KXXI-TV

KXXI-TV is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for the Big Bend region of West Texas, licensed to Marfa. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 21 from a transmitter in the Davis Mountains. Owned by Tegna, Inc., KXXI-TV has studios in midtown Marfa. Syndicated programming on this station includes Two and a Half Men, Everybody Loves Raymond, Judge Judy, and Dr. Oz.

History
The station first signed on the air on July 1, 1985, operating as an independent station. It originally operated from studio facilities located in the newsroom of the Big Bend Sentinel in Marfa. The station was originally owned by the Sid Grayson (former owner of KMUV-TV, now KMAX-TV 31, a CW affiliate) of Sacramento, California and had carried an all-movie format to counter-program against the area's other established stations. However on May 1, 1986, KXXI abandoned its all-movie format and largely began to air Spanish-language programming, along with some English-language religious programs (such as The PTL Club). On April 2, 1991, McKinnon Broadcasting (owner and founder of San Diego's KUSI-TV) purchased channel 21 and relaunched it on April 6 of that year as an affiliate of the soon-to-launch Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN) in 1993, formatted as an English-language general entertainment independent.

On January 11, 1995, the station became the charter affiliate of The WB Television Network and remained an affiliate of the WB until February 2006 with the launch of MyNetworkTV. Channel 21 was the flagship television home of the Marfa Shorthorns independent baseball team since the 1988-89 season. KXXI remains the local over-the-air affiliate of the NBA's San Antonio Spurs since 2000.

In May 2005, McKinnon sold the station to Dallas-based A.H. Belo Corporation, which in turn, was sold along with its entire television stations group to Gannett, owner of CW affiliate KBGB (channel 49) in late December 2013. On June 29, 2015, the Gannett Company split in two, with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media. KXXI and the low-power digital signals were retained by the latter company, named TEGNA.

News Operation
KXXI-TV presently broadcasts 38 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with six hours on weekdays and four hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); the station does not broadcast any local newscasts on weekend evenings. The station has also maintained a nightly newscast since the 1980s, titled The Seven O'Clock News; the Big Bend's only primetime newscast. Like most independent stations in the country, this station does not air its own 9pm newscast and instead, airs INN: The Independent News at that timeslot.

In 1990, McKinnon entered a news share agreement with Multimedia, Inc. (then owner rival independent of KBGB) to jointly produce an early evening newscast titled "The 5:30 Report"; which was still on air today, even after the purchase of Multimedia by Gannett in 1995.

After Belo's acqusition of KXXI from McKinnon in 2005, its master control facilities were moved from Marfa to the studios of CBS affiliate KENS-TV (channel 5) in San Antonio.