Television viewers in the Ozarks should soon have another station to watch.
KRBK-TV LLC, channel 49, is preparing for a launch in first-quarter 2010, a move that will mark the return of My Network Television to the Springfield viewing area.
KRBK General Manager Teresa Spencer said advertising sales should begin in late January, in conjunction with a public relations campaign.
Missouri Secretary of State records show KRBK is owned by St. Louis-based World Events Productions Ltd., a division of Koplar Communications International. The station's city of license is Osage Beach, where a full production studio will operate. Spencer said the TV signal would cover the Springfield designated market area, which reaches more than 421,000 TV households, according to Nielsen Co. A sales department and master control operations will run out of 1701 S. Enterprise Ave. in shared space with Opfer Communications Inc. The station's tower is in Polk County, Spencer said.
KWBM 31 first brought My Network Television to the Ozarks in fall 2006 via Little Rock, Ark.-based Equity Broadcasting Corp.
The opportunity for a new station arose in July, Spencer said, when Equity Broadcasting sold KWBM to Dallas-based Daystar Television Network, which airs faith-based television programming. Spencer, who at the time was general manager of KWBM, said Daystar Television stopped airing My Network programming in the Ozarks upon the acquisition.
Despite its name, My Network Television - owned by New York-based News Corp. - is technically no longer a network. Instead, it's a programming service that offers a weekday, prime-time run of syndicated shows, including "Law and Order," "WWE Smackdown," "Deal or No Deal" and "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?" Twentieth Television will syndicate some of My Network's programming.
In addition to My Network's prime-time programming, Spencer said there will be full programming 6 a.m.-midnight. At first, about 10 percent of that will be locally driven, with syndicated programming scheduled in remaining time slots.
The station also will hire six on-air personalities, who will act as hosts for KRBK programming, she said. Two of the station's anchors will be based in Osage Beach, and four will be in Springfield. The station plans to have live trucks at both locations and send its anchors to community events.
"They'll be popping in and giving entertainment and weather updates from different places in the community," she said.
Spencer hopes to find some of those personalities at an open casting call scheduled for late January or early February at the Shrine Mosque, she said."They don't have to be an actor. They don't have to have news experience," she said of the on-air candidates. "We want our talent to be real people from right here in the Ozarks."
KRBK will have to prove itself before it starts raking in the advertising dollars, said Mike Scott, general manager of KY3 Inc., which also operates KSPR and The Ozarks CW. The CW station launched in the Ozarks in fall 2006, at the same time KWBM first launched My Network.
While it doesn't receive ratings as high as KY or KSPR, Scott said CW has been growing rapidly, and there is still a lot of room to grow.
"In November of 2006, CW didn't meet the minimum standards for reporting. Today, sign-on to sign-off, it has a 2 (percent) share of the market," Scott said.
Comparatively, Nielsen market ratings as of May show KOZK/Ozarks Public Television with 2 percent, KSFX and KSPR each at 6 percent, KOLR10 12 percent and KY3 23 percent, Scott said. Sign-on to sign-off is 7-1 a.m. daily.[[In-content Ad]]
