of the 1970s, as several business ventures around the country analyzed using unused UHF channels in major cities to broadcast subscription television (STV) programming. In 1977, Buford Television of Tyler, Texas, and SelecTV of Kansas City, Inc., both made applications to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking to establish channel 62 in Kansas City and use it to broadcast STV to paying subscribers, even though Kansas City had an area-wide cable system. After reaching a settlement with Buford that gave it the right to buy stock in SelecTV of Kansas City, that company was granted the construction permit on April 8, 1981, but channel 62 continued to sit unbuilt for more than two years. The permittee changed its name from SelecTV of Kansas City to Choice Channel of Kansas City in 1982, a year in which Kansas City and its metropolitan area were wired for cable at an accelerated pace and the national economic picture for STV began to sour. That caused Choice Channel of Kansas City to take on a majority investor: Media Central Inc. of Chattanooga, Tennessee, which purchased a 60 percent interest in the station in February 1983. With Media Central on board, consideration of STV service was dropped and an agreement reached to co-locate its transmitting facility with public television station KCPT. Media Central used modular construction methods: studio equipment was assembled in Chattanooga before being shipped to Kansas City for installation once the studio facility was completed. However, its construction methods ultimately resulted in subpar equipment and poorer reception; at one time, the station volunteered to send repairmen to homes experiencing difficulty tuning it in. KEKR-TV—whose call letters represented an attorney who helped file for the license—debuted on December 7, 1983, from studios in Blue Summit. It was the first new station in Kansas City since KYFC-TV, a Christian television station, began in 1978, and it was the first new general-entertainment independent since KSHB-TV went on the air as KBMA-TV in 1970. Programming consisted primarily of classic reruns, as well as a handful of first-run and new shows in the Kansas City area and Big Eight Conference college basketball. The station, however, was far from an immediate success. In its first year on air, it attracted just three percent of the Kansas City viewing audience, well below the six to eight percent its founding program director had set as a goal. The station's lone bright