KBMY is owned by WDAY TV in Fargo. When they went on the air in Bismarck and Minot in the 80’s, there was even a news staff in Bismarck. Sadly, the news department was short lived. While there are benefits to not having to babysit a bunch of journalism majors (that’s an inside joke aimed at a couple of friends who’ll find it funny – NOT at the KBMY news staff), I’d have to say that it’s far better for a TV station to have local news. I don’t know what those days were like for “the Beemer” because I joined just after the news staff was let go.
KBMY was located atop the Kirkwood Office Tower when I worked there. What a cool building! If you’ve never been in there, give it a try. The circular hallways are fun, especially on a minibike. Whoops…forget I said that.
Having the head honchos and bean counters of WDAY residing 200 miles away did make for a relaxed atmosphere for a control room monkey at the Beemer, but it was frustrating trying to get any upgrades (or even working equipment sometimes). Much of the control room gear was older than me, and some of it looked pretty familiar the last time I saw it in 2007.
I left KBMY to live at a ski resort in 1989 and 1990, getting paid to snowboard three days a week and, well, snowboarding on my four days off too. At that point I was already sending job applications to my future home at KFYR-TV.
A few years ago, KBMY moved in with a new roommate: KNDX, the local FOX affiliate. They were both operated out of the same building, with separate control rooms. It’s not an uncommon arrangement in television these days; KVLY runs KXJB the same way in Fargo. But the scuttlebutt among us “rehabilitated television” type fellas is that the arrangement with FOX recently changed as well. Actually, it went the way of KBMY’s news department.
I was reminded by this KXMB article that KBMY is now run out of Fargo by WDAY. It’s interesting how the arrangement developed: Prairie Public Television (KBME) was first with a digital transmitter as well as a digital microwave transmission line to deliver programming between Bismarck and Fargo. Why wouldn’t they? Our tax dollars pay for it. Just ask Conrad, Pomeroy, and Dorgan, who just brought Prairie Public another three hundred grand in pork.
KXMB combined resources with Prairie Public for digital transmission. I suppose it works out pretty well with them being across the street for each other; KXMB just has to get their DTV signal to Prairie Public, who can then send it out to the transmitter site to be broadcast. Digital transmission IS cool, you can broadcast multiple channels and multiple streams!
Anyway, that arrangement sets KXMB up to be the perfect folks to manage the Beemer. WDAY can hop onto Prairie Public’s microwave link to Bismarck, it can be handed over to KXMB by KBME, then sent by analog link out to KBMY’s old liquid-cooled UHF transmitter. All WDAY’s bean counters need is someone to sell local ads and maintain the few remaining electronic items. And that’s my theory on how it goes. At the next Friday A&B Pizza lunch where we TV guys gather, I’ll have to ask if I’m correct in my technical assumptions.
It’s too bad that KBMY never really got off the ground. I will admit that the Bismarck-Mandan of the 1980s was probably too small for three competing news departments, and TV viewers are creatures of habit anyway. But I will always cherish my fond memories of my time at the Beemer. It was my gateway into television, which led me to the career in multimedia that I enjoy now. Two of my lifelong best friends are guys I met at KBMY. They actually followed me over to KFYR before we all split off into the non-broadcast world. The Beemer, however, lives on…it just electronically commutes 200 miles to work each day.
(this post was edited to point out that my “journalism majors” comment was a specific inside joke.)