"Cause of the KATV tower collapse still not known"

Of course, there were tower crews working on the guy wires. Comments from an anonymous source hinted that other towers of this manufacturer type are down and the KATV tower was condemned. But, hey, that's stuff you read on the internet. Here is an actual News story from Northwest Arkansas' morning news. Be sure and scroll down this blog for lots of pictures.

KETS Analog Still Down
This article was published on Monday, January 14, 2008 8:50 PM CST in News
By Jason Wiest
THE MORNING NEWS
LITTLE ROCK -- KATV Channel 7 was back on the air Monday after its 43-year-old tower collapsed Friday, knocking the Little Rock television station and part of Arkansas' public television network off the air.

Getting KETS Channel 2's analog signal restored will take a few more weeks, said Allen Weatherly, executive director of the Arkansas Educational Television Network. The station, which part of the AETN network and serves Central Arkansas, had its analog transmitter destroyed when KATV's 2000-foot tower collapsed while workers were stringing new guy wires.

One person was slightly injured in the collapse of what was the world's largest structure when it was built.

Within about 30 minutes of the collapse, KATV began uplinking a signal through Equity Broadcasting, according to Debbie Hook, an assistant to KATV president Dale Nicholson.

"Everybody that received us before should be able to receive us now" through cable, satellite or analog feeds, Hook said Monday.

KATV will eventually broadcast from a new tower, the specifics of which have not been worked out yet, she said.

AETN will purchase a lower power analog transmitter and mount it on its digital tower, Weatherly said. He said he was not sure how much it would cost.

AETN officials considered not restoring the analog signal since Congress and the Federal Communications Commission have mandated that analog television be updated to digital by February 2009, Weatherly said. About 10 percent to 15 percent of AETN's viewership in Arkansas watches via an analog signal, he said.

"Our whole mission is universal service, and (analog viewers) deserve to see programming as much as anybody else," Weatherly said.

He said the public television network serves about 1 million viewers in Arkansas.

The cause of the collapse is not yet known, Hook said.