KPTM (channel 42) is a television station in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, affiliated with Fox and The CW. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to TBD outlet KXVO (channel 15) under a local marketing agreement (LMA) with Mitts Telecasting Company. Both stations share studios on Farnam Street in Omaha, while KPTM's transmitter is located on Pflug Road, south of Gretna and I-80.
KPTM went on air as Omaha's first independent station in 1986. It was built by and named for California-based Pappas Telecasting. KPTM affiliated with Fox in 1988, after Pappas originally sat out the network's launch, and began airing local newscasts in June 1990. After the bankruptcy of Pappas, Titan Broadcast Management acquired the station in 2009, selling most of its broadcasting properties to Sinclair in 2013. While KPTM aired a 9 p.m. newscast for more than 30 years, a major attempt at expansion in the late 1990s was rolled back for economic reasons less than 18 months later, and for the last decade, the news programs were presented by talent outside the Omaha market.
History
Construction and Pappas ownership
Pappas Telecasting began conducting community surveys in February 1979 with an eye to establishing a station on ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 15 in Omaha; the company also leased the building at 2615 Farnam Street, recently vacated by KMTV. Competition grew crowded for channel 15, with three groups in the running by June 1979 and a total of eight by early November, when Pappas switched from seeking channel 15 to channel 42. There was only one other group that had filed for channel 42: Christian Broadcasting of the Midlands, which in March filed an application proposing a Christian television station.
Pappas was selected over Christian Broadcasting by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a construction permit in 1984 and announced its plans to put channel 42 on the air by October 1985. However, the battle between the two applicants continued because Christian Broadcasting of the Midlands appealed the FCC's decision to the commission's review board and then to the full FCC.
After Christian lost, construction began on KPTM (taking its name from the owner, Pappas Telecasting of the Midlands). A tower was built in Sarpy County, Nebraska, while a former insurance office at 4625 Farnam was renovated for the TV station. Prior to the launch of KPTM, Omaha had no independent stations. Only KBGT-TV "Big 8", which primarily served the central and western part of the state, operated as an independent in Nebraska, and two independent stations operated in Iowa.
KPTM began broadcasting on April 6, 1986. Even though it was the only non-network station in Omaha, it refused to join the fledgling Fox network at its launch that October. Doing so meant KPTM would have had to carry Fox's first and initially only offering, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, opposite The Tonight Show. At the time, The Tonight Show was hosted by Johnny Carson, a native of nearby Corning, Iowa, who spent his youth in Norfolk, Nebraska, and had begun his career at Omaha's WOW-TV in the early 1950s. Station manager Gary Nielsen told the Lincoln Journal Star, "Why would you program Joan Rivers in Johnny Carson's hometown?" In the July 1986 Arbitron ratings, KPTM was the highest-rated independent station in the country in prime time and the third-highest in total-day audience share.
In September 1988, the three Pappas independents—KPTM; KMPH-TV in Fresno, California; and WHNS in Asheville, North Carolina—joined Fox. Pappas expanded its programming in the Omaha market when it began operating the new KXVO (channel 15) in 1995; the station, owned by Cocola Broadcasting, was an affiliate of The WB.
Titan and Sinclair ownership
Pappas Telecasting filed for bankruptcy in May 2008. Several Pappas stations, including KPTM and its local marketing agreement to program KXVO, were sold to Titan Broadcast Management in 2009. During this time, co-owned KCWL-TV in Lincoln was converted to an in-market Fox affiliate as KFXL-TV. Cable carriage of KPTM's high-definition feed in Lincoln was discontinued in 2012 in favor of KFXL-TV, though KPTM continued to be offered in standard definition.
Also in 2009, the station completed its conversion to digital television on June 12. The station's digital transmissions remained on channel 43, using virtual channel 42, until KPTM relocated its signal from channel 43 to channel 26 on June 2, 2019, as a result of the 2016 United States wireless spectrum auction.