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KARK-TV, virtual channel 4 (UHF digital channel 32), is a NBC-affiliated television station located in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. The station is owned by the Nexstar Broadcasting Group, as part of a duopoly with MyNetworkTV affiliate KARZ-TV (channel 42); Nexstar also operates Fox affiliate KLRT-TV (channel 16) and CW affiliate KASN (channel 38) under a shared services agreement with owner Mission Broadcasting. All four stations share studio facilities located on West Capitol Avenue in Downtown Little Rock, one block east of the Arkansas State Capitol; KARK maintains transmitter facilities located on Shinall Mountain, near the Chenal Valley section of the city. On cable, the station is available on Comcast Xfinity channel 5 in standard definition and digital channel 232 in high definition. ==History== The station first signed on the air on April 15, 1954; KARK is Little Rock's second-oldest continuously operating television station, after KATV (channel 7), which beat KARK to the air by almost five months. In 1966, the station's original owners sold KARK to Mullins Broadcasting, then-owner of KBTV (now KUSA) in Denver, Colorado. After the company's owner John C. Mullins died in 1969, the Mullins estate sold both KBTV and KARK to Combined Communications in 1972; Combined's television station properties would eventually be acquired by the Gannett Company seven years later in 1979, in what was the largest media merger in United States history at the time. In 1983, Gannett sold KARK to Southwest Media, a subsidiary of United Broadcasting, a one-time owner of WMUR-TV in Manchester, New Hampshire and also owner of KDBC-TV in El Paso, Texas and WTOK-TV in Meridian, Mississippi; Gannett would re-enter the Little Rock-Pine Bluff market when it acquired rival CBS affiliate KTHV (channel 11) from the Arkansas Television Company in December 1994. United Broadcasting sold off its television station properties in 1988, KARK was then sold to Morris Multimedia. In 2003, Morris Multimedia sold KARK as well as WDHN in Dothan, Alabama to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group, which eventually consolidated most of KARK's sports operations with those of its sister stations in Northwest Arkansas, NBC affiliate KNWA-TV and Fox affiliate KFTA-TV. In October 2008, Nexstar Broadcasting announced that it would purchase MyNetworkTV affiliate KWBF (channel 42) from Equity Media Holdings for $4 million. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the purchase on December 23 of that year. However, although the purchase was slated to be finalized at the end of January 2009, its consummation was ultimately delayed nearly a month and a half until March 12. In the interim, Nexstar took over the operations of KWBF through a time brokerage agreement; that station's call letters were changed to KARZ-TV on February 1, 2009. On July 19, 2012, Newport Television reached a deal to sell 22 of its 27 stations to Nexstar Broadcasting Group, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Cox Media Group. KLRT-TV and KASN were among the twelve that were acquired by Nexstar. However, since Nexstar already owned KARK and KARZ and in order to comply with FCC regulations prohibiting common ownership between two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market, KLRT and KASN were instead transferred to Mission Broadcasting, a company which is involved in several local marketing agreements and joint sales agreements with Nexstar-owned stations in other markets where Nexstar itself is legally prohibited from owning multiple television stations.〔(Newport Sells 22 Stations For $1 Billion ), ''TVNewsCheck'', July 19, 2012.〕 The deal was consummated on January 3, 2013. On February 2, the operations of KLRT and KASN were migrated from facilities on Colonel Glenn Road and consolidated with KARK and KARZ at the downtown Little Rock studios that already house the two stations, making it the first instance in which four full-power television stations in one market, carrying affiliations with four of the six major English-language networks (NBC, Fox, The CW and MyNetworkTV) were controlled by one company; and all four having been housed out of one facility. Around 30 positions between the KARK/KARZ and KLRT/KASN duopolies (mainly among management – including KLRT-KASN general manager Chuck Spohn – and news department staff) were eliminated in the consolidation.〔(Updated: Mission Closes $60M Deal for KLRT, KASN; Chuck Spohn Out as General Manager ) Arkansas Business, January 4, 2013〕 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「KARK-TV」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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