KSKN
KSKN (channel 22) is a television station in Spokane, Washington, United States, serving the Spokane and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, area as the market's affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Tegna, as part of a duopoly with CBS affiliate KREM (channel 2). The two stations share studios on South Regal Street in the Southgate neighbourhood of Spokane. KSKN's transmitter is on Krell Hill, southeast of Spokane. The call sign is derived from the name Spokane. Its history is one of a troubled independent launch, two bankruptcies, seven years off the air, a revival as a home shopping station, and a long reinvention under KREM's management as Spokane's outlet first for UPN, then for The WB, and since 2006 for The CW.
The Spokane market
Spokane is the principal city of the Inland Northwest, and its television market extends across eastern Washington into northern Idaho, including Coeur d'Alene. When KSKN was planned, the market already had affiliates of the three established networks and a public television service, and an independent competitor, KAYU-TV (channel 28). A new UHF independent station had to buy syndicated programming in competition with that established rival, fill a full broadcast day without network supply, and persuade advertisers and cable systems to support a fifth commercial service. That economic challenge explains much of KSKN's first decade, in which strong audience interest did not translate into financial stability.
Launch as an independent in 1983
KSKN began broadcasting in 1983, with full programming from December 18, 1983, after an initial sign-on that October. It operated as a general entertainment independent station. Its weekday schedule in its early form mixed classic cartoons in the morning, religious programmes late in the morning, classic sitcoms around midday, newer cartoons in the afternoon, recent sitcoms in early evening, movies in prime time, and a mixture of older and recent sitcoms late at night, with more movies and drama series at weekends. The station achieved good ratings for a new independent, but it overspent on programming. In the summer of 1985 its original owners filed for bankruptcy. The station cut back its broadcast day, added more barter programming, for which advertisers supply programmes in exchange for commercial time, and dropped many of its stronger shows.
Second ownership, second bankruptcy and silence
In the fall of 1985 KSKN was sold to new owners who had previously owned KMSB in Tucson, Arizona. They restored stronger programming and recovered many of the shows the previous owners had lost. The financial problems nevertheless continued, and the second ownership also filed for bankruptcy, in April 1987. The station filled about fifteen hours a day with home shopping programming from various sources, with religious shows and cartoons in the remaining hours. In June 1987 KSKN went dark. Apart from the formal listing of the period as dark from 1987 to 1994, the station was absent from Spokane television for roughly seven years, an unusually long silence for a full-power licence in a market of Spokane's size, and a sign of how difficult the UHF independent business had become in the late 1980s.
Return with home shopping, 1994 to 1997
KSKN returned to the air in 1994. Its programming in this second life was the Home Shopping Network, carried around the clock apart from several hours on Sunday mornings used for religious and educational children's programmes, which allowed the station to meet its regulatory obligations. Home shopping required almost no local production or expensive syndicated acquisitions and generated revenue from sales commissions, making it a practical way to keep the licence active and restore some value to the station. The channel 22 signal was again present on Spokane television sets, but it was not yet a local entertainment or news service in any meaningful sense, and its future depended on finding a partner with an existing newsroom and sales operation.
KREM takes control: UPN and The WB
That partner was KREM, Spokane's CBS affiliate. In July 1996 KREM's then owner, the Providence Journal Company, began programming KSKN under a local marketing agreement, an arrangement reported in KREM's history as beginning in July 1996; KSKN then joined UPN in 1997 and KREM began producing a 10 p.m. newscast for it that September, at a time when Fox affiliate KAYU had no newscast at all. After the Belo Corporation acquired the Providence Journal Company, and after federal rules were changed in 1999 to permit duopolies in markets like Spokane, Belo bought KSKN outright in 2001 for five million dollars. In affiliation terms the station moved from UPN, which it carried from 1997 to 2002, first adding The WB on a secondary basis from 1999 and then becoming Spokane's primary WB affiliate from 2002 to 2006.
Becoming Spokane's CW affiliate
In 2006 UPN and The WB were closed by their owners and replaced by a single new network, The CW, formed from elements of both. KSKN, as the market's WB affiliate, became Spokane's CW affiliate at the network's launch and has retained that affiliation since. The CW gave the station a defined prime time identity built around younger-skewing drama and, in later years, sports and acquired programming, a more stable position than its independent and home shopping periods. It brands itself as KSKN 22 CW. On cable and satellite it has been carried in high definition on Comcast Xfinity channel 111 in the Spokane area and on Charter Spectrum channel 1212 in the Coeur d'Alene area and the Palouse, as well as on channel 22 on Dish Network and DirecTV.
Ownership: Belo, Gannett, Tegna and Nexstar
KSKN's corporate ownership followed that of KREM for more than two decades. Belo owned both stations after 2001. On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company announced it would acquire Belo, and the sale was completed on December 23 that year. In 2015 Gannett split its publishing and broadcasting businesses into separate companies, and the television business, including KREM and KSKN, took the name Tegna. Current listings describe KSKN's owner as Tegna Inc., a subsidiary of Nexstar Media Group, reflecting Nexstar's acquisition of Tegna. Through those changes the Spokane duopoly itself remained intact, with KSKN continuing to share KREM's studios, newsroom and management.
News from the KREM newsroom
KSKN has no separate news department. Its local news comes from KREM, whose journalists produce programmes specifically for channel 22 as well as simulcasts of KREM newscasts. The first such programme was the 10 p.m. newscast launched in September 1997. As of 2024 KSKN also carried a dedicated morning news extension from 7 to 9 a.m., after the end of KREM's main morning programme on channel 2, in addition to the 10 p.m. news. The arrangement gives CW viewers in Spokane a prime time newscast an hour before the late news on the older network affiliates, and a morning alternative, without the cost of building a second newsroom. KSKN and KREM also contributed historically to Northwest Cable News, the regional cable news service based in Seattle that served the Pacific Northwest until it closed on January 6, 2017.
Subchannels and technical information
KSKN broadcasts on digital UHF channel 36 and displays virtual channel 22, its former analog channel, which it used from 1983 to 2009. Its facility ID is 35606. It operates with an effective radiated power of 1,000 kilowatts from an antenna 622 metres above average terrain on Krell Hill, at 47 degrees 35 minutes 41 seconds north and 117 degrees 17 minutes 57 seconds west. In addition to The CW on 22.1, its multiplex has carried, in recent listings, Quest on 22.2 and Laff on 22.3, with further multicast services listed on later subchannels. A translator, K25MP in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, extends the signal toward the Canadian border. The high power and hilltop site give channel 22 coverage across the Spokane metropolitan area and into northern Idaho.
Significance
KSKN is a case study in the survival of a television licence through repeated failure. It failed twice as a standalone independent, spent years silent, and returned only as a home shopping outlet. Its revival as an entertainment and news station came not from a new standalone business plan but from integration with an established affiliate, first through a management agreement and then through legal duopoly ownership. That integration gave Spokane a durable UPN, WB and CW service and prime time local news on channel 22, and it has kept KSKN on the air continuously since 1994, a marked contrast with its first four years.
