KGNX-TV

**KGNX-TV** (channel 59) is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by the ACME Television Stations Group alongside ACME-owned-and-operated station KSLC (channel 11). Both stations share studios on Cliff Cave Road in Oakville, while KGNX’s transmitter is located in Lemay, Missouri.

## History

### Early history

On September 11, 1989, the station went on air for the first time under the call letter KYMC, initially broadcasting the Home Shopping Network (HSN) in total. It was not established by the network's broadcasting division, Silver King Communications, unlike the majority of full-time HSN affiliates of the time; instead, it was first owned by St. Louis-based Roberts Broadcasting, a family business run by African American businessmen Steven, Mike, and Mark Roberts.

What had been a peaceful relationship between HSN and Roberts for the station's first seven years on the air turned sour in 1996, when HSN sued the station for breach of contract; Roberts wanted to air more infomercials and fewer hours of home shopping. HSN reduced the number of local commercial minutes per hour from 5 to 2, and Roberts considered leasing the station's airtime to River City Broadcasting (owners of WTVI-TV) or Koplar Communications, which owned KMOX-TV. In the dispute, a judge ruled in favor of HSN. With few exceptions, Roberts was thus obligated to air HSN's programming under a contract that did not expire until 2003.

### From HSN to UPN

Roberts announced in June 2001 that it had signed an agreement to become an affiliate of UPN, giving the network its first primary affiliate in St. Louis and ending the market's status as the largest U.S. city by market size without a full-time affiliate of the network. The agreement would go into effect in 2003 when the HSN contract expired.

All six of the major broadcast networks that were in operation in St. Louis after January 1995 had enough viewers to support exclusive affiliations, but KYMC's commitment to HSN prevented UPN from having a reliable exclusive affiliate in the market. The network didn't have an affiliate in St. Louis when it first started. Finally, it discovered one in WTVI-TV, an ABC affiliate at the time that broadcast its programming in late-night hours from August 1995 to January 1998. It took another 16 months for WTVI-TV and UPN to agree after WTVI-TV decided to concentrate on ABC programming. In September 2000, KMOX-TV agreed to temporarily affiliate with UPN, delaying its prime-time programming until after the station's 9:00 p.m. newscast.

Fans of two of the network's most popular shows at the time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Star Trek: Enterprise, would have been forced to watch both shows through UPN-affiliated superstations provided by Dish Network or through tape trading as a result of KMOX's decision to sever ties to UPN and exclusively align with The WB in July 2002. To address this, Robert's management convinced HSN to give KYMC permission to preempt two hours per week of prime-time programming to air both shows beginning in September 2002.

The station switched to **KCTX** as its call sign on January 17, 2003. Three months later, on April 1, the rest of the UPN lineup was moved to channel 46. On that day, KCTX took over the HSN programming and filled the schedule with a slate of syndicated shows, including a mix of sitcoms, drama series, and first-run syndicated talk, court, and reality shows.

Under the terms of the agreement, Roberts Broadcasting continued to operate KCTX through a time brokerage agreement. It was given the right of first refusal on appointments for the directors of KCTX's licensee. In February 2003, Roberts Broadcasting sold a 50% interest in KCTX to the TeleFutura subsidiary of Univision Communications under the joint venture licensee St. Louis/Denver LLC.

### As a MyNetworkTV affiliate

On January 24, 2006, the respective parent companies of UPN and The WB, CBS Corporation and Time Warner's Warner Bros. Entertainment division announced that the two networks would be merged to form The CW Television Network, a joint venture between the two media companies that would initially feature programs from its two predecessor networks as well as new series created specifically for The CW. The CW also signed a ten-year affiliation agreement with Tribune Broadcasting on that date, with sixteen of the group's eighteen WB-affiliated stations serving as charter stations. KMOX-TV was one of the stations included in the agreement, and it was announced as the network's St. Louis affiliate over KCTX; however, because the network chose its affiliates based on which television station among The WB and UPN's respective affiliate bodies was the highest-rated in each market, KMOX would likely have been chosen over KCTX in any case, as channel 62 had been the higher-rated of the two stations even before it became a network affiliate upon joining The WB in January 1995 and had been one of The WB's strongest affiliates for the nearly entire eleven-year existence of that network.

Following this, on February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of MyNetworkTV, a network run by Fox Television Stations and its syndication arm Twentieth Television. This network was developed primarily to provide network programming to UPN and WB stations. The CW decided against affiliating due to their local viewership standing compared to the outlet that the network ultimately chose, giving these stations an alternative to converting to cable. KCTX was officially announced as the first MyNetworkTV affiliate for St. Louis on March 9 in a joint statement from the network and Roberts Broadcasting.

Like other UPN-affiliated stations that were committed to joining MyNetworkTV, Channel 59 became an affiliate of that network on September 5 and simultaneously changed its name to "My 59." As a result, the network's final two weeks of programming—mainly consisting of repeats of network shows aired during the 2005–06 television season—was not carried in St. Louis. While KMOX continued to be a WB affiliate until September 17, it became a part of The CW formally on September 18, the day after the network made its debut. As a MyNetworkTV affiliate, the station started acting as a fallback NBC affiliate when KTRS (channel 3) was required to reschedule NBC programming to air St. Louis Cardinals baseball games, the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon, locally produced specials, or because preemptions were required to cover breaking news or severe weather. Roberts Broadcasting and Univision Communications officially dissolved the St. Louis/Denver LLC partnership, which allowed Roberts to acquire full ownership of KCTX in March 2010.

### Bankruptcy and sale

By 2010, the Roberts brothers' various businesses were in severe financial trouble. Warner Bros. Television, 20th Television, and CBS Television Distribution had filed lawsuits against the Roberts' broadcasting unit for failing to pay fees for syndicated programs acquired for its CW and MyNetworkTV-affiliated stations (Warner Bros. and CBS would win their court disputes against Roberts, which also later reached a settlement with 20th Television). On October 7, 2011, Roberts Broadcasting finally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The group attributed the reason for its financial crisis to the loss of the UPN affiliations on KCTX because a large portion of UPN's schedule at the time of its closure consisted of programs targeted at African Americans and other minority audiences, which Roberts believed were compatible with the stations' core viewership.

To raise the money necessary to pay off its creditors, Roberts announced on February 20, 2012, that it was considering selling one or all four of its television stations. By December 2, 2013, all other stations had been sold, except for KCTX, to the Trinity Broadcasting Network or its Tri-State Christian Television affiliate Radiant Light Ministries.

### As an Ion affiliate, changing hands

On February 10, 2014, KCTX resumed its over-the-air presence in the St. Louis market by becoming a primary Ion Television affiliate while continuing to be a secondary MyNetworkTV affiliate. Due to the network switch, St. Louis became the biggest American television market at the time without a full-time MyNetworkTV affiliate after the company voided KCTX's agreements with syndication distributors and with Fox Entertainment Group for the affiliation. On November 17, 2014, WHSL (channel 46) acquired the Ion affiliation, bringing the network back to the market.

On January 29, 2015, Cedar Creek Broadcasting (a company controlled by Brian Brady, who also owns several other broadcasting companies that operate as de facto arms of his flagship group, Northwest Broadcasting) agreed to buy KCTX from the trust for $3 million; Ion would have provided services to the station, which would have remained an Ion affiliate). The Broadcast Trust notified the FCC on May 9, 2017, that the sale to Cedar Creek Broadcasting had been canceled. On June 20, 2017, the Dorado Media Group announced that it would acquire KCTX from the Chapman-owned/Ion-managed trust for an undisclosed sum, one month after the Cedar Creek purchase was terminated (and with the FCC restoring the UHF discount). October 19, 2017, saw the completion of the sale.

The station's on-air branding was changed from "My 59" to "The X" on November 1, 2017, as a number of Dorado-owned MyNetworkTV affiliates started to stop using references to the network in their station branding.

On October 18, 2022, the Dorado Media Group agreed to transfer the channel 59 license to ACME Media's Television Stations Group division, with the call-sign changed to **KGNX** while retaining the "X" portion and branding, with multiple station executives remarking that the outgoing KCTX-TV had no branding at all.

## Programming

In addition to repeats of network television sitcoms, syndicated shows that are broadcast on KGNX include 25 Words or Less, Divorce Court, Family Guy, and Bob's Burgers among others. As KSLC's duopoly partner, the station is also responsible for airing ACME programming when KSLC is unable to do so, such as during long-form breaking news and severe weather coverage.

## Technical information

### Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

 **59.2** | 480i
 **59.3** | Mystery
 **59.4** | Circle
 **59.5** | 720p

### Analog-to-digital conversion

On June 12, 2009, KGNX (as KCTX) terminated its analog signal, over UHF channel 59, as part of the legally required switch from analog to digital television. KGNX's virtual channel was shown on digital television receivers as 59 using PSIP. KGNX's pre-transition UHF channel 39 was one of the high band UHF channels (52–69) that were eliminated from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.