News-Press & Gazette Company
TypePrivate
IndustryMedia
Founded1845 (when St. Joseph Gazette was founded)
Headquarters
Key people
Products
Websitewww.npgco.com

The News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG) is a media company based in St. Joseph, Missouri, wholly owned and operated by the Bradley family. It is presided by Brian Bradley and David R. Bradley, with Hank Bradley (retired), Eric Bradley and Kit Bradley serving on its board of directors. All are descendants of family patriarch Henry D. Bradley and his son, David Bradley, Sr.

News-Press & Gazette's properties include daily and weekly newspapers in Missouri and Kansas, radio and television stations in California, Idaho, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, Missouri and Texas. The NPG group generally concentrates on the Kansas City and St. Joseph areas for their newspapers, and the western United States for their broadcasting properties. Many of News-Press & Gazette's television properties are top rated stations in their respective market.

History

News-Press headquarters in St. Joseph

The company traces it roots back to the St. Joseph Gazette which began publishing in 1845. The paper chronicled much of travel into the Old West along the Oregon Trail and California Trail. It was the only newspaper that was sent west on the first ride of the Pony Express. The Gazette eventually merged with the News-Press by publisher Charles M. Palmer. When Palmer died in 1949, Henry D. Bradley was co-publisher of both papers starting in 1939 and bought them outright in 1951.

The Gazette ceased publication in 1988 when its sister, the afternoon News-Press, transitioned into a morning newspaper; however, the family kept the "Gazette" and "G" in the company name. The Bradley family expanded the focus by forming local cable television operator St. Joseph Cablevision in 1965. News-Press & Gazette expanded into broadcast television with the 1976 with purchase of WSAV-TV in Savannah, Georgia. They would later acquire KAAL-TV in Austin, Minnesota in 1980; WJTV in Jackson, Mississippi in 1983; KSFY in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 1985 (and selling off KAAL-TV in the same year); WECT in Wilmington, North Carolina; signing on WJTV satellite station WHLT, Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1987; and acquiring KOLD-TV Tucson, Arizona in 1989. In 1993 NPG would sell off their first group of stations to other companies, but would rebuild its TV portfolio starting with KVIA-TV in El Paso, Texas. This expansion continued into the 2000s with the launch of a 24-hour cable-only news channel for St. Joseph, News-Press NOW, along with News-Press & Gazette's acquisition of several full-power and low-power television stations; including KESQ-TV Palm Springs, California (and radio stations KESQ (AM) and KUNA-FM); KIFI-TV Idaho Falls, Idaho; KRDO-TV Colorado Springs, Colorado (and radio stations KRDO (AM) and KRDO-FM); KTVZ in Bend, Oregon; KECY-TV in El Centro, California; KEYT-TV Santa Barbara, California; and KION-TV Monterey - Salinas, California.

In 2011, the Bradley family sold the cable division, which by that time expanded its service area to parts of California and Arizona under the name NPG Cable, to Suddenlink Communications.[1] On March 19, 2012, News-Press & Gazette announced it would establish a low-power television station in St. Joseph that would serve as the company's television flagship and the first broadcast station that the company built and signed on; it would be an affiliate of the Fox Broadcasting Company (with subchannel-only affiliations with The CW and Telemundo). The station was created using the K26LV-D station license (which it acquired, along with K16KF-D, from Sunrise, Florida-based DTV America 1, LLC on March 14 of that year);[2][3] it launched on June 2, 2012, as KNPN-LD.[4] On July 25, 2012, NPG announced an agreement to purchase ABC affiliate KMIZ and Fox affiliate, KQFX-LD from JW Broadcasting.[5] The deal was consummated on November 1.

Major assets

Print

St. Joseph, Missouri area

Northeast Kansas

Greater Kansas City metropolitan area

Television

Stations are arranged alphabetically by state and by city of license. In all, NPG owns or operates 28 television properties, nearly all in the western United States.

  • (**) – Indicates that it was built and signed on by NPG.
City of license / Market Station Channel Owned since Affiliation
El Centro, CA–Yuma, AZ KECY-TV 92008
KYMA-DT 11, 132014[lower-alpha 1]
KESE-LD 352008Telemundo
Monterey–Salinas, CA KMUV-LD 232013Telemundo
KION-TV 462013
  • CBS
  • Fox
Palm Springs–Indio, CA KCWQ-LD ** 22006The CW
KYAV-LD 12 2012 Independent
KUNA-LD 15 1997 Telemundo
KDFX-CD 33 2008 Fox
KPSP-CD 38 2012 CBS
KESQ-TV 42 1996 ABC
Santa Barbara–Santa Maria–San Luis Obispo, CA KEYT-TV 32012
  • ABC
  • CBS
  • MyTV
KCOY-TV 122013[lower-alpha 2]Telemundo
KKFX-CD 242013Fox
Colorado Springs, CO KRDO-TV 132006
  • ABC
  • Telemundo
Idaho Falls - Pocatello, ID KIFI-TV 82005
  • ABC
  • CBS
  • The CW
  • Telemundo
KIDK 32011[lower-alpha 2]
  • Dabl
  • Fox/MyTV
KXPI-LD 342011Fox/MyTV
Columbia–Jefferson City, MO KMIZ 172012
  • ABC
  • MeTV
  • MyTV
KQFX-LD 222012Fox
St. Joseph, MO KNPG-LD ** 212012
KNPN-LD ** 262012
KCJO-LD ** 302014CBS
Bend, OR KTVZ 212007
  • NBC
  • The CW
  • Fox
KFXO-CD 392007Fox
KQRE-LD 202007Telemundo
El Paso, TX–Las Cruces, NM KVIA-TV 71995
K22NM-D 4[lower-alpha 3]NBC

Radio

AM Station FM Station
City of license / Market Station Owned since Current format
Colorado Springs, CO KRDO 1240 2006Talk radio
KRDO-FM 105.5 2015[lower-alpha 4]Talk radio
Palm Springs, CA KUNA-FM 96.7 1997Regional Mexican

Cable channel

Former assets

  • Louisburg Herald (Louisburg, Kansas)
  • Osawatomie Graphic (Osawatomie, Kansas)
  • Johnson County Sun (Overland Park, Kansas)
  • Kansas City Nursing News (Overland Park, Kansas)
  • Kearney Courier (Kearney, Missouri)
  • Liberty Tribune (Liberty, Missouri)
  • Smithville Herald (Smithville, Missouri)
  • Read It Free - Northwest Missouri (St. Joseph, Missouri)

Television

City of license / Market Station Channel Years owned Current status
Tucson, AZ KOLD-TV 13 1989–1993 CBS affiliate owned by Gray Television
Yuma, Arizona KYMA-DT 11 2014–2020[lower-alpha 6] Defunct, license surrendered in 2020
Grand Junction, CO KJCT 8 2006–2013 Court TV affiliate KLML on channel 20, owned by Ventura Broadcasting
KKHD-LP 20 2007–2013 ABC affiliate KJCT-LP on channel 8, owned by Gray Television
Savannah, GA WSAV-TV 3 1976–1993 NBC affiliate owned by Nexstar Media Group
Austin–Rochester, MN KAAL-TV 6 1980–1985 ABC affiliate owned by Hubbard Broadcasting
Jackson, MS WJTV 12 1983–1993 CBS affiliate owned by Nexstar Media Group
Hattiesburg, MS WHLT **[lower-alpha 7] 22 1987–1993 CBS affiliate owned by Nexstar Media Group
Wilmington, NC WECT 6 1986–1993 NBC affiliate owned by Gray Television
Sioux Falls, SD KSFY-TV 13 1985–1993 ABC affiliate owned by Gray Television

Radio

City of license / Market Station Years owned Current status
Indio–Palm Springs, CA KESQ 1400 1997–2023 Defunct; went silent in 2022

Cable operations

NPG owned cable systems under the name NPG Cable, Inc.. On November 29, 2010, NPG announced that it had agreed to sell all of its cable systems to Suddenlink Communications for $350 million; the acquisition was closed on April 1, 2011.[1][10] NPG Cable systems operated in the following communities:[11]

Notes

  1. ↑ Owned by Imagicomm Communications, NPG operates KYMA via a shared services agreement.[6][7][8]
  2. 1 2 Owned by VistaWest Media, LLC, NPG operates these stations via a shared services agreement.
  3. ↑ Owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, NPG operates K22NM-D.
  4. ↑ NPG took over management of the Local Marketing Agreement (LMA) of KSKX/KRDO-FM from Pikes Peak Broadcasting Company in 2006.
  5. ↑ Previously owned from 2005 to 2011, sold to Suddenlink Communications as part of its purchase of NPG's cable division but was reacquired by NPG in May 2012.[9] It was originally operated as a cable-only channel prior to June 2, 2012.
  6. ↑ Owned by Northwest Broadcasting (and later Cox Media Group), NPG operated KYMA via a resource sharing agreement. In 2020, CMG surrendered the license of KYMA, and moved its NBC programming to a subchannel to KSWT, which would subsequently change its callsign to KYMA.
  7. ↑ Semi-satellite of WJTV.

References

  1. 1 2 Cablevision announces sale, St. Joseph News-Press, November 29, 2010.
  2. ↑ FCC document for transfer of K16KF-D and K26LV-D Archived 2016-09-24 at the Wayback Machine, March 14, 2012.
  3. ↑ Fox Station Coming to St. Joseph, Mo., Broadcasting & Cable, March 20, 2012.
  4. ↑ Fox station to debut on June 2 Archived 2012-05-19 at the Wayback Machine, St. Joseph News-Press, May 17, 2012.
  5. ↑ "NPG Buys ABC Affil in Columbia, Mo". 25 July 2012.
  6. ↑ One Station Group Makes Big Move in a Small Market, TVSpy.com, 3 July 2014, Retrieved 9 July 2014.
  7. ↑ Lobeck, Joyce (July 9, 2014). "4 major TV network affiliates here will share management". Yuma Sun. Retrieved July 14, 2014.
  8. ↑ Lobeck, Joyce (July 9, 2014). "Yuma TV stations await completion of agreement". Yuma Sun. Retrieved July 14, 2014.
  9. ↑ NPG reacquires cable channel; News-Press 3 NOW will return to local ownership by May 1, St. Joseph News-Press, March 5, 2012.
  10. ↑ Suddenlink closes NPG Cable buy
  11. ↑ http://www.npgcable.net/channel_lineup.html# NPG Cable communities served
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