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KPNX, virtual and VHF digital channel 12, is an NBC-affiliated television station located in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, that is licensed to Mesa. The station is owned by Tegna, Inc.; KPNX shares offices with formerly co-owned newspaper ''The Arizona Republic'' on Van Buren Street in downtown Phoenix, although they have split after KPNX went to TEGNA, and its transmitter is located atop South Mountain on the city's south side. The station's programming is simulcast on satellite station KNAZ-TV, in Flagstaff, and is further relayed through a network of 14 low-power translators across northern and central Arizona. ==History== The station first signed on the air on April 23, 1953, as KTYL-TV; it was originally owned by the Harkins Theatre Group, which also owned KTYL radio (1490 AM, now KIHP on 1310, and 104.7 FM, now KZZP). The station's original studios were located in Mesa, the Phoenix area suburb that serves as the station's city of license. The station has been a full-time NBC affiliate since its sign-on, taking the affiliation from KPHO-TV (channel 5), which carried NBC programming as a secondary affiliation. Channel 12 carried some programming from the DuMont Television Network (an affiliation that was shared with KPHO) until that network's demise in 1956. John J. Louis, owner of KTAR radio (620 AM and 98.7 FM, now KMVP-FM), bought channel 12 in 1955 and changed its call letters to KVAR. The station then changed its callsign again four years later to KTAR-TV. Its operations were moved into a facility on Central Avenue in Phoenix in 1959, after the Federal Communications Commission began permitting television stations to operate their studio facilities outside of their city of license. Over the years, the Louis family bought several other broadcasting outlets, including WQXI-TV (now WXIA-TV) in Atlanta, Georgia and WPTA-TV in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Eventually, the Louis family's broadcasting interests became known as Pacific & Southern Broadcasting, which were headquartered in Phoenix with KTAR-AM-FM-TV as the company's flagship stations. Advertising mogul Karl Eller bought Pacific & Southern Broadcasting in 1968 and combined it with his existing business to form Combined Communications. Eller was also one of the original founding owners of the city's first major professional sports team, the National Basketball Association's Phoenix Suns. Channel 12 carried Suns games from the team's 1968 inception until the 1980s, when the game telecasts moved to then-independent station KNXV-TV (channel 15). KTAR-TV was the Phoenix pioneer of the so-called "happy talk" news format when it reformatted its newscasts under the ''Action News'' format in late 1973, with longtime anchor Ray Thompson paired alongside Bob Hughes, weatherman Dewey Hopper (most recently with Air America Radio affiliate KPHX, and a longtime weather forecaster in Sacramento) and sportscaster Ted Brown. Combined Communications merged with Gannett in 1979, in what was at that time the largest media merger in United States history. Combined's ownership of the KTAR stations had been grandfathered earlier in the decade, when the Federal Communications Commission forbade common ownership of television and radio stations in the same market. However, with the Gannett merger, the KTAR cluster lost its grandfathered protection. Gannett opted to keep channel 12 and sell off the radio stations. The station then changed its callsign to KPNX on September 17, 1979 since the radio properties had held the KTAR call letters first. The station had placed third in the Nielsen ratings for many years behind ABC affiliate KTVK (channel 3) and CBS affiliate KTSP (channel 10, now Fox owned-and-operated station KSAZ-TV). That soon changed in December 1994, when four of the major English-language commercial stations in Phoenix all changed their network affiliations. Coupled with a resurgent NBC, KPNX surged past KTVK to the top of the ratings, where it has remained ever since, only wavering as NBC has experienced its own ratings troubles since the 2004–05 television season. As it retained its NBC affiliation while KPHO, KTVK, KSAZ-TV and KNXV all swapped affiliations (ABC from KTVK to KNXV, CBS from KSAZ to KPHO and Fox from KNXV to KSAZ with KTVK becoming an independent station after a short-lived affiliation with The WB), KPNX is the only major English-language commercial television station in Phoenix to have never changed its primary network affiliation. In 2000, Gannett merged with Central Newspapers, owner of ''The Arizona Republic''. As the FCC forbids the common ownership of newspapers and television stations in the same market, Gannett would have been forced to sell off either KPNX or the ''Republic'', however the FCC granted Gannett a "permanent" waiver to keep both media properties. Gannett's ownership of KPNX and the ''Republic'' was a factor in their acquisition of the Belo Corporation, owner of KTVK and KASW, in 2013; Belo's Phoenix properties had to be divested to the Meredith Corporation and SagamoreHill Broadcasting (KASW has since been sold to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group). Any further issues will be averted, however, once Gannett splits its publishing assets into their own company in the near future. In January 2011, KPNX relocated from its Central Avenue facility, and consolidated its operations with the ''Republic'' at the Republic Media Building on East Van Buren Street in downtown Phoenix, with the station's local newscasts broadcasting from a streetside studio.〔(Local stations debut new shows; KPNX moving to downtown studio ), ''Phoenix Business Journal'', October 10, 2010.〕 On June 29, 2015, the Gannett Company split in two, with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media. KPNX was retained by the latter company, named TEGNA. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「KPNX」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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