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KENV (Elko, NV) Losing Affiliation, Shuttering News Dept.


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KENV is losing NBC.

 

Local news broadcasts (mainly consisting of just News 10 Today at 6:00 a.m.) will end December 22nd with NBC going away December 31st. On January 1st, KENV becomes an affiliate of Comet.

 

Elko is a part of the SLC market, which already has KSL as the main NBC affiliate.

 

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2395564793802390

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KENV is losing NBC.

 

Local news broadcasts (mainly consisting of just News 10 Today at 6:00 a.m.) will end December 22nd with NBC going away December 31st. On January 1st, KENV becomes an affiliate of Comet.

 

Elko is a part of the SLC market, which already has KSL as the main NBC affiliate.

 

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2395564793802390

KENV will now meet the fate of WHAG & WMGM, a secondary NBC affiliate who has been forced to concede to the more powerful full market affiliate:

 

WHAG > WRC

WMGM > WCAU

KENV > KSL

 

WRC & WCAU are N O&O's, which would make the Peacock's decision to leave Hagerstown and Atlantic City more understandable. As for Elko, their sale to Cunningham, Sinclair, and KSL airing Saturday Night Live along with the rest of the NBC schedule, probably sealed KENV's fate.

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Wow, a lot going on at WNEU.

 

Their news output is expanding, both in reach and timeslots. Effective immediately, it now will be seen in Hartford on WRDM, so the newscasts have been rebranded appropriately as Noticias Telemundo Nueva Inglaterra. They're also adding a 5pm hour on Monday.

 

A reporter has also been added, who will be based out of WVIT and contribute Connecticut stories to the newscast.

 

———

 

As to KENV, it's definitely something sad. You can tell the anchor was rather upset delivering that news.

 

Their news output consisted of a daily hourlong show at 6am and news cut-ins during Today. They also in the fairly recent past had a public affairs program, "Elko Newsmakers", that aired on Saturdays.

 

It's also really clear that this was not a priority for anybody. Presentation-wise, you could conclude this station existed in 2007 — no effort was made to begin HD production and the graphics were the mid-2000s NBC set.

 

A former employee, Troy Edler (some of the promos he made for the station are on YT and were the source for an explanation of their news output) had this to say on Facebook:

 

KENV News 10 truly did the best they could with second hand equipment and a bare bones staff. I was a part of the business for 8 years and so I can tell you that the staff there loved what they did but mostly loved the community that they served! KENV poured every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears towards a new production EVERY SINGLE DAY. They provided the community of Elko with a FREE local newscast that could be watched on television and online (for those who had satellite). Channel 10 was also a great place for local businesses and special events to market themselves and advertise their products and services. KENV wanted to be a good representation for the town they served and represented. And, although the sun is setting on this chapter of Elko television....I hope that Channel 10 will live on in the hearts of Northern Nevadans for years to come. If you see them out and about, please tell Lori Gilbert, Janet Pearce Petersen, and Jim Burns "THANK YOU."

 

Most of the broadcast service to Elko and surrounding area is provided by a TV translator district, in service for 50 years, which provides rebroadcasts of the Salt Lake City and Reno stations. It's unclear what will happen here, though the fact that KTVX and KOLO are both offered from the Elko transmitter may signal one of those could be replaced with KSL or KRNV. (KJZZ, KTVX and KUCW are the only SLC channels relayed from any of their sites.) The TV translator district will have to choose one or the other to replace KENV from their other transmitters. Their lists are a step out of date, however.

 

If KRNV is the replacement for KENV, it will be a seamless transition bar the lost local programming made in Elko; alternatively, KSL could be chosen instead.

 

The Wikipedia list of KSL's translators is out of date. The one in Elko (K32GK-D), which is part of this TV translator district, is now used to relay KTVN. In general, KSL maintains only a few of its own translators.

 

While I would suggest that KRNV might be put on a subchannel of KENV, the way this goodbye message is worded suggests that NBC's primary concern was the station existing in the Salt Lake City DMA.

 

EDIT: This newspaper article from the Elko Daily Free Press contains some additional information.

 

The general manager says the loss of NBC made it impossible to continue local service. “Losing our NBC affiliation makes our local news operation financially infeasible,” according to Amie Chapman. “We are proud of the news coverage that our station has provided the Elko community over the years and hope that the NBC in Salt Lake City, or other Salt Lake stations for that matter, will continue that tradition.”

 

The TV translator district indeed wants to carry KRNV. The head of the district said, “The TV district has plans to continue to broadcast NBC here in Elko until we know for sure what the plans of KSL are,” said Dale Lotspeich of Eagle Communications, the TV district’s contract employee and former Elko County Sheriff. “[We] would need something from the station or feds … some type of official notification that we are not authorized to translate that.”

 

Given that the TV district carries the other Reno stations, this makes a ton of sense, and it also fits with a desire for in-state content originating from the state capital. “We do want to continue NBC network service to the community because we think that is important,” [Paul] Gardner [chair of the Elko Television District] said. “We do a survey every couple of years. Our constituents have voiced very strongly that they would like Nevada news, and we all are Nevada taxpayers, so why would we not follow up with Nevada content?”

 

A decision on which service to carry was to be made at a December 14 meeting of the Elko Television District, but no information is available about the result.

 

KENV was started in March 1997 with a $1 million investment and a studio at Great Basin College. Lori Gilbert, who in the clip delivered the news of the station's closure, was there from the very start.

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Here it is, screenshots of Linda Cavanaugh's final newscast at KFOR.[ATTACH=full]4897[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]4898[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]4899[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]4900[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]4901[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]4902[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]4903[/ATTACH]

 

You can watch LInda's final thought here - http://kfor.com/2017/12/15/linda-cavanaugh-says-goodbye-to-kfor-family-and-yours/

 

Now as Linda heads off into retirement, what's next for KFOR as the Sinclair/Tribune merger continues to unfold?

 

Just another thought, the following KFOR on air personalities have been with the station since before the turn of the century:

 

Tara Blume - 1991

Brian Brinkley - 1990

Galen Culver - c. 1991

Ali Meyer - 2000

Mike Morgan - 1993

Kevin Ogle - 1993

Kent Ogle - 1993

Sarah Stewart - 1999

Lance West - 1995

 

I do not have any reason seeing any of the following leaving KFOR anytime soon, personally, I'm just hoping that they can decide their future on their terms and not those of the heavens in Hunt Valley.

 

Does Heather Holeman count? I know she had a stint there from 2000 until 07.

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Wow, a lot going on at WNEU.

 

———

 

As to KENV, it's definitely something sad. You can tell the anchor was rather upset delivering that news.

 

Their news output consisted of a daily hourlong show at 6am and news cut-ins during Today. They also in the fairly recent past had a public affairs program, "Elko Newsmakers", that aired on Saturdays.

 

It's also really clear that this was not a priority for anybody. Presentation-wise, you could conclude this station existed in 2007 — no effort was made to begin HD production and the graphics were the mid-2000s NBC set.

 

A former employee, Troy Edler (some of the promos he made for the station are on YT and were the source for an explanation of their news output) had this to say on Facebook:

 

Most of the broadcast service to Elko and surrounding area is provided by a TV translator district, in service for 50 years, which provides rebroadcasts of the Salt Lake City and Reno stations. It's unclear what will happen here, though the fact that KTVX and KOLO are both offered from the Elko transmitter may signal one of those could be replaced with KSL or KRNV. (KJZZ, KTVX and KUCW are the only SLC channels relayed from any of their sites.) The TV translator district will have to choose one or the other to replace KENV from their other transmitters. Their lists are a step out of date, however.

 

If KRNV is the replacement for KENV, it will be a seamless transition bar the lost local programming made in Elko; alternatively, KSL could be chosen instead.

 

Sad is exactly what I think also.

 

Elko is in the middle of nowhere and there is no way KSL or KRNV could ever cover that area except as a token thing. Those few folks probably have 10 times the dedication of anyone in a larger market. That is the very last place that deserves to lose its tiny news, production and sales department.

 

There is a lot of real personal satisfaction one gets working under those conditions, and the people of Elko I'm sure have bonded with those folks.

 

If I was a sales weasel from KSL or KRNV I would not feel comfortable traveling to Elko to generate accounts...and If I was a citizen of Elko I would chase their asses out of town.

 

NBC can afford to kick down some money to that station as a parting "gift" if they are gonna rip the news guts out of community that is pretty much on the moon.

 

It's just wrong.

 

I wish there was something we could do.

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A TV station for a town of 20,000 is kind of amazing to see happen. What's interesting here is that there is going to be a collision course between the network (potentially) and the TV translator district. The Elko Television District quite clearly wants to replace KENV with KRNV.

 

There may not be anything stopping them from rebroadcasting KRNV — they will likely need station permission, but given that it is Sinclair who is pulling the plug, they may be sympathetic. If NBC is trying to get KSL to service this area, KSL may provide permission. They already have the infrastructure to receive SLC and Reno stations.

 

Here in Arizona, there are several historical examples of TV translator service areas not matching the DMA map. In Mohave County, closer to Las Vegas than Phoenix but part of the Phoenix DMA, the offering tilts sharply toward Phoenix stations but KLAS is on one transmitter (in Kingman) and KLVX is on another (in Chloride).

 

Another is that historically the White Mountains area and eastern Arizona behaved like it was in the Tucson market. In 1993, KVOA had 12 licensed translators, including locations like Show Low, Snowflake, St. Johns, Duncan (2; Duncan used to have a wireless cable system), and several stations in New Mexico. It was something like 180 miles from KVOA to the St. Johns translator.

 

Page, on the Utah state line due north of Flagstaff, has TV transmitters of the Salt Lake City stations. An association-owned KUTV translator broadcasts from Lechee, to the southeast of Page. At the same site is a translator for KUED owned by the University of Utah.

 

The Colorado City (AZ)/Hildale (UT) area definitely has an odd mix. (Those two towns are famous for all the wrong reasons.) KUTV and KUEN own transmitters which are *in* Arizona. A Mohave County-operated KSAZ translator is at the same site. There is also an owned-and-operated KUTV transmitter south of Colorado City, Arizona, with a COL of Hildale, Utah.

 

Viewers in that area receive KUEN, KSL, and KUTV (maybe KTVX too? theirs is listed as analog) from Salt Lake City and KSAZ over the air.

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A TV station for a town of 20,000 is kind of amazing to see happen. What's interesting here is that there is going to be a collision course between the network (potentially) and the TV translator district. The Elko Television District quite clearly wants to replace KENV with KRNV.

 

There may not be anything stopping them from rebroadcasting KRNV — they will likely need station permission, but given that it is Sinclair who is pulling the plug, they may be sympathetic. If NBC is trying to get KSL to service this area, KSL may provide permission. They already have the infrastructure to receive SLC and Reno stations.

 

Here in Arizona, there are several historical examples of TV translator service areas not matching the DMA map. In Mohave County, closer to Las Vegas than Phoenix but part of the Phoenix DMA, the offering tilts sharply toward Phoenix stations but KLAS is on one transmitter (in Kingman) and KLVX is on another (in Chloride).

 

Another is that historically the White Mountains area and eastern Arizona behaved like it was in the Tucson market. In 1993, KVOA had 12 licensed translators, including locations like Show Low, Snowflake, St. Johns, Duncan (2; Duncan used to have a wireless cable system), and several stations in New Mexico. It was something like 180 miles from KVOA to the St. Johns translator.

 

Page, on the Utah state line due north of Flagstaff, has TV transmitters of the Salt Lake City stations. An association-owned KUTV translator broadcasts from Lechee, to the southeast of Page. At the same site is a translator for KUED owned by the University of Utah.

 

The Colorado City (AZ)/Hildale (UT) area definitely has an odd mix. (Those two towns are famous for all the wrong reasons.) KUTV and KUEN own transmitters which are *in* Arizona. A Mohave County-operated KSAZ translator is at the same site. There is also an owned-and-operated KUTV transmitter south of Colorado City, Arizona, with a COL of Hildale, Utah.

 

Viewers in that area receive KUEN, KSL, and KUTV (maybe KTVX too? theirs is listed as analog) from Salt Lake City and KSAZ over the air.

 

 

How do they feed all those translators?

I can only guess it's a combo of OTA and microwave and sat, but it seems like an insane amount of stuff to properly feed. I gotta assume over the years they have gotten a bit creative.

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A TV station for a town of 20,000 is kind of amazing to see happen. What's interesting here is that there is going to be a collision course between the network (potentially) and the TV translator district. The Elko Television District quite clearly wants to replace KENV with KRNV.

 

There may not be anything stopping them from rebroadcasting KRNV — they will likely need station permission, but given that it is Sinclair who is pulling the plug, they may be sympathetic. If NBC is trying to get KSL to service this area, KSL may provide permission. They already have the infrastructure to receive SLC and Reno stations.

 

Here in Arizona, there are several historical examples of TV translator service areas not matching the DMA map. In Mohave County, closer to Las Vegas than Phoenix but part of the Phoenix DMA, the offering tilts sharply toward Phoenix stations but KLAS is on one transmitter (in Kingman) and KLVX is on another (in Chloride).

 

Another is that historically the White Mountains area and eastern Arizona behaved like it was in the Tucson market. In 1993, KVOA had 12 licensed translators, including locations like Show Low, Snowflake, St. Johns, Duncan (2; Duncan used to have a wireless cable system), and several stations in New Mexico. It was something like 180 miles from KVOA to the St. Johns translator.

 

Page, on the Utah state line due north of Flagstaff, has TV transmitters of the Salt Lake City stations. An association-owned KUTV translator broadcasts from Lechee, to the southeast of Page. At the same site is a translator for KUED owned by the University of Utah.

 

The Colorado City (AZ)/Hildale (UT) area definitely has an odd mix. (Those two towns are famous for all the wrong reasons.) KUTV and KUEN own transmitters which are *in* Arizona. A Mohave County-operated KSAZ translator is at the same site. There is also an owned-and-operated KUTV transmitter south of Colorado City, Arizona, with a COL of Hildale, Utah.

 

Viewers in that area receive KUEN, KSL, and KUTV (maybe KTVX too? theirs is listed as analog) from Salt Lake City and KSAZ over the air.

 

I think it will be KRNV since KENV simulcasted most of KRNV's newscasts.

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How do they feed all those translators?

I can only guess it's a combo of OTA and microwave and sat, but it seems like an insane amount of stuff to properly feed. I gotta assume over the years they have gotten a bit creative.

Look at this diagram of the Mohave County system on page 11. Quite a few of the stations are dependent on others. It's also a multi-state transmitter system: there's a transmitter in AZ but licensed to Needles (CA), another licensed to AZ but on Utah Hill (which is, of course, in Utah, due west of St. George), and there is spillover to other areas in UT (Kanab) and NV (Mesquite). (Similarly, at least one of the Colorado City SLC translators was once owned by Washington County, Utah.)

 

I gotta say, it's weird to think that there is a translator for KSAZ physically in the state of Utah — more than 280 air miles from KSAZ's primary transmitter and closer to SLC than to Phoenix. But it's a good example of how, particularly in this region of the country, TV translator districts and established viewing habits make DMAs really blurry, at least OTA. Cable and satellite definitely impose DMA lines on viewers, but usually, they tend to want programming applicable to their area, which most often means it comes from the same state.

 

Elko probably could merit reclassification into the Reno DMA as most of its broadcast TV service is provided, indirectly, by Reno stations. (This has been the case since the creation of the Elko Television District which was formed in order to rebroadcast KOLO; KEKO, a satellite of KTVN, once operated on channel 10 in the area between about 1972/73 and 1977, and I'm not sure why it was shuttered.) And people like it that way because information about Nevada is more relevant than the news from Utah. Similarly, an appropriate mix of stations may provide a good service. The Colorado City-Hildale area definitely belongs to Utah culturally, and it's fairly isolated from the rest of Arizona. Yet Colorado City is still in Arizona, so it's important to ensure that at least one Arizona TV station is available.

 

Another consideration here is that there are time zone differences across the state lines I've mentioned. Only during part of the year is a service of LV + Phoenix or SLC + Phoenix stations nominally on the same time zone, and in the case of the former, prime time airs earlier in Phoenix. Elko viewers get KTVX and KOLO — so they get to choose whether to watch ABC prime time from 6-9 PT or 8-11 PT. (I'm surprised that KTVX is the only major SLC station carried, but it is.)

 

It is also worth noting that according to the FCC file, KENV had a really long NBC affiliation agreement that indeed expired at the end of the year. Apparently their current contract had been in force since New Year's Day 2001.

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Look at this diagram of the Mohave County system on page 11. Quite a few of the stations are dependent on others. It's also a multi-state transmitter system: there's a transmitter in AZ but licensed to Needles (CA), another licensed to AZ but on Utah Hill (which is, of course, in Utah, due west of St. George), and there is spillover to other areas in UT (Kanab) and NV (Mesquite). (Similarly, at least one of the Colorado City SLC translators was once owned by Washington County, Utah.)

 

I gotta say, it's weird to think that there is a translator for KSAZ physically in the state of Utah — more than 280 air miles from KSAZ's primary transmitter and closer to SLC than to Phoenix. But it's a good example of how, particularly in this region of the country, TV translator districts and established viewing habits make DMAs really blurry, at least OTA. Cable and satellite definitely impose DMA lines on viewers, but usually, they tend to want programming applicable to their area, which most often means it comes from the same state.

 

Elko probably could merit reclassification into the Reno DMA as most of its broadcast TV service is provided, indirectly, by Reno stations. (This has been the case since the creation of the Elko Television District which was formed in order to rebroadcast KOLO; KEKO, a satellite of KTVN, once operated on channel 10 in the area between about 1972/73 and 1977, and I'm not sure why it was shuttered.) And people like it that way because information about Nevada is more relevant than the news from Utah. Similarly, an appropriate mix of stations may provide a good service. The Colorado City-Hildale area definitely belongs to Utah culturally, and it's fairly isolated from the rest of Arizona. Yet Colorado City is still in Arizona, so it's important to ensure that at least one Arizona TV station is available.

 

Another consideration here is that there are time zone differences across the state lines I've mentioned. Only during part of the year is a service of LV + Phoenix or SLC + Phoenix stations nominally on the same time zone, and in the case of the former, prime time airs earlier in Phoenix. Elko viewers get KTVX and KOLO — so they get to choose whether to watch ABC prime time from 6-9 PT or 8-11 PT. (I'm surprised that KTVX is the only major SLC station carried, but it is.)

 

It is also worth noting that according to the FCC file, KENV had a really long NBC affiliation agreement that indeed expired at the end of the year. Apparently their current contract had been in force since New Year's Day 2001.

 

Thanks for the details.

I gotta tell everybody there is a little station that does the funniest morning show in Mojave county...TV2 KLBC

is another one of those little local gems out in the desert. The morning show is must see .

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Thanks for the details.

I gotta tell everybody there is a little station that does the funniest morning show in Mojave county...TV2 KLBC

is another one of those little local gems out in the desert. The morning show is must see .

 

That station was once a UPN affiliate at one point before the merger. I always found it interesting how they were able to actually secure a major network affiliation in a place like that without being tied to a major station or what not.

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Sad is exactly what I think also.

 

Elko is in the middle of nowhere and there is no way KSL or KRNV could ever cover that area except as a token thing. Those few folks probably have 10 times the dedication of anyone in a larger market. That is the very last place that deserves to lose its tiny news, production and sales department.

 

If Jim Rogers would have known that Sinclair would take his stations and did what they did with them, he probably would have stopped the sale in his tracks before his death. You get these service-minded owners who run stations as if they're a public service, and Jim took the losses in Elko happily because they got local NBC service. Sinclair meanwhile would rather cheap out on Comet. It's not a good look on Sinclair to tap out at Christmas. I won't be shocked if eventually KRNV itself gets hubbed to KSNV and outside of news originates completely from LV.

 

 

Like with all of this, cable/sat coverage is good enough, and their TV/phone app is more than acceptable now. They cheaped out on their digital transmitters and they're paying for it now; Ion can run five signals and an HD easily. TBN can barely fit five subs on their multiplexers, and upgrades aren't coming to them. Maybe the Crouches should have put off that eighth house and fourth jet purchase in the mid-2000s.

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That station was once a UPN affiliate at one point before the merger. I always found it interesting how they were able to actually secure a major network affiliation in a place like that without being tied to a major station or what not.

 

Funny you bring that up. Apparently TV2 this year inquired if the Mohave County television improvement district could carry it. While there was interest in adding a truly local service, the engineers said there was no room at the inn for TV2 without removing other services, and that TV2 would need to get its feed somehow to Hayden Peak.

 

(Also, TV2 is not a broadcast station, which would raise some interesting compliance hurdles.)

 

If they wanted to bump a service, KAZT is carried and would likely be the most vulnerable station. There are digital KUTP translators as well, but the license for those is held by Fox Television Stations (though they are part of the MCTID infrastructure).

 

In Arizona, Mohave County is the only county to operate an improvement district. ARS 48-1101 is unusually picky on who can operate one, probably written in such a way as to limit use of this legal instrument to Mohave, because the county must have:

 

"Between January 1, 1975 and January 1, 1983 received payments made by the United States or its agencies or instrumentalities in lieu of taxes from the proceeds of hydroelectric power developments pursuant to an act of Congress."

 

Also, page 28 of this document has a full map of the Mohave County system from 2013 (since then, the remaining Fox-owned transmitters have converted to digital). Signals reach Hayden Peak from the microwave bounce at Wikieup. They are then fed to most of the transmitters directly. At Patterson Slope in Meadview is a microwave bounce that sends one service (KSAZ) to Black Rock to be sent to the Utah Hill/Littlefield, Point of Rock/Colorado City, and Moccasin/Fredonia sites.

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Wow, a lot going on at WNEU.

 

The general manager says the loss of NBC made it impossible to continue local service. “Losing our NBC affiliation makes our local news operation financially infeasible,” according to Amie Chapman. “We are proud of the news coverage that our station has provided the Elko community over the years and hope that the NBC in Salt Lake City, or other Salt Lake stations for that matter, will continue that tradition.”

 

The TV translator district indeed wants to carry KRNV. The head of the district said, “The TV district has plans to continue to broadcast NBC here in Elko until we know for sure what the plans of KSL are,” said Dale Lotspeich of Eagle Communications, the TV district’s contract employee and former Elko County Sheriff. “[We] would need something from the station or feds … some type of official notification that we are not authorized to translate that.”

 

Given that the TV district carries the other Reno stations, this makes a ton of sense, and it also fits with a desire for in-state content originating from the state capital. “We do want to continue NBC network service to the community because we think that is important,” [Paul] Gardner [chair of the Elko Television District] said. “We do a survey every couple of years. Our constituents have voiced very strongly that they would like Nevada news, and we all are Nevada taxpayers, so why would we not follow up with Nevada content?”

 

A decision on which service to carry was to be made at a December 14 meeting of the Elko Television District, but no information is available about the result.

 

KENV was started in March 1997 with a $1 million investment and a studio at Great Basin College. Lori Gilbert, who in the clip delivered the news of the station's closure, was there from the very start.

 

If Elko was a separate DMA though, it would be bottom-10?

 

I know there is some precedence with mega-DMAs (and mega-coverage areas), for example, 3/4 of Kansas and 4/5 of Nebraska are basically one market, as are most of each of the Dakotas. Still, I would think it is a better fit with Reno than Salt Lake City, at least as a satellite of KRNV. To cover Nevada effectively, you need multiple satellites, BUT the state outside the cities and towns has like no population, unlike the Plains states.

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I used to stop in Elko between Colorado and California on 80 many times. Nice little town with an old downtown area and a passable Hilton Garden Inn. I also took 50, the "loneliest highway," through the middle part of the state one time. There are lots of cool towns there in between all those small mountain ranges — cool in a 'nothing' sort of way.

 

But it would be very difficult to try to piece together a market for that part of Nevada. If you included Battle Mountain, Eureka, and Ely, you'd have a population of ~70,000, none of it centralized to any one town. Sure, there are smaller markets than that, but from now on, the best chance Elko has of ever making it onto Reno TV is a 20 second map written up about a wire story from time to time. Sad to see these smaller stations gradually dry up.

 

There's still a newspaper in Elko, which wrote up this article about KENV. KNPR also runs a network of transmitters throughout the state, but I don't think they have any editorial presence in any of those places.

 

http://elkodaily.com/news/local/nbc-to-pull-kenv-affiliation/article_db64225d-d9c7-5119-bc93-d55dae621890.html

 

There's a quote in there that says the KENV staff are "welcome" at Intermountain West's stations in Nevada and Salt Lake City. I'm guessing that will eventually translate into "they can re-apply for their jobs at KRNV, KSNV, or KUTV."

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There's a quote in there that says the KENV staff are "welcome" at Intermountain West's stations in Nevada and Salt Lake City. I'm guessing that will eventually translate into "they can re-apply for their jobs at KRNV, KSNV, or KUTV."

 

That quote is kind of misleading, Intermountain West has never owned a station in Salt Lake City.

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KENV is part of the SSA with Sinclair Television Group that also covers the operations of KRNV. The names on the licenses are Ruby Mountain Broadcasting and Sierra Communications. Much like with KRNV, KENV's transfer of control to Reno (KENV-TV) Licensee, LLC was held up for years.

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KENV is part of the SSA with Sinclair Television Group that also covers the operations of KRNV.

 

I'm really starting to reconsider my previous statements about Sinclair and the free market...

 

This is crap!

They are sucking the life out of that market...sorry...it's not a market...it's a COMMUNITY.

 

Ugggg! %^&*%$#!!!

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This is what I believe should happen in Elko to continue to receive NBC:

 

One - Turn KENV into an outright repeater of KRNV with all content originating from Reno/Carson City.

Two - Sell or lease bandwidth to Bonneville International for use with KSL-TV.

 

On a side note - do you realize that we are dedicating a thread for a town who's claim to fame is a mere pit stop on I-80 for motorist traveling from Reno to Salt Lake City, and vice versa, to get gas, use the restroom, and get a bottle of water.

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This is what I believe should happen in Elko to continue to receive NBC:

 

One - Turn KENV into an outright repeater of KRNV with all content originating from Reno/Carson City.

Two - Sell or lease bandwidth to Bonneville International for use with KSL-TV.

 

On a side note - do you realize that we are dedicating a thread for a town who's claim to fame is a mere pit stop on I-80 for motorist traveling from Reno to Salt Lake City, and vice versa, to get gas, use the restroom, and get a bottle of water.

 

I think the impediment to Sinclair having taken the first option — it's the most obvious one and literally could have been done by eliminating the local shows — is the market classification.

 

It is evident that NBC's decision not to renew its affiliation with KENV has nothing to do with KENV's programming, or its admirable local shows. The network quite clearly has a policy of shedding the secondary affiliates that it once had, which is demonstrated with WMGM and WHAG. It wants KSL to be the only NBC affiliate in the Salt Lake City television market, and never mind that Salt Lake City is in a different state and time zone, the Nielsen maps ordain that viewers should receive Salt Lake City TV stations in Elko. (On satellite, they obviously do, and over the air, the Elko translator district carries KTVX, KUCW and KJZZ.)

 

If KENV wanted to keep its affiliation, it would have needed to force the reclassification of Elko and northeastern Nevada into the Reno DMA. (Which is probably still a good idea.) However, Nielsen DMAs haven't been significantly altered in a long time.

 

Another option that Sinclair could have considered was to convert KENV into a semi-satellite of KUTV. This would have required the consent of CBS, which has always had the fewest secondary affiliates (ABC still has a number of these). It also would have required KENV to become a time-delayed semi-satellite in a way that is not feasible between the Mountain and Pacific time zones. In the Pacific time zone, there is one more hour of early access. If KENV became a semi-satellite of KUTV, but in the Pacific time zone, it would have had to air prime time from 6-9 and air KUTV's news at 9pm. Delaying KUTV's programming by one hour would have had implications for live shows, like breaking news and network sports coverage. Airing prime time in pattern with the Reno stations implies an even more onerous two-hour delay. Oh yeah, and KTVN is already available by way of the translator district.

 

The problem is how does KSL get into Elko? The answer is the Elko Television District, unless KSL's NBC signal is hung as a subchannel of KENV in some sort of lease deal. And as noted above, the television district wants to carry the station carrying information relevant to the translators' viewers—Nevada taxpayers and voters—which is KRNV. If they can secure KRNV's permission, they are not impeded from doing that.

 

Elko viewers will wind up with KSL over the air only if KRNV points to the market-based reason for KENV's disaffiliation and says, "This is the reason we cannot grant you the ability to retransmit us", or if for infrastructural reasons, the TV district opts to replace one of the SLC stations (probably KJZZ). KSL's owned-and-operated translators are daisy-chained; for instance, the Colorado City transmitter is fed by the Santa Clara (Utah Hill) transmitter.

 

KTVN gets its feed to Elko in three hops: over-the-air from Reno to Lovelock, via microwave link to Winnemucca, and then again via microwave to Elko, which OTA feeds another 5 transmitters and microwaves the signal on to two more.

 

Whether they could do it is an open question, but in 1981 the Elko TV district once wanted to retransmit KTVB from Boise. Boise is closer to Elko than either Reno or SLC, but the infrastructure is lacking and it's equivalent to an SLC station for time zone and state programming purposes. Apparently that was not the only Boise service once offered in the Elko or Carlin districts — there was once KBCI, and KSL was also on there at the time (TLC, Foxnet, KMGH, WPIX, KTLA and WGN also appear in the late 90s).

 

———

 

I think another note is that this is the last of the Jim Rogers small-town satellites to be closed.

 

In Nevada, KVNV was famously dismantled and reassembled in New Jersey (New York) as WJLP. There was also KWNV in Winnemucca, which was shuttered alongside KBBJ and KBAO (components of the Beartooth NBC network from Helena) in 2008 — I'd guess there was a desire not to pay for conversion to digital at that economic time and in such small localities. In Wyoming, KJWY was similarly shipped to Delaware as KJWP, while what was mostly known as KSWY was traded for an LPTV and never relaunched under the other owners.

 

KBGF-LD remains in operation in Great Falls, though unlike the other stations it actually had its own TV market to service.

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