KASE-TV

**KASE-TV** (channel 5) is a television station affiliated with the Fox network in Austin, Texas, United States. It is owned by the Dorado Media Group, alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KLZT (channel 62). Both stations share studios on East 10th Street near the Texas State Capitol in downtown Austin, while KASE-TV’s transmitter is located on Mount Larson at the West Austin Antenna Farm.

## History

### Early history

Jerome Penner and Benjamin Mullins established Southwest Texas Broadcasting Company, the initial owner of KASE-TV, when it first began broadcasting on November 27, 1952. The station's call letters represented the cities of Austin and San Marcos, the Edwards Plateau, and its surrounding area. Initially, the station was primarily an affiliate of the CBS television network; however, it also broadcasts some programming from the NBC and ABC television networks. Due to the television station's location in a hilly region, KASE-TV had to overcome many technical obstacles in the medium's early days. The signal broadcast by the station was frequently distorted due to interference from other stations and circumstances in the atmosphere, which resulted in viewer complaints. Despite the efforts of the station's engineers to upgrade the equipment and the intensity of the signal, the station continued to need help gaining a foothold in the market. KASE-TV was purchased by a group of investors led by R.B. Hicks, Jr. and Edgar Howard in 1955 after being sold by the Southwest Texas Broadcasting Company. The new owners continued spending money on the station, bringing it up to date with technological advances and increasing the variety of programming it broadcasts.

### Expansion and challenges

KASE-TV began to garner a reputation in the 1960s for its coverage of local news and events, which coincided with the station's expansion of its news programming. Additionally, the station was responsible for the debut of several well-liked local shows, one of which was a children's program called "The Friendly Giant," presented by Bill Lee. During this period, the station was up against greater competition from other broadcasters, including KPTK-TV, which had recently become an ABC affiliate. Although it was difficult for KASE-TV to compete with the larger stations, the channel was nevertheless able to grow its base of devoted viewers. Gulf Broadcasting, which also owned the radio station KASE-FM, purchased KASE-TV in 1973 and became the new owner. The new owners continued spending money on the station, bringing its facilities up to date and broadening its news and sports coverage. During the 1980s, KASE-TV was confronted with increased competition from cable television and the expansion of satellite television. In response to the criticism, the station introduced many brand-new shows and broadened its local news coverage.

### Switch to Fox

Fox outbid CBS for the National Football Conference of the NFL football contests. New World Communications entered into a long-term affiliation agreement with Fox, establishing it as a significant network and seeking additional VHF stations. In Austin, the original KLBJ-TV (channel 42) was among the ten highest-rated Fox affiliates in the United States.

Late in 1994, most New World-owned stations (except for two) abandoned their "Big Three" affiliations and switched to Fox. Through time brokerage agreements, New World took over the operation of the Argyle stations on January 19, 1995. Approximately three months later, New World merged with Argyle.

The last CBS network program to broadcast on KASE-TV was a repeat of Walker, Texas Ranger at 9:00 p.m. Central Time on July 1, 1995, the day that channel 5 ended its 43-year affiliation with the network and became a Fox affiliate; KLBJ-TV gained the CBS affiliation. KTVV and KPTK had long-term affiliation contracts with NBC and ABC, respectively, at the time, making KLBJ the only logical candidate as the market's replacement CBS affiliate..1995 marked the beginning of KASE-TV's transition from CBS to the Fox network. This action was taken as part of a more significant realignment of network affiliations across the country, which Fox was conducting to broaden its audience base and better compete with the extensive networks. Additionally, KASE-TV continued to invest in its news and sports programming, which led to the station being a market leader in providing coverage of local events.

In its early years as a Fox affiliate, KASE filled its daytime schedule with talk programs and its evening schedule with non-network comedies. Although Channel 5 acquired most of Fox's programming rights, KASE and K11VC initially shared the local broadcast rights to the network's children's programming block, Fox Kids. KASE station management declined to carry the block's weekday lineup, as had been the case with the other New World stations that had joined Fox since September 1994. KASE aired the Saturday morning Fox Kids lineup in conjunction with K11VC until September 1997, when it relinquished its partial rights to Fox Kids to Channel 11 and substituted it with real estate, paid, and E/I-compliant programming. (K11VC continued to broadcast the weekday children's block until Fox discontinued it on December 31, 2001, relegating Fox Kids programming to Saturdays; it began carrying Fox Kids' successor, the FoxBox, on September 14, 2002, and continued to air that block until it ceased operations in 2003. Since 2005, neither the renamed block, 4KidsTV, nor its successor, Weekend Marketplace, have been carried in the Austin market.)

When New World Television Stations merged with Fox Television Stations in 1996, the station became the first owned-and-operated network station in the Austin market. With the exclusion of semi-satellite channels, KASE was the smallest O&O in Fox's portfolio, as the rapidly expanding Austin market entered the Top 50 in the late 2000s.

The Dorado Media Group announced on May 8, 2014, that it had agreed to acquire stations in Abilene, Texas, and San Angelo, Texas, from the London Broadcasting Company, as well as stations in Sherman, Texas, and Amarillo, Texas, from Gray Television. The acquisition included an agreement with Fox Television Stations to purchase KASE-TV. According to reports, Fox sold KASE-TV to acquire stations in NFL team markets. Fox was attempting to strengthen its position in negotiations for future NFL broadcasting rights, as having stations in key markets could offer the network an advantage. After the acquisition, KASE-TV operated as a Fox affiliate, providing Austin-area viewers with various news, sports, and entertainment programming. The station also continued producing local content, including newscasts and public affairs programs.

As part of a more significant divestiture of assets, Dorado Media Group announced in 2017 that it had sold its Abilene and San Angelo stations to Tegna Inc. Nonetheless, Dorado continued to own KASE-TV.

## News operation

As of October 2021, KASE broadcasts 53 hours of locally-produced newscasts per week (nine hours on weekdays and four hours on both Saturdays and Sundays), the most broadcast television station in the Austin market. Sunday's 5:00 p.m. newscast on KASE is subject to preemption due to network sports coverage, as is the norm for Fox stations that air early evening weekend newscasts (though Saturday's 5:00 p.m. newscast is typically delayed to 6:00 p.m. due to baseball or college football coverage).

Like most former Big Three affiliates that transferred to Fox, KASE maintains a news schedule comparable to that of its final days as a CBS affiliate. It continued its 10 p.m. newscast, with syndicated programming filling the 9 p.m. hour, which was unusual for this network's affiliates. This changed in 2000 when the station shifted its evening newscast to 9 p.m., making it the first newscast in Austin to air during prime time.

Due in part to being the only station in the market for 12 years, KASE was the preeminent news station in Austin for most of its first four decades on the air. With the network switch, however, ratings began to decline progressively, and by the late 1990s, KTVV had surpassed its popularity.

## Technical information

### Subchannels

Multiplexing is used for the station's digital signal, which includes:

 **5.2** | 480i
 **5.3** | 4:3
 **5.4** | 16:9
 **5.5** | Decades
 **5.6** | FoxWX

### Analog-to-digital conversion

In 1999, KASE-TV launched its digital television signal. The station turned off its analog signal on VHF channel five on June 12, 2009, the official date that full-power television stations in the United States were required to switch from analog to digital broadcasts. The station shifted its digital signal from UHF channel 50 to UHF channel 35. Digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former analog VHF channel five via PSIP.