close to larger cities for VHF service. The "2" networks became CBS and NBC, "+1" represented non-commercial educational stations, and "1/2" became ABC (which was the weakest network usually winding up with the UHF allocation where no VHF was available). However, Alexandria was sandwiched between Shreveport (channels 3, 6, and 12) and Monroe–El Dorado (channels 8, 10, and 13) to the north, Lafayette (channels 3 and 10), Lake Charles (channel 7), and Baton Rouge (channels 2 and 9) to the south, Northwestern Mississippi (channel 6), New Orleans (channels 4, 6, 8, and 12), Houma–Morgan City southwest of New Orleans and their now-defunct channel 11, and Jackson (channels 3 and 12) to the east. This created a large "doughnut" in Central Louisiana where there could be only one VHF license. (When cable arrived in the market in the 1970s, companies supplemented the area with stations from cities immediately surrounding the doughnut.) KALB was fortunate enough to gain that license, and consequently was the only television station to be based in Alexandria until KLAX and KLPA (channel 25) signed on in 1983. KALB began broadcasting in stereo on November 28, 1986. Park Communications purchased KALB in 1993 and merged with Media General in 1997. KALB was Media General's first station west of the Mississippi River and the only station to hold that title until its purchase of Spartan Communications in 2000. On September 29, 1997, KALB began calling itself "Newschannel 5" and adopted a logo modeled after that company's flagship station, WFLA. The station launched its digital signal in 2002. Regnal Wallace, the late public relations director of the Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation who created the television series This Week in Louisiana Agriculture, was from 1962 to 1969 a sportscaster at KALB. From 1960 to 1966, Leverne Perry (1932–2016) hosted KALB's Leverne Perry and the Little Wranglers. He organized the Horses and Handicaps Program and was active in area rodeo events. He owned an Alexandria shoe store, was an elected member and former president of the Rapides Parish Police Jury, and in 1987 became the executive director of the Louisiana Quarter Horse Breeders Association. In January 2007, KALB launched a CBS affiliate on its second subchannel, then branded as CBS Alexandria. This gave Central Louisiana full service programming from the Big Four networks for the first time. Prior to that, CBS programming was provided on local cable by KLFY-TV in Lafayette, KNOE-TV