in a $335 million deal. Gray initially planned, through Excalibur Broadcasting, to also acquire Fox affiliate KNDX/KXND for $7.5 million and operate them under a local marketing agreement. On March 25, 2014, Prime Cities Broadcasting, owner of KNDX/KXND, requested that the FCC dismiss the sale of that station to Excalibur. This came as a result of increased scrutiny of LMAs by the FCC. Gray would instead acquire the stations' non-license assets, and, upon the closure of the Hoak purchases on June 13, 2014, shut down KNDX/KXND and moved Fox programming to subchannels of KFYR and its satellites. Programming Syndicated programming Syndicated programming on KQCD-TV includes Rachael Ray, Dateline, and Wheel of Fortune, among others. News operation KQCD once aired partially separate weekday newscasts from KFYR-TV at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m., much like KUMV does today. The first 10 minutes (which included regional news and weather) originated at KFYR, while the remaining 20 minutes were filled by KQCD's own news and sports anchors. All other newscasts originated from KFYR. In 2002, severe cutbacks resulted in KQCD ending its locally focused newscasts. Since then, the only visual evidence that KQCD is a separate station has been its separate commercials and idents. KQCD's news department was reduced to a single reporter, Cebe Schneider. In 2009, she was joined by Adam Powell as bureau chief. Powell and Schneider's stories aired on KFYR's regional newscasts. They were the only reporters based in southwestern North Dakota. However, they were fired in 2012 due to further cutbacks. KQCD still has a single reporter whose stories air on KFYR. The stations occasionally share stories with co-owned KVLY-TV. The five stations simulcast major North Dakota sporting events and statewide political debates under the NBC North Dakota brand name and share certain equipment, such as remote broadcasting vehicles. On April 30, 2012, NBC North Dakota began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. The Fox-affiliated subchannel debuted West Dakota Fox News at Nine during October 2014, originating from KFYR's studios in Bismarck. Technical information Subchannels The station's digital signal is multiplexed: Analog-to-digital conversion KQCD-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, on February 16, 2009, the day prior to the original date in which full-power television stations in the United States were set to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later rescheduled for June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal relocated from