The first television station in the market was XELD-TV channel 7 ; founded in , it served as an end-run around the Federal Communications Commission 's freeze on television license grants. Once this was lifted in , the radio stations on the U. Channel 4 remained under Tichenor ownership for more than 30 years and was the traditional ratings leader in the Rio Grande Valley for news. On August 25, , Liberty Corporation announced that it would sell all 15 stations it owned to Raycom Media.
In , Sinclair attempted to acquire Tribune Media. The acquisition collapsed in August , after which Tribune was instead acquired by Nexstar. Tribune had previously filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Sinclair, which Sinclair and Nexstarβas successor-in-interest to Tribuneβsettled on January 28, On-air operations mostly remained unchanged, though viewers were asked to rescan their sets in order to continue watching CBS.
However, few viewers actually lost access to CBS programming due to the high penetration of cable and satellite in the market. The KGBT-TV license itself continued to be owned by Sinclair and continued to broadcast its existing digital multicast offerings, with the main 4.
In May , Mission Broadcasting , a company whose stations contract with Nexstar for operational services, acquired KGBT-TV; Nexstar then announced on July 19 of that year that it would purchase the station outright.
The tower situation led to the evacuation of nearby homes as well as the cancellation of classes in the La Feria Independent School District. James was a veteran of the station's "glory days" during the late s and s when the station produced the top-rated newscast in the Rio Grande Valley. The main focus of the Friday segment was local high school football games, while the Sunday edition provided the highlights of high school, college and professional football , and generally featured a panel of local sports writers and sports talk radio personalities, who break down high school football games and provide analysis.
