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KCEN-TV is the NBC-affiliated television station for Central Texas including the cities of Waco, Temple and Killeen. Licensed to Temple, it broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 9 (virtual channel 6.1 via PSIP) from a transmitter in rural northwest Falls County (near Eddy). Owned by the London Broadcasting Company, KCEN maintains studios 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Eddy (near I-35). It also operates a business office on West Central Avenue in Temple, and sales departments and news bureaus in Killeen and Waco.

This station can also be seen on Time Warner Cable and Grande Communications channel 3. There is a high definition feed offered on Time Warner Cable digital channel 1003 and Grande Communications channel. KCEN operates a semi-satellite KAGS-LD in Bryan, which produces separate local newscasts and runs advertisements targeted to the Brazos Valley region.

History

KCEN-TV signed on the air for the first time on November 1, 1953, originally owned by Frank W. Mayborn, publisher of the Temple Daily Telegram and owner of KTEM radio (1400 AM). Early on, Mayborn realized that Temple-Killeen and Waco were going to be consolidated into a single television market (although the radio stations in the respective areas are considered to be within separate markets). To signify his goal to serve all of Central Texas, Mayborn decided to call his new station KCEN-TV (the calls standing for "CENtral Texas"), rather than using the callsign KTEM-TV (for its city of license, TEMple), after his radio station property.

It was the first television station to serve the Waco-Temple-Killeen market, and the second television station in Central Texas, signing on one year after Austin's KTBC. KCEN signed on with one of the tallest transmitter towers in the southwestern United States, operating at a height of 830 feet (250 m). The station originally carried programming from all four major networks at the time, but was a primary NBC affiliate. It lost the CBS affiliation to KWTX-TV when its signed on the air on April 3, 1955. The DuMont Television Network ceased operations later that year, leaving KCEN with a primary NBC affiliation and a secondary affiliation with ABC.

In 1981, KCEN's transmitter facilities were moved to a new 1,924-foot (586 m) tower, expanding its coverage area to almost 29,000 square miles (75,000 km) – one of the largest television station broadcast radiuses in the nation. The station now provides at least secondary over-the-air coverage from the southern fringes of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex to the northern fringes of the Austin market.

The station switched its primary affiliation to ABC in March 1984, while continuing to carry some NBC programs during off-hours. When KXXV signed on the air on March 22, 1985, that station took over the NBC affiliation. However, six months later in September, NBC programming returned to KCEN as an exclusive affiliation as KXXV picked up the ABC affiliation. KCEN was the first television station in Central Texas to provide closed captions in its programming in 1989.

KCEN, the Temple Daily Telegram and the Killeen Daily Herald remained under the Mayborn family's ownership after Frank Mayborn's death in 1987. KCEN had operated a low-powered translator in the Brazos Valley on UHF channel 62 for many years. On January 20, 2003, this translator was upgraded to a Class A repeater, KMAY-LP on UHF channel 23, that station switched to digital on June 12, 2009. In January 2009, the Mayborn family entered into an agreement to sell both KCEN and KMAY-LP to Dallas-based London Broadcasting Company, with a purchase price of $26 million.

On July 3, 2011, London Broadcasting announced that KAGS would be converted to a semi-satellite of KCEN for the Bryan-College Station market under the new callsign to KAGS-LD, with local news programming and commercial advertisements from KCEN replaced with its own newscasts and commercials targeted to the Brazos Valley area; the conversion of KAGS from a full satellite to a semi-satellite occurred in October of that year. On September 26, 2011, Azteca América programming on digital subchannel 6.3 was replaced with programming from classic television network Me-TV.

Digital television

Analog-to-digital transition

KCEN-TV shut down its analog transmitter on February 17, 2009 – the original date of the analog television shutdown and digital transition in the United States – and continued to broadcast its digital signal on its pre-transition digital channel 9. Though most television stations typically map their PSIP virtual channels to that station's analog channel allocation pre-transition, digital television receivers displayed KCEN-TV's virtual channel following the transition as 9.1, instead of 6.1 with the station's on-air branding changing to "KCEN 9" in accordance. On February 1, 2010, the station remapped its PSIP channel number to virtual channel 6 (its on-air branding was changed to simply "KCEN-HD" as well).

News operation

KCEN-TV presently broadcasts a total of 21½ hours of local newscasts each week (with 3½ hours on weekdays and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). On February 1, 2010, KCEN became the first television station in the Waco-Temple-Killeen market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition.

News team

Current on-air staff

Anchors

• Doug Currin - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
• Teal Jennings - weekday mornings on KCEN-HD Texas Today
• Nikki Laurenzo - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
• Tiffany Lundberg - weekend evenings; also weekday reporter
• Kris Radcliffe - weekday mornings on KCEN-HD Texas Today

KCEN-HD Weather

• Andy Andersen (AMS and NWA Seals of Approval) - chief meteorologist; weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m.
• Miri Marshall - weather forecaster; weekday mornings on KCEN-HD Texas Today
• Nick Piesco (AMS and NWA Seals of Approval) - meteorologist; weekend evenings

Sports team

• Tyler Hedrick - sports director; weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m.
• Pierre Noujaim - sports anchor; weekend evenings, also sports reporter

Reporters

• Jordan Bontke - multimedia journalist
• Shawn Hobbs - film critic
• Amanda Kenney - general assignment reporter
• Brittany Molinar - general assignment reporter
• Tania Ortega - general assignment reporter; also weekend newscast producer
• Rebecca Schleicher - general assignment reporter
• Sophia Stamas - general assignment reporter

References

1. "Eight stations, 5 VHF, 3 UHF, begin commercial operation." Broadcasting - Telecasting, November 2, 1953, pg. 64.
2. "Telecastings". Broadcasting. 106 (11): 74. March 12, 1984. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
3. London Buys Waco NBC Affil for $26M, Harry A. Jessell, TVNEWSDAY, Jan 16 2009
4. Letters for July 3, Bryan/College Station Eagle, July 3 2011
5. http://www.kcentv.com/?p=3462
6. Meet Our People, KCENTV.com.

External links

• KCENTV.com - Official KCEN-TV Website
• Temple.ThisTV.com Official This TV Temple Website
• MeTVWaco.com - Offical Me-TV Central Texas Website
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• NBC affiliates
• NBC network affiliates
• This TV affiliates
• Me-TV affiliates
• MundoFox network affiliates
• Channel 9 digital TV stations in the United States
• Channel 6 virtual TV stations in the United States
• Television channels and stations established in 1953
• Television stations in Texas