KMAX-TV (channel 31) is an independent television station in Sacramento, California, United States. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside Stockton-licensed CBS owned-and-operated station KOVR (channel 13). Both stations share studios on KOVR Drive in West Sacramento, while KMAX-TV's transmitter is located in Walnut Grove, California.
History
The station first signed on the air on October 5, 1974, as KMUV-TV, operating as an independent station. It originally operated from studio facilities located on Media Place in Sacramento. The station was originally owned by Sid Grayson and had carried an all-movie format to counter-program against the area's other established stations, particularly then-independent KTXL (channel 40, now a Fox affiliate). However, on May 1, 1976, KMUV 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, 1981, Koplar Broadcasting (then-owner and founder of St. Louis' KPLR-TV) purchased channel 31 and relaunched it on April 6 of that year under the callsign KRBK-TV (named for company founder Harold Koplar's son, Robert "Bob" Koplar), formatted as an English-language general entertainment independent to compete directly with KTXL.
Pappas Telecasting purchased the station in 1994 for $22 million. On January 11, 1995, the station changed its call letters to KPWB-TV (for Pappas WB) to reflect its charter affiliation with The WB Television Network, which launched the same day. Paramount Stations Group bought the station in March 1998, thus resulting in an affiliation swap with KQCA (channel 58) on January 5 of that year, that saw the UPN affiliation move to channel 31, which assumed the present call letters KMAX-TV, while The WB affiliation moved to KQCA. With Paramount's ownership stake in UPN, KMAX became the first English-language station in Sacramento to be owned and operated by a major network (Univision station KUVS-DT became the first television station in the market overall to be owned and operated by the network a year prior, but broadcasts in Spanish). Viacom acquired CBS in 2000, merging Paramount Stations Group with CBS' owned-and-operated stations to form the Viacom Television Stations Group.
Channel 31 was the flagship television home of the NBA's Sacramento Kings from the 1988–89 season until the middle of the 2002–03 season, when the team's owners, the Maloof family, terminated the station's contract due to the Kings forming their own sales and marketing departments and taking the ad sales "in house." KMAX remains the local over-the-air affiliate of the San Francisco Giants Major League Baseball franchise. It also held local broadcast rights to the Oakland Athletics before that team moved all its telecasts to regional sports network Comcast SportsNet California in 2009.
In May 2005, Viacom purchased KOVR from the Sinclair Broadcast Group, creating a duopoly with KMAX; KMAX's operations were also relocated to KOVR's studios in West Sacramento. Six months later, Viacom divested itself of CBS due to the company's split into two separate entities (one of which retained the Viacom name); KOVR and KMAX, along with the other CBS and UPN stations operated by Viacom, became part of the newly formed CBS Corporation.
On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner's Warner Bros. Entertainment (the division that operated The WB) announced that they would dissolve UPN and The WB, and move some of their programming to a newly created network, The CW. KMAX, as a CBS-owned UPN station, was tapped to become the market's affiliate of the new network through an 11-station affiliation deal, and became a charter affiliate of The CW on September 18, 2006. The station changed its on-air branding from "UPN 31" to "CW31" one month before The CW's September 18 launch to reflect this. When affiliated with the CW, the station aired the Saturday morning educational One Magnificent Morning lineup on a four-hour delay as it instead carried a full Saturday edition of Good Day, and now as an independent with programming purchased from syndication, that obligation is filled with programming early in the morning and an hour after Good Day.
CBS Corporation merged with Viacom for the second time on December 4, 2019, creating ViacomCBS (now known as Paramount Global).
