St Louis TV: ABC Network Adding KMOV As New Affiliate

ABC is switching its St. Louis affiliation from Sinclair-owned KDNL-TV to Gray Media’s KMOV-TV effective Sept. 1, sources familiar with the plans has confirmed.

Gray will air locally produced news on KMOV while placing ABC programming on the station’s D2 digital subchannel. KDNL has carried ABC since 1995; its affiliation expires at the end of August, though network programming will continue airing there until the switch.

KDNL currently produces no local newscasts and instead carries Sinclair’s The National News Desk. “By bringing ABC programming to KMOV, we are not only expanding entertainment options but, more importantly, delivering vital local news and public service to a community that has been underserved in this area,”  KMOV President and General Manager JD Sosnoff said in a statement on the station’s website. 

“KMOV’s award-winning news team is uniquely positioned to provide the high-quality, local coverage that St. Louis families deserve.”

Affiliation switches of this type are not uncommon. Last year, ABC moved from Berkshire Hathaway’s WPLG-TV in Miami to a subchannel of Sunbeam’s WSVN-TV.

The change follows recent tensions involving Sinclair. Last year, Sinclair and Nexstar temporarily pulled ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live from their stations after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr criticized a Kimmel joke about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. ABC itself briefly suspended the show before restoring it, after which the Sinclair and Nexstar stations followed suit. More recently, Sinclair stations carried a feed of Donald Trump’s primetime speech on election security that ABC and NBC declined to air.

Separately last Thursday, CBS announced it would switch affiliations away from Nexstar stations in six markets, including Albuquerque.