KNLC (channel 24) is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, which broadcasts the classic television network MeTV. It is owned by Weigel Broadcasting, which leases its second digital subchannel to the locally based New Life Evangelistic Center (NLEC), the station's founding and former owner, to broadcast religious programming. KNLC's transmitter is located near Hillsboro-House Springs Road in House Springs, Missouri. History Founded by Rev. Larry Rice, founder of the New Life Evangelistic Center (NLEC), the station first signed on the air on September 12, 1982, making it the first new television station in the St. Louis market since KDNL-TV (channel 30) signed-on in 1969. Originally, KNLC maintained a schedule consisting entirely of religious programming, which included shows such as The 700 Club and The PTL Club, programs by televangelists Richard Roberts and Jimmy Swaggart, and locally produced religious shows. In September 1984, KNLC transitioned into a hybrid format similar to that offered by the independent stations owned at the time by the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), incorporating a selection of secular classic television series featuring sitcoms and westerns from the 1950s and early 1960s, many of which had not been airing in many other U.S. markets. Unlike most religious/secular independents that aired a single daily block of family-oriented secular programs within their schedules (for example, weekdays from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m.), KNLC scheduled its secular shows in a hodgepodge manner in random short-form blocks. It initially carried secular programs from 7:00 to 7:30 and 9:00 to 10:30 a.m., 2:00 to 3:00, 5:00 to 6:00 and 9:00 to 9:30 p.m., with religious shows filling the remaining time slots during its broadcast day between 5:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m. By the late 1980s, the station began mixing its religious and secular shows in a more consistent pattern, and expanded its syndicated offerings with the acquisition of several barter cartoons and (relatively more) recent sitcoms. The daytime schedule from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. featured a mixed format of secular and religious shows, though cartoons exclusively occupied the 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. time periods and classic sitcoms aired from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. In 1986, the New Life Evangelistic Center launched a second religious independent serving the Columbia–Jefferson City market, KNLJ in New Bloomfield; the ministry would sell that station to the Christian Television Network in 2007. KNLC was approached by the United Paramount Network