Affiliates
Tribune planned to launch Antenna in all markets served by a station owned by Tribune Broadcasting, as well as on stations owned by Local TV as part of that group's co-management agreement with Tribune. Tribune's flagship station WGN-TV serves as the de facto flagship affiliate of the network. In the Denver and St. Louis markets, where both companies own stations, the network airs on the digital subchannels of Local TV's Fox affiliates KDVR and KTVI, rather than on Tribune-owned CW affiliates KWGN-TV and KPLR-TV in order to address bandwidth concerns as Fox stations transmit their main signals by default in 720p, which allows plenty of room for a subchannel, while CW stations are usually 1080i on their main channel.
However, not all of the charter affiliates of the network added Antenna TV programming on their digital signals on the network's launch date. Salt Lake City Fox affiliate KSTU, Des Moines NBC affiliate WHO-TV (both owned by Local TV) and Washington, D.C. CW affiliate WDCW (owned by Tribune) debuted the network on their digital subchannels later in the month of January 2011; while Oklahoma City NBC affiliate KFOR-TV did not carry the network until April 21, 2011 on a new third digital subchannel (it has since been moved to that station's second subchannel). The final Tribune/Local TV station to add the network was in Fort Smith, Arkansas on January 5, 2012, where the network began to be carried on Fayetteville-based MyNetworkTV affiliate KXNW as a overnight secondary service; Antenna TV was unable to launch in the market before the KNXW purchase due to existing syndicated programming rights on sister CBS affiliate KFSM-TV's MyNetworkTV-affiliated second subchannel (which now acts as a KXNW simulcast) and a 1080i signal which precluded a launch of a third subchannel without affecting picture quality.
The network is offered to would-be affiliates on a barter basis, an agreement in which the station will get the programming at little or no cost in exchange for giving a certain amount of commercial time to the network. Despite this barter offer, some large television markets without stations owned by Tribune or Local TV have yet to acquire the network. Some affiliates such as KTLA aired previews of Antenna TV prior to the launch date on their primary channel. In the wake of Universal Sports being discontinued on broadcast television on January 1, 2012, most of these stations have signed affiliation agreements with Antenna (or Me-TV) as a replacement service.
Not every program on the Antenna TV lineup is seen in every locality; as an example, in the Los Angeles area, KTLA's Antenna TV subchannel replaces the hour-long block of Married... with Children (which is seen at 8 p.m. local time, in an earlier time slot, but airing simultaneously as the remainder of the country as Antenna TV operates only on an Eastern Time Zone schedule), with a rebroadcast of that station's weeknight 6 p.m. newscast due to rights held by another local outlet (in this case, currently, independent station KDOC-TV has to the local rights to the sitcom), though it is only affected Monday through Thursdays. When the sitcom Soap was added to the network's lineup in May 2011 during Married...'s original run on Antenna TV, the Sunday night rebroadcast of KTLA's early evening newscast was removed, and Soap was cleared to air locally (the news rebroadcast on KTLA-DT2 returned in April 2012).
So far, Antenna TV has had only one instance of switching affiliates in the same market. In Honolulu, Hawaii, KUPU was that market's original affiliate. KUPU was one of only two stations carrying the network on its primary channel (the other station and the only one still doing so being KXNW). Because KUPU is not available on cable television throughout the entire state of Hawaii (only the Honolulu metropolitan area), the Antenna TV affiliation moved to the second digital subchannel of NBC affiliate KHNL in May 2012, which has widespread cable penetration.
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