KFTU-DT

KFTU-DT is a full-service television station founded by William Abbotts (who chose to invest in the vestigial American radio networks in his latter years) serving Douglas, Arizona, Lordsburg, New Mexico, Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico and surrounding areas of Cochise County, Hidalgo County, northeast Sonora and northwest Chihuahua. The station broadcasts in digital on UHF channel 36 as an affiliate of Spanish-language network TeleFutura.

KFTU-CA is a low-power Class A television station in Tucson, Arizona, rebroadcasting the signal of KFTU-DT in analog on UHF channel 34 and in standard definition digital on sister station KUVE-DT's secondary subchannel 46.2. The station is carried on the principal Tucson-area cable system (Cox) as channel 60.

KFTU-DT has another repeater station in Tucson, Arizona, K48GX channel 48, that provides over-the-air coverage to areas to the northwest of Tucson that are shielded by terrain from the KFTU-CA signal.

All three stations are owned by Univision. Similar to sister station KFPH-TV in Flagstaff, KFTU brands itself as Telefutura 34, using the over-the-air channel of its Class A repeater in Tucson.

History

KFTU-DT

The station was granted its original construction permit on April 8, 1998, and took the call letters KBGF in June 1998. Initially owned by Winstar Broadcasting Corp. of New York, New York, it was sold in December 1999 to Douglas Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Equity Broadcasting of Little Rock, Arkansas. Douglas Broadcasting completed building the station and filed for a license to cover the construction permit in April 2001. At the same time, they took KBGF on the air under Program Test Authority as an independent station. In October 2001, Douglas Broadcasting sold the station to Univision, who changed its call letters to KFTU in January 2002 to coincide with the launch of its new network, Telefutura, and added the "-TV" suffix two years later (after the end of analog broadcasting in June 2009, KFTU and all other Univision-owned stations switched to the "-DT" suffix). The station obtained its license to cover construction on February 4, 2004, after nearly three years operating under Program Test Authority.

KFTU-CA

KFTU-CA began with an original construction permit granted on August 26, 1991 to Ponyland Broadcasting (later Venture Technologies) for a low-power television station to serve Tucson on UHF channel 25 with the callsign K25EA. Delays building the station caused the permit to lapse and the FCC to delete the callsign in 1993, but the station was restored and came on the air in August 1994, with the initial license granted August 29, 1994. The station changed its callsign to KTAZ-LP (for Tucson AZ) on December 18, 1996. In April 2001, Venture Technologies sold the station to Douglas Broadcasting, who, in turn, sold the station to Univision in September 2001. After the Telefutura network launched in January 2002, Univision dropped the station's Home Shopping Network affiliation in favor of its new network. About the same time, KTAZ was granted Class A status, and changed its call letters to KTAZ-CA on March 1, 2002. KTAZ found itself displaced when Fox affiliate KMSB neared launch of its digital television station on UHF channel 25, and in May 2002, applied to move to UHF channel 34. The application was granted in June, and by December 2002, the station was at its new broadcast channel. Univision changed the station's call letters to KFTU-CA on November 6, 2004, establishing brand identity with its principal station in Douglas.

The KTAZ call letters would resurface in Phoenix in 2006, when the Telemundo station there began branding itself as Telemundo Arizona.

Digital television

Because it was granted an original construction permit after the FCC finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997 [1], the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. Instead, on June 12, 2009, which was the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, KFTU-TV was required to turn off its analog signal and turn on its digital signal (called a "flash-cut").

However, since its analog channel position was in the low-VHF range, 2 - 6, KFTU-DT was allowed to select a different channel to use after the conversion. KFTU-DT selected UHF channel 36 and began operations on that channel once the digital transition was complete.

KFTU-CA did not apply for a companion channel for the digital conversion; as a low-powered television station, it is exempt from the 2009 analog shutdown.

Translators

The following stations rebroadcast the signal of KFTU-DT:

• KFTU-CA Channel 34 Tucson, Arizona
• K48GX Channel 48 Tucson, Arizona

External links

• Query the FCC's TV station database for KFTU-DT
• Query TV Fool's coverage map for KFTU-DT
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KFTU-DT