KATV tower

On January 11, 2008, at 12:46 p.m. Central Time (1846 UTC), the tower collapsed.[10] Although the exact cause of the collapse remains unknown, at the time, in an effort to improve its structural condition, engineering crews with McLean, Virginia-based Structural Systems Technology, Inc. (SST) were replacing older guy wire cables on the eighth and ninth levels of the tower. Engineers with the firm claimed that as they were loosening one of the large cables that kept the structure in place on the ninth level, the tower suddenly began to shake and then collapsed; the structure broke into three segments as it came crashing down, which was what it was designed to do. No serious injuries took place, although a maintenance worker on-scene had sustained minor injuries.[11][12][1]

The collapse destroyed the analog transmitters of KATV and KETS, and the digital transmitter of KATV. Both stations remained available on Comcast's Little Rock-area systems and, in the case of KETS, Conway Corporation's cable system via direct feeds from their respective studio facilities. Comcast relayed the direct feed of KATV's high definition signal, which was initially interrupted, to other Central Arkansas cable systems, DirecTV and Dish Network, which had lost access to the station's off-air signal; some area cable providers that received the KETS analog feed were able to switch to its digital signal, although some smaller cable systems within its viewing area lost access to PBS programming from the Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN) completely until KETS resumed analog broadcasts.[13] KATV subsequently restored broadcast service later that week with the assistance of Little Rock-based Equity Media Holdings, which agreed to relay its digital signal on the third subchannel of MyNetworkTV affiliate KWBF-TV (channel 42, now KARZ-TV). KATV restored its analog signal on January 21 from an auxiliary tower on Shinall Mountain, which CBS affiliate KTHV (channel 11) loaned to KATV to set up a temporary analog transmitter.[11][14][15][16] Despite the logistical and economical difficulties of restoring analog broadcasts with about one year until the original digital television transition deadline, on January 14, the AETC announced it would set up temporary analog facilities for KETS on an auxiliary antenna of the adjacent 900-foot (270 m) Clear Channel Broadcasting Tower, where the station's digital signal transmitted since it signed on in 2004; KETS resumed analog broadcasts on the Clear Channel tower—which also housed the analog and digital transmitters of Pine Bluff-licensed CW affiliate KASN (channel 38)—on June 13.[17][18][19][20]

KATV chose not to rebuild at Redfield and instead built a new 1,250-foot (380 m) tower on Shinall Mountain[21] (at 34°47′49.3″N 92°29′20.1″W), where the majority of Little Rock's other major-network affiliates (including KTHV, KARZ, KARK-TV and KLRT-TV) were already located, along with KATV's temporary analog transmitter (on KTHV's backup tower) and digital signal (via the KARZ subchannel).[22] Though the Shinall Mountain tower—which was completed in February 2009—is shorter (as KATV management suggested that tower heights comparable to the former KATV mast were thought to be obsolete, even though communications towers at or above that height had been constructed over the previous decade), the mountain's higher elevation raises KATV's antenna to a similar overall height.[21]

On December 22, 2008, then-Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel (filing on behalf of KATV and AETN) and the tower's insurer, Boston-based OneBeacon America Insurance Co.—which paid KATV and then-owner Allbritton Communications $4 million in liabilities for the tower damage—each filed lawsuits against Structural Systems Technology with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas for unspecified damages and litigation costs. The suit alleged multiple complaints of negligence, breach of contract and fraud, stating that SST failed to provide oversight of its engineers and safely supervise its workers during the guy cable replacement.[1][23]