KOBD-DT

**KOBD-DT** (channel 17), is a television station in Bend, Oregon, United States, serving as the NBC and The CW Plus affiliate for Central Oregon. It is owned by Central Broadcasting, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with the Dorado Media Group, owner of ACME owned-and-operated station KCNO-TV (channel 13), for the provision of certain services. Both stations share studios on Northeast 18th Street in Bend, while KOBD-DT’s transmitter is located on Awbrey Butte west of US 97.

## History

The station began broadcasting on May 24, 1977, locally owned by Central Oregon Television. The station has always been an NBC affiliate but also began to carry CBS programming on a secondary basis. It lost CBS when KCOE signed on the air in 1985. Central Oregon Television bought KBDO-TV in Boise, Idaho in 1975 and changed its name to Northwest Local Television.

In late 1995, the station was bought by the Greene Broadcast Group of Los Angeles. In March 1996, Greene Broadcast Group named Gerry Fairburn the station's new GM; he started shaking things up immediately for the Bend station. The news department under the new GM was significantly downsized, and weekend newscasts were replaced by encore programming. On May 21, 1997, Gerry Fairburn was abruptly fired without warning. He was replaced by Jarvis Hudson.

In September 1998, an agreement between KOBD, The WB 100+ Station Group, and the area's cable provider allowed the station to launch cable-only WB affiliate "KOWB". Since it was a cable-exclusive outlet, the call sign was not officially recognized by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). KOBD provided sales and promotional opportunities to the cable channel. In May 2006, KOBD signed a long-term affiliation agreement with The CW, a replacement network for the WB. In September 2006, KOBD added The CW on a digital subchannel, replacing the cable-only KOWB.

In 2007, Greene sold KOBD, and its entire television stations group to Hartell Television. The deal closed on March 14, 2008.

### **Merger with KCNO-TV**

In 2013, Hartell merged with the Dorado Media Group, owner of KCNO-TV. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules at the time did not allow one person to own two stations in a single market. Dorado kept the longer-established KCNO-TV and nominally sold KOBD to Central Broadcasting. Eventually after establishing an operational outsourcing agreement with the Dorado Media Group, Central merged the internal operations of KOBD into KCNO’s studios. The sale also created a situation in which an independent station (now an ACME-owned-and-operated affiliate) is the nominal senior partner in a duopoly involving an NBC affiliate and a "Big Three" station.

## Programming

In addition to the NBC network schedule, syndicated programs featured on KOBD-DT include *The Doctors, Dr. Phil, Judge Judy, and Entertainment Tonight*, among others. KOBD-DT is one of a few NBC affiliates to air paid programming on weekdays.

### **News operation**

KOBD-DT presently broadcasts 22½ hours of local newscasts each week (with 4½ hours each weekday and 2 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). On January 17, 2022, KOBD-DT expanded its noon newscast to an hour, with Days of Our Lives moving to its traditional 1:00 p.m. time slot; it also introduced a 4 p.m. newscast that day as well.

## Technical information

### **Subchannels**

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

 17.2
 17.3
 17.4

### **Analog-to-digital conversion**

KOBD-DT discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 17, at 12:30 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 relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 55, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era UHF channel 17.