KNPN-CD (channel 26) is a low-power, Class A television station in St. Joseph, Missouri, United States, affiliated with the Fox network.
On March 14, 2012, News-Press & Gazette acquired two low-power digital television licenses in Saint Joseph, K16KF-D and K26LV-D from Sunrise, Florida–based DTV America 1, LLC for $72,000;[3] two weeks earlier on February 29, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted the company's construction permit application to relocate the two stations' transmitter facilities from a tower near Mound City to the St. Joseph transmitter and upgrade the effective radiated power for both stations (the channel 16 license would not be activated until March 7, 2013, when it signed on as CW affiliate KBJO-LD).
KNPN-LD displaced Kansas City's WDAF-TV (channel 4)—which is among the seven full-power Kansas City stations that provide city-grade signal coverage in St. Joseph proper—as the area's default Fox station on Suddenlink Communications, DirecTV and Dish Network; however some providers continued to supply CW programming through out-of-market stations (Kansas City affiliate KCWE on some rural cable systems and Omaha affiliate KXVO—which provides rimshot signal coverage in the far northwestern tip of Missouri—on DirecTV; and WPIX/New York City, KTLA/Los Angeles and KWGN-TV/Denver on Dish Network through its superstation package) instead of KNPN's CW-affiliated third digital subchannel (News-Press & Gazette assumed promotional and advertising control of cable-only CW Plus station "WBJO" from Suddenlink with the sign-on of the subchannel); KNPN's Telemundo-affiliated fourth subchannel, meanwhile, only replaced the network's national feed on local cable providers, as Telemundo did not have an existing affiliate in Missouri.
Local newscasts on the company's three other Fox outlets (KQFX-LD in Columbia, KDFX-CD in Palm Springs and KFXO-CD in Bend, Oregon) are produced by a co-owned Big Three network affiliate in the respective market.
KNPN-CD is the smallest Fox affiliate by market size (as Nielsen Media Research ranks St. Joseph #201 out of 210 U.S. television markets) to produce its local newscasts in-house; previously, the smallest media market with a Fox affiliate that produced its own local news programming in any form was San Angelo, Texas (ranked #197), where KIDY at the time of KNPN's sign-on aired hourly local news updates during daytime programming and simulcasts of KABB in San Antonio's morning and 9 p.m. newscasts (the station has since launched its own full-fledged newscasts).