making the KXJB tower the world's tallest structure. Both towers are more than 600 feet taller than the Empire State Building. The FAA and FCC now discourage the construction of broadcasting towers taller than 2000 feet.

Putting two network affiliates on the same channel, one as X.1 and one as X.2, is not a big deal. Anyone getting their TV signals over the air still has the same access, even if the two stations share a channel. Obviously these two signals are equal so nobody will lose either station. And to cable/satellite subscribers, they'll never notice it.