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KNOP-TV was founded by local investors headed by attorney Rush Clarke and went on-air December 15, 1958.[1]
In 1968, it was purchased by Richard F. Shively, Harold O. Shively and Ulysses Carlini Sr.[2] Richard died on December 4, 2003.[3] In 1997, Shively and Carlini bought KHAS-TVinHastings, and formed Greater Nebraska Television as a holding company for their television interests.
In 2005, Greater Nebraska Television sold its stations (including KNOP-TV) to Hoak Media.[4]
On November 20, 2013, Hoak announced the sale of most of its stations, including KNOP-TV and K11TW, to Gray Television. The sale made them sister stations to North Platte CBS affiliate KNPL-LD, a semi-satellite of Gray's KOLN/KGIN; it would have also partially separated KNOP from KHAS-TV, which was planned to be sold to Excalibur Broadcasting but be operated by Gray's KOLN/KGIN and KSNB-TV through a shared services agreement.[8] However, in the wake of heightened FCC scrutiny about local marketing agreements, on June 11, 2014, KHAS-TV announced it would leave the air at midnight on June 13 and NBC programming would be moved to KSNB-TV and the digital subcarrier of KOLN/KGIN.[9] The whole sale was completed on June 13.[10] (KHAS was ultimately sold to Legacy Broadcasting,[11] the call letters were changed to KNHL,[12] and it returned to the air in June 2015 as a SonLife Broadcasting Network affiliate.[13]
On September 14, 2015, Gray announced that it would purchase the television and radio stations owned by Schurz Communications, including Scottsbluff, Nebraska based KDUH-TV (a satellite of Rapid City's ABC-affiliated KOTA-TV) for $442.5 million.[14][15][16] Gray planned to convert KDUH into a semi-satellite of KNOP-TV,[17][18] change the station's call letters to KNEP, and also change KDUH/KNEP's city of license to Sidney, Nebraska (which will move it from the Cheyenne–Scottsbluff market to the Denver market, eliminating an ownership conflict with KSTF, a Gray-owned, Scottsbluff-based semi-satellite of Cheyenne, Wyoming-based CBS affiliate KGWN-TV).[19][20][21] The sale approved by the FCC on February 12, 2016,[22] and was completed on February 16.[23] The FCC approved the change of station's city of license on May 16.[24] KNEP's NBC feed for the Nebraska Panhandle (which is branded as "NBC Nebraska Scottsbluff" and produces its own newscasts) signed on May 5, 2016.[25] However, the station is still airing KOTA-TV programming on its DT1 channel.[26]
KNOP-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on February 10, 2009.[28][29] The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 22 to VHF channel 2 for post-transition operations.[30]
Newscasts
KNOP-TV presently broadcasts 17 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with three hours each weekday and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). The station also produces 2½ hours of weekly news programming each for CBS and Fox affiliated sister stations KIIT-CD and KNPL-LD. Between the three stations, the news operation produces about 22 hours of news programming each week.
^Carlini, Holly. "Commercial Ran Only On KNOP-TV". KNOP-TV. Archived from the original on 8 February 2012. Retrieved 7 February 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
