with the delays, a tragedy occurred in the final stretch of construction when a crew repairing damage to the studio-transmitter link tower from cold weather suffered an equipment accident, causing one man's death. It finally signed on March 9, 1987. The launch of KETK took away the NBC affiliation from KLTV (channel 7), which had carried the network on a joint primary basis since it signed on in October 1954 and was relegated to secondary status in 1984. Prior to the launch of KETK, full NBC programming was available locally on cable via either KXAS-TV in Dallas–Fort Worth or KTAL-TV in Texarkana–Shreveport. KETK was originally owned by Texas American Broadcasting. The station originally operated from studio facilities located on North Jackson Street in Jacksonville; its transmitter facilities were placed on a new tower near Mt. Selman (between Jacksonville and Tyler). A tornado, on a path from near Palestine to near Whitehouse in November 1987, passed just northwest and north of the center of Jacksonville. The original KETK offices and studio there were along the path, and suffered damage. It took less than two days for the station to get back on the air, but much longer for newsroom and other off-screen areas and functions to recover. Because KETK's broadcast tower and transmitter were located farther to the northwest, and away from the tornado, that facility was spared. Texas American Broadcasting sold the station to Region 56 Network, a subsidiary of Lone Star Broadcasting, in 1989; Region 56 was co-owned by the general manager, Phil Hurley, and TDH Capital Corporation. In September 1991, KETK signed on KLSB-TV (channel 19) as a satellite station to serve southern portions of the market that could not receive channel 56's signal (including Nacogdoches). KETK moved its operations to its current location, a former men's clothing store, on Richmond Road at South Loop 323 in Tyler in 1993. Lone Star then sold KETK to Max Television (later Max Media Properties) in 1996. In 1998, the Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired most of the Max Media Properties stations, including KETK. However, in early 1999, Sinclair sold the non-license assets of the station to the Communications Corporation of America, which operated the station via a time brokerage agreement. Sinclair remained the license holder of KETK until 2004 when ComCorp acquired the station outright. In 2003, Max Media (a company partially related to Max Media Properties) acquired KLSB-TV and converted