KBSI
Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Template:Infobox television station
KBSI (channel 23) is a television station licensed to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for Southeastern Missouri, the Purchase area of Western Kentucky, Southern Illinois, and Northwest Tennessee. It is owned by the Community News Media subsidiary of Standard Media alongside Paducah, Kentucky–licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate WDKA (channel 49); Sinclair Broadcast Group operates the two stations under a shared services agreement (SSA). KBSI and WDKA share studios on Enterprise Street in Cape Girardeau; KBSI's transmitter is located in unincorporated Cape Girardeau County north of the city.
History
The station signed on the air on September 10, 1983, as an independent station and aired an analog signal on UHF channel 23.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The station was originally owned by Cape Girardeau Family Television, Ltd., in turn 51 percent owned by Media Central of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Prior to the station's launch, two independent stations were broadcast in southern Illinois, and a prior attempt had been made at an independent in Paducah,<ref name=TowersOverKY>Template:Cite book</ref> but this was the first independent station to cover all of the market, which was the reason Media Central had been attracted to the area.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Media Central filed for bankruptcy in 1987, and attempted to sell its properties to another television station owner.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> On September 7, 1987, KBSI joined the Fox network despite declining to carry the network the previous year,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> partly because of the Media Central bankruptcy.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Sout870816">Template:Cite news</ref> Media Central continued to own the station until a bankruptcy judge approved its acquisition by Engles Communications, owned by David Engles, a former Warner Bros. and NBC radio executive.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Under Engles, KBSI aired the first season of NYPD Blue when ABC affiliate WSIL-TV refused to air the show.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Engles then sold the station to Max Television (later Max Media Properties) in 1995.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In 1998, Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired most of the Max Media Properties stations, including KBSI; it owned KBSI and later WDKA in Paducah until both were sold to Community News Media for $28 million in a transaction that closed in 2021.<ref name="kbsisold">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
On July 22, 2025, Sinclair announced that it had purchased the non-license assets of KBSI and WDKA, with an option to acquire the stations' broadcast licenses.<ref>Template:Cite press release</ref> On September 22, 2025, it was announced that Rincon Broadcasting Group would be buying the KBSI and WDKA licenses along with the other stations owned by Standard Media for $50 million, pending FCC approval.<ref name="rincon">Template:Cite web</ref>
Newscasts
From 2006 to September 30, 2010, NBC affiliate WPSD-TV (owned by the Paxton Media Group) produced a nightly prime time newscast for KBSI through a news share agreement.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> When the WPSD newscast started, KBSI competed with another nightly half-hour newscast at 9 p.m. on the area's low-powered CW affiliates WQTV-LP/WQWQ-LP. That newscast, produced by CBS affiliate KFVS-TV, focused on news from southeastern Missouri and was eventually canceled on July 29, 2007.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
On October 1, 2010, KBSI entered into a new agreement with KFVS to produce the newscast, which expanded to an hour in length. This agreement ended in March 2022 with KFVS moving the newscast to KFVS-DT2. On March 28, 2022, KBSI debuted its own newscast, produced out of Lincoln, Nebraska, at sister station KLKN. The news and weather anchors are based in Lincoln while the reporters work out of the KBSI studios in Cape Girardeau.
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's signal is multiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23.1 | 720p | 16:9 | KBSI-DT | Fox |
| 23.2 | 480i | WDKA-DT | MyNetworkTV in SD (WDKA) | |
| 23.3 | COMET | Comet | ||
| 23.4 | DEFY | Ion Plus | ||
| 23.5 | BOUNCE | Bounce TV | ||
| 23.6 | BUZZR | Buzzr |
Analog-to-digital conversion
KBSI shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 23, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 22, using virtual channel 23.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
References
External links
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