KCJO
KCJO-CD, virtual channel 30, is a low-power Class A television station in St. Joseph, Missouri, in the United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by the locally based News-Press & Gazette Company, through News-Press TV, LLC, alongside NBC affiliate KNPG-CD on channel 21 and Fox affiliate KNPN-CD on channel 26. The three stations share studios at the company's corporate headquarters on Edmond Street in downtown St. Joseph, in a facility that also houses the St. Joseph News-Press newspaper and the local news and weather channel News-Press NOW. KCJO-CD's transmitter is located on South 16th Street, adjacent to U.S. Route 36, just southeast of downtown. Although the station's present identity dates from 2017, its licence and signal were first put on air in 2014 as a Telemundo affiliate, and its history is intertwined with the call-sign changes that reshaped all of the News-Press & Gazette low-power stations in St. Joseph in the mid-2010s.
St. Joseph and Its Small Television Market
St. Joseph, in northwestern Missouri on the Missouri River, is a very small television market by national standards. For decades its only full-power local station was channel 2, KQTV, and viewers relied on Kansas City stations for several major networks. In particular, after channel 2 left CBS to become a full-time ABC affiliate in 1967, Kansas City's KCTV, channel 5, whose signal provided city-grade coverage in St. Joseph proper, served as the area's default CBS station for fifty years. That long absence of a local CBS affiliate is the background against which KCJO-CD matters. When channel 30 became a CBS affiliate on June 1, 2017, CBS returned to St. Joseph with a locally based affiliate for the first time since 1967. The change also meant that, counting the CW subchannel of sister station KNPG-CD, the St. Joseph area had in-market affiliates for five of the six major American commercial broadcast networks.
Creation of the Channel 30 Licence
The station traces its background to the News-Press & Gazette build-out that began on June 2, 2012, when the company signed on KNPN-LD as the St. Joseph market's Fox affiliate, the first broadcast television station built and signed on by the locally based company. KNPN's multiplex at that time included a Telemundo subchannel, which replaced the network's national feed on local cable providers, as the Spanish-language network did not have an existing affiliate in Missouri. To give that service a stand-alone signal, News-Press & Gazette acquired a low-power digital television licence in St. Joseph, K30ND-D, from DTV America 1, LLC of Sunrise, Florida, on December 19, 2012. Concurrent with the completion of the purchase, the station's call letters were changed to KNPG-LD, in reference to the parent company. The new station signed on the air on January 1, 2014. Its first air date is therefore listed as January 1, 2014, and its original network role was Telemundo, in high definition on its main signal.
Telemundo Years, 2014 to 2017
From 2014 until 2017, channel 30's primary affiliation was Telemundo. In addition to carrying Telemundo programming on its own signal in high definition, the service continued for a time to be simulcast in high definition over a KNPN subchannel. Both stations were low-power, and KNPN's coverage area was significantly larger than that of channel 30, so the simulcast helped the Spanish-language service reach more of the market. Contemporary coverage of the cluster noted a regulatory point that applied to channel 30 as much as to its sisters: low-power stations are exempt from the must-carry and retransmission-consent regulations that full-power stations enjoy, meaning carriage on area cable systems besides the local provider and on satellite services was not guaranteed. During these years the station used the KNPG-LD call sign, a name that would later move to channel 21, which is why histories of the two stations cross over each other and must be read together.
The 2016 Call-Sign Transfer
On August 18, 2016, News-Press & Gazette announced that it would transfer the KNPG-LD call sign to its CW-affiliated sister station on channel 21, then KBJO-LD, as part of that station's conversion into the market's first locally based NBC affiliate. Channel 21 joined NBC on November 1, 2016, and its CW affiliation moved to a new subchannel there. The KBJO-LD call sign previously used on channel 21 was, in turn, relocated to channel 30, which continued as a Telemundo affiliate under the KBJO-LD name. As a result, station records for the present KCJO-CD list its former call signs in sequence as KNPG-LD from 2014 to 2016, KBJO-LD from 2016 to 2017, and KCJO-LD from 2017, before the later change to the KCJO-CD designation reflecting Class A status. Understanding that sequence explains apparent contradictions in older listings, where the KNPG name appears on channel 30 and the KBJO name appears on both channel 21 and channel 30 at different dates.
Becoming the CBS Affiliate in 2017
On February 24, 2017, News-Press & Gazette announced that KBJO-LD, channel 30, would switch its primary affiliation to CBS on June 1. The move returned CBS to St. Joseph for the first time since KFEQ-TV, channel 2, now KQTV, which had been affiliated with CBS since its sign-on in September 1953, became a full-time ABC affiliate in June 1967. On the date of the switch, the station also changed its call letters from KBJO-LD to KCJO-LD, to reflect its CBS affiliation. The call sign is described in station references as referring to Cronkite or CBS and St. Joseph, modified from the previous KBJO calls. At the same time, KNPN moved its simulcast of the station to its second subchannel, 26.2, where KCJO is still simulcast in high definition from the same transmitter site. Telemundo programming was dropped from KNPN as a consequence of the change and moved to a new third subchannel on KNPG-LD, channel 21.3, so the Spanish-language service remained in the cluster even as channel 30 took on CBS.
Programming and Subchannels
KCJO-CD's main channel, 30.1, carries CBS, including the network's prime-time entertainment, sports, daytime and news programming, cleared locally in St. Joseph rather than through the Kansas City affiliate. Station listings for the cluster also show additional services on the channel 30 multiplex, including Dabl on a subchannel and Telemundo programming associated with the group on 30.3 in market listings, reflecting how the co-owned stations share network services across their multiplexes and simulcasts. In addition to its own digital signal, KCJO-CD is simulcast in high definition on KNPN-CD's second digital subchannel, 26.2, from the same transmitter site. That simulcast is practically important: it places the CBS service on the stronger and more widely received KNPN signal, compensating for the limited coverage of a low-power channel 30 signal while preserving channel 30 as the station's own virtual channel and branding position, presented as CBS 30 KCJO.
News Operation
KCJO-CD does not maintain a separate news department. Its newscasts come from the news department shared by KCJO-CD, KNPN-CD and KNPG-CD, which also uses reporting and coverage resources from the St. Joseph News-Press and shares content with News-Press NOW, with news programming produced in-house at the Edmond Street studios. When KCJO-LD was relaunched as a CBS station on June 1, 2017, it began simulcasting the news programmes carried by KNPG. Those programmes had themselves been established when KNPG became an NBC affiliate in November 2016, including simulcast portions of the weekday morning newscast, a half-hour 5 p.m. newscast, and exclusive evening newscasts at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. produced for the NBC station. Group information states that the shared operation produces local newscasts across the stations each week under the News-Press Now branding, so viewers of CBS 30 see the same local newsroom's work, presented as News-Press Now on CBS 30 KCJO, rather than a separate KCJO-only news product.
Ownership and Sister Stations
The owner, News-Press & Gazette Company, is headquartered in St. Joseph and has been owned and operated by the Bradley family since the 1950s, with origins in the publication of the first Gazette in St. Joseph in 1845. Its modern holdings have spanned newspapers, cable, internet, broadcast and commercial printing operations in several states. In St. Joseph the company operates a fully integrated local media cluster from one headquarters: the News-Press newspaper, News-Press NOW, Fox affiliate KNPN-CD, NBC, CW Plus and Telemundo affiliate KNPG-CD, and CBS affiliate KCJO-CD. There are no separate websites for the three television stations; instead, they are integrated with the website of the co-owned St. Joseph News-Press, newspressnow.com, including its television section. KCJO-CD's licence is held through News-Press TV, LLC. This structure means a single local owner controls the St. Joseph affiliates of Fox, NBC, CBS and The CW, an arrangement that would be unusual in a larger market but reflects the economics of serving a market of this size with low-power licences.
Technical Information
KCJO-CD is a Class A low-power station licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, with facility ID 188057. Its digital signal is broadcast on UHF channel 28, while viewers see virtual channel 30, the number the station has used since its licence was acquired as K30ND-D. Earlier, from 2012 to 2018 in station records, its digital channel number was listed as 30. Its effective radiated power is listed as 1.75 kilowatts, with a height above average terrain of about 73.6 metres, or 241 feet. Transmitter coordinates in station records are approximately 39 degrees 45 minutes north latitude and 94 degrees 50 minutes west longitude, at the South 16th Street site southeast of downtown St. Joseph shared with its sister stations. KNPN-CD channel 26.2 is listed as its translator or simulcast outlet. Those figures underline the station's low-power character: its own signal is modest, and the KNPN simulcast and cable carriage are essential parts of how the CBS service actually reaches the market.
Significance for the Market
KCJO-CD's importance is historical as well as practical. It closed a fifty-year gap in which St. Joseph, despite having its own television market identity, had no local CBS affiliate and depended on a Kansas City station as its default CBS outlet. It also completed, together with KNPN in 2012 and KNPG's NBC switch in 2016, News-Press & Gazette's project of building a multi-network local television service in its home city, starting from no broadcast television station at all before 2012. Because the same company also provides the market's Telemundo service on a sister subchannel and the CW service on another, KCJO operates as one piece of a single, locally owned system rather than as an isolated channel 30. For advertisers and viewers, the result is that CBS network programmes, national CBS news and sports, and local News-Press Now newscasts are presented under a St. Joseph identity, CBS 30 KCJO, from studios in downtown St. Joseph, instead of being imported wholesale from a larger neighbouring market.
