KCER-TV

KCER-TV (virtual and digital channel 42) is an ABN-affiliated television station licensed to Benton, Arkansas, and serves the Saline County region. The station is owned by KCER Media (a joint-venture between CPN Holdings and Champion Digital Broadcasting) alongside independent station KWAB-TV and infomercial independent KCEZ-TV. KCER Media also operates Grit affiliate KCEK-TV under a local marketing agreement with SagamoreHill Broadcasting.

The four stations share studios and offices at the KCER Studios at Cherrywood Trail in downtown Benton, while KCER-TV's transmitter is located at Smith Pinnacle, between the border of Garland and Saline County.

Field Communications years
Chicago based Field Communications would win the Benton channel 42 licensee in 1972. It made perfect scene for Field to make a new television station because it was already the owners of the KCER-AM-FM cluster. However, due to Field's acquisition of Kaiser Broadcasting in 1973 and merger in 1978, channel 42 had to wait until it had to sign on.

Channel 42 in Benton would officially launch on August 3, 1979, under the call-letters of KCER-TV. As planned, Field would act as KCER-TV's owner, effectively making the station the first station Field owned after the Kaiser merger. During its launch, KCER-TV's schedule was relatively normal consisting of a mix of cartoons, game shows, movies, and sitcoms. However, KCER-TV had one program that stood out from the rest, that program was The British Film Invasion hosted by Ronnie van Veronica, a British native and former network programmer at WFLD-TV, another Field owned station. The British Film Invasion would show movies that came from Britain, with skits segueing into each movie.

In 1981, KCER-TV would add a 30 minute newscast to its schedule known as "The 30 Minute News".

Spun off to Field Communications II and affiliation with Fox
As part of Field Communications' liquidation of assets, KCER-AM-FM-TV were sold to Field Communications II, a company founded by ex-employees from the original Field Communications and led by ex-CEO of Field, Marshall Field V. From the most part, KCER-TV retained its Field-styled logo, and in fact the 42 in the 1979 logo is still used to this day.

On October 9, 1986, KCER-TV became a charter affiliate of the Fox network. During its first year of affiliation, KCER-TV was still considered a de-facto independent, since Fox only provided a late-night talk show (The Late Show with Joan Rivers) and would not add primetime programming until April 1987. Throughout its 9 years of affiliating Fox, it was considered as one of the network's strongest affiliates at that time.

During the exact same time Fox added primetime programming, KCER-TV would discontinue its self-produced newscast and would partner with local CBS affiliate WGB-TV to help produce 5pm and 10pm newscasts. In 1994, KCER-AM-FM-TV was sold to KIVO Broadcasting, owner of flagship station KEXZ-TV, 2 years after the sale, KIVO Broadcasting would sell KSCA-AM and KCER-FM to ABC Radio, as part of the company's departure from radio.

EBS problems
For many years, Field's Benton stations had served as Saline County's primary entry points for the Emergency Broadcasting System. However, the cluster's EBS signals were rather unresponsive and sometimes didn't work as intended and as such cause various bizarre events to happen.

During a Saturday morning test in the spring of 1993, the station's EBS signal was corrupted and caused the test to completely stop and caused KCER-TV to blackout for at least 5 hours, during that period KLRT-TV temporarily served as Benton's Fox affiliate during the incident.

Later on January 17, 1994 at around 5pm, when KCER-TV aired a newscast regarding the 1994 Northridge earthquake, a hacker activated the station's EBS signal and sent out this message on air.

"HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?! YOU SURELY MUST BE PROUD OF YOURSELVES THINKING THAT YOUR SO-CALLED SPIRITUAL ENTITY IS OKAY WITH YOUR IMPUDENT MOCKERY OF OUR OWN RACE! WE ARE LEGION! WE WILL DISRUPT YOU AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS POSSIBLE! WE WILL NOT STOP! WE WILL BE KNOWN!"

The now named "Legion Hack of 1994" was sent across various local television stations in Benton, Arkansas. The message was immediately pulled after it initially broadcasted. The perpetrator claimed to be a member of a religious cult known as the "Soldiers of Legion" who attempted to planned a large scale attack on Benton around the exact same time and day as the Oklahoma City bombing, further notifying that one of the perpetrators of that event, Timothy McVeigh would serve as their prophet. The perpetrator (whose name was kept private to this day) was later caught and fined.

Loss of Fox affiliation; UPN and MyNetworkTV years
As part of a three-station affiliation swap deal, independent station KMBR-TV (which was in the process of being purchased by Fox) which become Benton's new affiliate of Fox, KEFL-TV would lose its UPN affiliation and would become a full time independent, and KCER-TV would join the UPN network. KCER-TV would become the new UPN affiliate on May 18, 1997.

Upon its affiliation switch, KCER-TV would begin self-producing its newscasts again, although it had to cut the newscasts into 30 minutes due to budget constraints. Despite having pretty high ratings, employees from KCER-TV were not happy with UPN's programs as many employees stated that other than Star Trek Voyage, most of UPN's programming was too out there compared to Fox.

On February 22, 2006, Fox announced the launch of its own network, MyNetworkTV, serving as an alternative to The CW for UPN and WB affiliates that weren't picked to become launch affiliates of the that network. On April 6, 2006, KIVO Broadcasting announced that KCER-TV would be affiliating MyNetworkTV. KCER would become a launch affiliate of MyNetworkTV on September 5, 2006, just 2 weeks before UPN officially ceased operations.

After MyNetworkTV
On December 21, 2008, KCER-TV would disaffiliate MyNetworkTV, due to the network's poor program offerings and would revert back to an independent station. Subsequently, KRLK-TV would become Benton's new affiliate of MyNetworkTV.

On March 28th, 2015, as part of Benton's local television realignment, Champion Digital Broadcasting (owner of the network ABN) would purchase select assets of KCER-TV, and would switch the station to a semi-owned and operated affiliate of ABN. In 2016, KIVO's assets were acquired by Lava Lamp Entertainment, and again in 2019 by Qualis (later known as CPN Holdings).