KTXL

KTXL (channel 40) is a television station in Sacramento, California, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group, whose Tegna subsidiary owns ABC affiliate KXTV (channel 10). KTXL maintains studios on Fruitridge Road near the Oak Park district on the southern side of Sacramento; its transmitter is located in Walnut Grove, California. KTXL began broadcasting on October 26, 1968. It was an independent station owned by Camellia City Telecasters, a partnership of Jack Matranga and eventually the Business Men's Assurance Company. It offered syndicated programs, cartoons (including the local host Cap'n Mitch), and sports, as well as movies, amassing one of the largest film libraries for an independent of its size. Cable television signals carried its programming well beyond Sacramento, as far north as Oregon and east to Rapid City, South Dakota. Beginning in 1974, it debuted a 10 p.m. local newscast, the Sacramento market's first. The station survived a challenge to its broadcast license in the 1970s stemming from a forged document it submitted in a case over a competing local station. KTXL became affiliated with Fox when it launched in 1986, the same year Matranga sold his stake in the station to BMA. Renaissance Communications purchased KTXL in 1988; under its ownership, it was one of the highest-rated Fox affiliates in the country, and the news format was sharpened to make it more compatible with Fox's younger-skewing audience. This continued after Tribune Broadcasting acquired Renaissance in 1996, but the 10 p.m. news remained KTXL's only newscast until it debuted an hour-long morning show in 2005. A flurry of news expansions followed, and by the time Nexstar acquired Tribune in 2019, the station had an extended morning news program and new midday and early evening newscasts. In addition to local news, KTXL produces...