KDFW

KDFW, virtual channel 4 (UHF digital channel 35), is a Fox owned-and-operated television station serving the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex that is licensed to Dallas, Texas, United States. The station is owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of 21st Century Fox, as part of a duopoly with MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station KDFI (channel 27). The two stations share studio facilities located on 400 North Griffin Street in downtown Dallas; KDFW's transmitter is located south of Belt Line Road in Cedar Hill.

History

As a CBS affiliate

The station first signed on the air on December 3, 1949 as KRLD-TV; originally operating as CBS affiliate, it was founded by the now-defunct Dallas Times Herald newspaper, which also owned KRLD radio (1080 AM, and 92.5 FM, now KZPS). The first program ever broadcast on KRLD-TV on that afternoon was a college football game in which the Notre Dame Fighting Irish defeated the Southern Methodist Mustangs, 27-20. The station inherited the calls of its radio sister – which was named after Edwin Kiest, original investor and later owner of KRLD (AM), and the radio station's original owner, Radio Laboratories of Dallas. Channel 4 was the third television station to sign on in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, following Dallas-based KBTV (channel 8, now WFAA), which launched three months earlier in September 1949; and Fort Worth-licensed WBAP-TV (channel 5, now KXAS-TV), which debuted in September 1948.