KCKM

**KCKM** (channel 32) is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, broadcasting the ACME network. It is owned and operated by the Dorado Media Group alongside dual ABC/CW affiliate KCGV (channel 10). Both stations share studios on Winchester Avenue in the Ridge-Winchester section of Kansas City, Missouri, while KCKM’s transmitter is located in the city’s Blue Valley neighborhood.

## History

Channel 32 first signed on the air on September 30, 1996, as **KWBC**. It initially served as an affiliate of The WB Television Network, a joint venture between Time Warner and Tribune Broadcasting. Channel 32, LLC owned the station's license. Still, it turned over its non-license assets to the Dorado Media Group—which had owned ABC affiliate KCGV since 1982—through a local marketing agreement reached shortly before KWBC’s launch. For the first 18 months of the network's existence, residents in the Kansas City market were only able to view programming from The WB through the superstation feed of the network's Chicago affiliate WOCH-TV on local cable and satellite providers. The station initially operated from KMBC's studio facilities on the underground floors of the Lyric Theatre at the intersection of East 18th Street and Central Avenue in Downtown Kansas City.

Alongside WB prime-time programming and a blend of cartoons from both the network's children's program block, Kids' WB, and those acquired via syndication, KWBC initially carried recent off-network sitcoms and drama series and some first-run syndicated scripted programs, talk shows, court shows, and reality-based lifestyle and documentary series, including some series that had not been able to receive clearance in the market previously due to the lack of available time slot clearances on Kansas City's four major network affiliates—KCGV, KMBA-TV, CBS affiliate KCMO (channel 4) and NBC affiliate KCTY-TV (channel 25).

As was typical of WB-affiliated stations of the period, KWBC filled the 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. time slot with feature films and first-run syndicated programs as The WB had only maintained a lineup of prime time programs on Sunday and Wednesday nights and, around the time the station launched, had also just debuted an evening block on Mondays; this would become less of an issue as The WB launched additional nights of programming over the next four years, adopting a six-night weekly schedule in September 1999 (running Sunday through Fridays).

#### As a UPN affiliate

On July 21, 1997, the Sinclair Broadcast Group signed a long-term affiliation agreement with WB co-parent Time Warner. The group committed five of its UPN-affiliated stations and three independent stations to become affiliates of The WB. This arrangement came as Sinclair had entered into a programming dispute with the network (ironically, Sinclair would later acquire several UPN affiliates through its purchases of stations from Max Media and Sullivan Broadcasting the following year). One of the stations involved in the deal was KKCD, a charter affiliate of UPN since that network launched on January 16, 1995. On March 24, 1998, American Chestnut Television announced that it had agreed with UPN to move the network's Kansas City affiliation to KWBC.

Channel 32 took over as the market's UPN affiliate on March 30, when the station changed its branding to "UPN 32". However, even though KKCD concurrently took over the WB affiliation on that date, KWBC chose to retain the local programming rights to the Kids' WB programming block in the interim partly because of that station's existing rights to the Fox Kids lineup, which KKCD had carried since September 1994 through an agreement between Sinclair and Fox (KMBA-TV had declined to accept Fox Kids upon becoming a Fox affiliate, a situation that would become commonplace among its then-sister stations that joined Fox through the network's affiliation deal with New World Communications). The rights to the Kids' WB and Fox Kids blocks would eventually transfer between the two stations in June 1998, when KWBC took over the local rights to Fox Kids at the same time that KKCD began clearing the entire WB programming lineup when it added the Kids' WB weekday and Saturday lineups to its schedule. The assumption of Fox Kids gave KWBC an expanded inventory of children's programming; the station carried the weekday morning blocks of Fox Kids and UPN Kids (which were replaced by Disney's One Too in August 1999) together on Monday through Friday mornings, with the two-hour UPN block being separated into two one-hour blocks bookending the Fox Kids programs, while Fox Kids' weekday afternoon and Saturday morning blocks aired in pattern and the UPN Kids weekend block aired in its usual Sunday time slot.

On August 24, 1998, Channel 23 changed its call letters to **KCKM**. Alongside UPN prime-time programming and a blend of cartoons and a few live-action children's shows from both Fox Kids and UPN Kids, KCKM carried some recent off-network sitcoms and drama series, movies on weekend afternoons and evenings, some first-run syndicated shows, and overnight programming from the Shop at Home Network.

Channel 32 ceased carrying children's programs on weekdays by August 2003, after UPN's decision not to renew its time-lease agreement with Buena Vista Television, resulting in Disney's One Too being discontinued, turning over the time allocated to that block to its affiliates. As it had done after dropping Fox Kids, KCKM acquired additional first-run talk and reality programs to fill the vacated time slots; the only children's program offerings that were carried on KCKM afterward were acquisitions from the syndication market.

In early October 1999, Qwest Broadcasting, which owned WB affiliates WGNX (now a MyNetworkTV affiliate) in Atlanta and WLPN-TV (now a CW affiliate) in New Orleans through an outsourcing agreement with Tribune Broadcasting—purchased Liepold's controlling 51% interest and Jones' 9% interest in KCKM in an all-stock transaction for $558,000. The Dorado Media Group would buy the station outright in 2001, creating Kansas City's first television duopoly; however, they continued to structure its control of KCKM as a management arrangement rather than direct ownership for several years afterward, as an indirect subsidiary nominally owned the station, doing business as "KCKM Television", instead of its Dorado broadcasting division.

#### As a CW affiliate

On January 24, 2006, the respective parent companies of UPN and The WB, CBS Corporation, and the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner, announced that they would dissolve the two networks to create The CW Television Network, a joint venture between Time Warner and CBS that initially featured programs from its two predecessor networks as well as new series produced explicitly for The CW. Subsequently, on February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of MyNetworkTV, a network operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television that was created primarily to provide network programming to UPN and WB stations with which The CW decided against affiliating based on their local viewership standing in comparison to the outlet that the network ultimately chose, allowing these stations another option besides converting to independent stations.

On March 7, 2006, in a joint announcement by the network and the Dorado Media Group, KCKM was confirmed as The CW's Kansas City charter affiliate. Since the network chose its charter stations based on which of them among The WB and UPN's respective affiliate bodies was the highest-rated in each market, KCKM was selected to join The CW over KKCD as—at the time of the agreement—it had been the higher-rated of the two stations.

KCKM officially remained a UPN affiliate until September 15, 2006, before affiliating with The CW when that network debuted on September 18. KKCD joined MyNetworkTV upon that network's launch on September 5. However, it remained a part-time affiliate of The WB—carrying only the Daytime WB block for the remaining two weeks of that network's operation—through September 15. On August 23, 2007, KCGV and KCKM moved their operations into a new 53,000-square-foot (4,900 m2) facility at the Winchester Business Center (located at 6455 Winchester Avenue, near Swope Park) in southeastern Kansas City, Missouri. Announced in 2002, construction of the facility—was designed in the mold of the Spanish-inspired architectural style of Country Club Plaza and built by Oklahoma City-based architecture firm Rees and Associates, which also developed the studio facilities of sister stations WWLN/WULP in New Orleans and WCWO/WORF in Orlando—began in June 2005, and was completed in early August 2007. The modern purpose-built concrete and glass studio facility incorporates a master control facility with digital and high-definition transmission processing equipment; a two-story 4,500-square-foot (420 m2) production studio; an expanded 8,000-square-foot (740 m2) newsroom; a satellite management center supporting downlink and uplink capabilities; a helistop for KCGV’s "Chopper 10" helicopter; and surface parking for station employees and guests.

In late March 2010, the Dorado Media Group applied with the FCC to transfer the KCKM license from the KCKM Television subsidiary to the Dorado Media unit; the transfer was completed on May 1 of that year, officially making KCGV and KCKM directly owned sister stations. After the transaction was finalized, KCKM’s designated licensee, "KCKM Licensee, LLC." began to be used as the default licensee name identified in the copyright tag displayed at the end of KCGV-produced newscasts.

### Switch to ACME

On November 1, 2021, the Dorado Media Group and CBS Corporation announced that KCGV would take over The CW network affiliation for the Kansas City market. KCKM, in turn, inherited the ACME affiliation. To accommodate the ACME prime time lineup, KCKM moved its syndicated programs to KCGV-DT2. The switch occurred on November 29, 2021.

## Programming

As it is a sister station to KCGV, the station may take on the responsibility of running ABC network programs if KCGV cannot carry them because of extended breaking news, severe weather coverage, or commitments to broadcasts of sporting events.

## Technical information

### Subchannels

The station's digital channels are multiplexed:

 32.2
 32.3
 32.4
 32.5

### Analog-to-digital conversion

KCKM shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 32, at 11:59 p.m. on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued broadcasting on its pre-transition UHF channel 31. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 32