KOAM-TV

Not to be confused withKO-AM TV.

KOAM-TV

Pittsburg, Kansas–Joplin, Missouri United States
City	Pittsburg, Kansas
Channels	Digital:7 (VHF) Virtual:7
Branding	KOAM-TV 7;KOAM News Now Fox 14 (DT2) MeTV 4-States (DT3)
Programming
Affiliations	7.1:CBS 7.2:Fox for others, see§ Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Morgan Murphy Media (QueenB Television of Kansas/Missouri,LLC)
Sister stations	KFJX
History
First air date	December 13, 1953(1953-12-13)
Former channel number(s)	Analog:7 (VHF, 1953–2009) Digital:13 (VHF, 2001–2009)
Former affiliations	NBC(1953–1982) CBS (secondary, 1953–1954) DuMont(secondary, 1953–1955) ABC(secondary, 1953–1968)
Call signmeaning	Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	58552
ERP	98.8kW
HAAT	320 m (1,050 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	37°13′15″N94°42′26″W
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.koamnewsnow

KOAM-TV(channel 7) is atelevision stationlicensed toPittsburg, Kansas,United States, serving theJoplin, Missouri–Pittsburg, Kansasmarketas an affiliate ofCBS.It is owned byMorgan Murphy Media,which provides certain services to dualFox/CW+affiliateKFJX(channel 14, also licensed to Pittsburg) underjoint salesandshared servicesagreements (JSA/SSA) with ownerSagamoreHill Broadcasting.The two stations share studios and transmitter facilities onUS 69south of Pittsburg, with a secondary studio andnews bureauon South Range Line Road in Joplin.

History

KOAM-TV first signed on at 5:22 p.m. on December 13, 1953, under the ownership of MidContinent Broadcasting Company, a joint venture ofThe Joplin Globenewspaper and E. Victor Baxter andLester E. Cox,owners of KOAM radio (860 AM, the currentKKOW), with Baxter and Cox holding a controlling interest. TheGlobewould eventually sell its minority stake in the station to Baxter and Cox.

KOAM-TV launched as a primary affiliate ofNBC,owing to KOAM radio's long affiliation with NBC Radio, though it also had secondary affiliations with CBS (untilKSWM-TVlaunched in 1954),DuMont(until that network's 1956 closure) andABC(until January 1968, when KODE became a full-time ABC affiliate and KUHI-TV signed on with CBS). On September 5, 1982, KOAM swapped affiliations with KTVJ (the former KUHI-TV and now known asKSNF) and became a CBS affiliate. Mid-Continent Broadcasting sold the station toDraper Communications,who also ownedWBOC-TVinSalisbury, Maryland,in 1984. Draper then sold it to KOAM Ltd. Partnership in 1987.

KOAM's digital signal on channel 13 signed on in 2001 and remained until KOAM turned off its analog signal at 12:38 a.m. on February 17, 2009 (the original 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), followingThe Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,at which time KOAM ceased analog broadcasting and its digital broadcast returned to channel 7. Sister stationKFJX,the market'sFoxaffiliate, moved onto KOAM's former digital channel 13 (KFJX continued to broadcast on analog channel 14 until May 2009 when a line of severethunderstormsdamaged the broadcast tower, forcing the removal of the antenna). KFJX's signal is simulcast inhigh definitionon KOAM's digital subchannel 7.2.

In June 2010, the DirecTV satellite system added Joplin locals to its channel lineup. Initially, KOAM and sister station KFJX refused to allow DirecTV to carry their stations. In February 2012, KOAM and KFJX began airing on DirecTV.

On May 10, 2017,Morgan Murphy Mediaannounced that it would acquire Saga Communications' television clusters in Joplin, Missouri, including KOAM-TV, andVictoria, Texas,includingKAVU-TV.The sale was completed on September 1.

In 2024, KOAM parent company Morgan Murphy Media reached an agreement to broadcast eightOklahoma City Thundergames. Games will air on KOAM-TV, or sister stations KFJX and KFJX-DT3.

News operation

KOAM presently broadcasts21+1⁄2hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with four hours each weekday, one hour on Saturdays and a half-hour on Sundays).

Notable former on-air staff

• Brian Williams(NBC Nightly Newsanchor from 2004 to 2015)

Subchannels

The station's signal ismultiplexed:

Subchannels of KOAM-TV

Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
7.1	1080i	16:9	KOAM-HD	CBS
7.2	720p		KFJX-HD	Fox(KFJX)
7.3	480i		MeTV	MeTV
7.4			H&I	Heroes & Icons
7.5		4:3	QVC	QVC
7.6			HSN	Spirit TV

Simulcast of subchannels of another station

In September 2019, KOAM addedMeTVto the DT3 subchannel as the Joplin–Pittsburg market did not have a MeTV affiliate.

External links

• Official website