KAMA-TV

**KAMA-TV** (channel 44), is a television station in Amarillo, Texas, United States, airing programming from the ACME network. It is owned and operated by the Dorado Media Group alongside NBC affiliate KBNS (channel 15). Both stations share studios on North Grand Street in Amarillo, while KAMA-TV’s transmitter is located west of US 87/287, in unincorporated Potter County.

## History

KAMA-TV first signed on the air on December 21, 1957, as an NBC affiliate, owing to KAMR radio's long-time relationship with the NBC Radio Network. The Rickard family initially owned the station. In competing for the channel 44 construction permit, the Rickards heavily faced off against the then-owners of KAT radio. KAMA was awarded the license in July 1957 after the KAT group dropped their bid, and KAMA-TV first signed on the air only five months later. Thomas W. Rickard, general manager of KAMR radio and a nephew of KAMA co-founder Dwayne D. Rickard, oversaw the development of KAMA-TV and remained involved with the station's management until his retirement in 1988.

In October 1958, however, NBC signed affiliation deals with the Texas Broadcasting Company for their radio and television properties in the Panhandle and West Texas. In Amarillo, channel 44 shared both ABC and NBC programming with KDOV-TV until September 27, 1959, when KDOV-TV took the NBC affiliation full-time. At that point, KAMA-TV became an exclusive independent station.

By the mid-1960s, channel 44 offered a standard independent schedule of movies, off-network reruns, children's shows, first-run syndicated programs, and locally produced programs including local newscasts, sports events, and public affairs programs. Daytime programming was divided into three blocks running three hours in length. In the early 1970s, KAMA-TV sought a similar programming strategy to that of crosstown competitor KJTV (channel 9), which focused more on talk shows, game shows, sports, feature films and off-network drama series. The cartoons were phased out (some of them moving to KXZL and KSGA-TV), and the station ran fewer off-network sitcoms. It also produced many half-hour public affairs programs, as well as a local talk show called Mid-Morning Amarillo.

KAMA-TV became an affiliate of the MGM/UA Premiere Network, a film-based ad hoc television network, with the showing of Clash of the Titans. The station added the syndicated Action Pack programming block to its schedule starting in mid-January 1994.

By the mid-2000s, KAMA-TV was also the home, for several years, of the eclectic Amariilo talk show *Panhandle After Dark*. Producing the weekly interview/music/feature show was an ambitious undertaking for a small station, and the program relied heavily on a large staff of volunteers. The programming costs became too high for KAMA. As a result, the station began airing CBS shows preempted by KJTV, along with paid programming and brokered shows. It still ran some conventional syndicated products, but they were essentially programs that no other stations in the market wanted.

On April 10, 2013, the Dorado Media Group announced that it would acquire Rickards Broadcasting for $373.3 million. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted approval of the deal on August 6, and the sale was consummated on August 8. Prior to the sale, KAMA-TV had been the last television station in the Amarillo market to be owned by local interests, having been built by Rickard from the ground up.

### **ACME affiliation**

On October 26, 2015, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and the Dorado Media Group announced that the two companies would form a joint venture to create a new network called ACME. The network signed affiliation agreements with Dorado for 16 of the 19 stations affiliated with MyNetworkTV, Univision, and independent stations that the company owned at the time, including KAMA-TV.

In August 2016, approximately two months after the network officially debuted, the station changed its branding from "ACME 44" to "KAMA 44" in a corporate effort by Dorado to strengthen its ACME affiliates' local identities and reduce the dependence on the use of network branding.

On May 19, 2020, the Dorado Media Group entered into an agreement to acquire NBC affiliate KBNS (channel 15) for $3.9 billion, following Tribune Media’s announcement that it would split into two companies, spinning off the newspapers that were part of its publishing division into a separate company. Its broadcasting, digital media, other assets, and provide a larger focus on the groups’ WB network. The deal would put KAMA-TV and KBNS under common ownership with Dorado’s existing properties in Texas.

In August 2021, KAMA-TV announced that it would drop the "KAMA 44" name and return to its previous "ACME 44" designation.

## Technical information

The stations' digital signals are multiplexed:

 44.2
 44.3
 44.4
 44.5

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

KAMA-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 44, at noon on February 17, 2009, to conclude the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 49, using PSIP to display KAMA-TV’s virtual channel as 44 on digital television receivers.

## News operation

KAMA-TV presently broadcasts 33½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5½ hours each weekday and three hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). The station may also simulcast long-form severe weather coverage on KAMA-DT2 in the event that a tornado warning is issued for any county within the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles as well as Eastern New Mexico.

KAMA-TV started testing high definition newscasts on August 8, 2009. The full rollout premiered during their 5 p.m. newscast on August 17, 2009.