As a CW affiliate
On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner announced that The WB and UPN would be shut down that September and have some of their higher-rated programs migrated onto a new jointly owned network called The CW.[7][8] On February 22, News Corporation announced that it would start up another new network called MyNetworkTV.[9] This new service, which would be a sister network to Fox, would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division, Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give stations affiliated with UPN and The WB that were not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates another option besides becoming independent stations, as well as to compete against The CW.
Sinclair chose to affiliate KVWB with MyNetworkTV leaving The CW to join with either low-power UPN affiliate KTUD-CA (channel 25) or KFBT. Sinclair began negotiations with The CW to affiliate KFBT, and in April, when KTUD decided to go independent instead of pursuing a CW affiliation,[10] KFBT was virtually assured the CW affiliation. An affiliation agreement was announced on May 2 and KFBT changed its call letters to the current KVCW on June 19, reflecting its pending affiliation with the new network. KVMY (now KHSV) affiliated with MyNetworkTV, when the network launched on September 5, two weeks before The WB was scheduled to shut down and The CW made its debut; as a result, KVCW rejoined The WB for the network's last two weeks of programming before switching its affiliation to The CW on September 18.
On May 15, 2012, Sinclair and Fox agreed to a five-year affiliation agreement extension for the station group's 19 Fox-affiliated stations until 2017. This included an option, that was exercisable between July 1, 2012, and March 31, 2013, for Fox parent News Corporation to buy a combination of six Sinclair-owned stations (two CW/MyNetworkTV duopolies and two standalone MyNetworkTV affiliates) in three out of four markets; KVCW and KVMY were included in the Fox purchase option, along with stations in Cincinnati (WSTR-TV), Raleigh (WLFL/WRDC) and Norfolk (WTVZ-TV).[11] In January 2013, Fox announced that it would not exercise its option to buy any of the Sinclair stations in the four markets included in the option.[12]
On August 13, 2013, KSNV-DT announced that the NBC soap opera Days of Our Lives would move to KVCW as of August 19. The move of the program was necessitated after KSNV changed its schedule to accommodate a 3 p.m. newscast.[13] On September 3, 2014, Sinclair announced the purchase of KSNV from Intermountain West Communications Company for $120 million. As Sinclair already owns KVCW and KVMY, the company will sell the license assets (though not the programming) of one of the three stations to comply with FCC ownership restrictions, with the divested station's programming being relocated to the other stations.[14] On November 1, 2014, KVMY's programming was moved to KVCW's second digital subchannel, while KSNV's programming began to simulcast on KVMY's license. With the sale's completion, Sinclair now controls half of those stations. It also created a situation in which a CW affiliate is the nominal senior partner in a duopoly involving an NBC affiliate and a "Big Four" station.
