KPHE-LP

KPHE-LD is a low-power television station in Phoenix, Arizona, broadcasting locally in digital on UHF channel 16 from its transmitter on South Mountain. Founded March 17, 1992, it is owned by Lotus Communications Corporation of Los Angeles, California and is an affiliate of Multimedios Television and Telemax.

History

On March 17, 1992, the FCC granted an original construction permit to build low-power television station K19DD on UHF channel 19 to serve Phoenix and the East Valley. The station was owned by Scottsdale publisher Harlan L. Jacobsen, with transmitter location on Usery Mountain in east Mesa. K19DD was granted an initial license on July 13, 1995, as an affiliate of the Bloomberg Television network. In June 1998, Jacobsen was granted a construction permit to operate an experimental broadcast station using the facilities of K19DD to broadcast in digital format.

In September 1999, Jacobsen sold the station to US Interactive LLC, who soon afterward, changed its call letters to KPHE-LP. In December 2000, the station became part of a pilot program to study the feasibility of using low-power UHF television stations to deliver wireless data services to subscribers.^[1] The Digital Data Services Act pilot project was effective from December 2000 through June 2002, during which time, KPHE was unavailable as an over-the-air analog broadcast station.^[2]

After the pilot project was complete, KPHE programming consisted of a camera focused on a fish tank. Viewers could watch the fish while music played in the background. That changed in October 2003, when Valley residents Jeff Crawford and Jennifer Harris Crawford leased the station from US Interactive and took over its operations. The Crawfords had been operating a music video service called Bohemia AfterDark since 1982, and launched Bohemia Visual Music (BVM), a 24/7 music video channel.^[3]

In January 2004, Lotus Communications Corporation purchased KPHE from US Interactive. The sale was finalized in March, and the station continued to be operated by the Crawfords as Bohemia Visual Music. Lotus had intended to launch family-friendly Spanish-language programming,^[4] but the station continued to air Bohemia Visual Music. In March 2005, KPHE moved from channel 19 to channel 44, moved broadcast facilities from Usery Mountain to the South Mountain antenna farm, and upgraded its broadcast signal in preparation for future digital broadcasting.

In July 2006, more than a year after announcing its intention to launch a family-focused station, Lotus replaced Bohemia Visual Music programming, first with a mix of music videos, including recorded worship services, and later, with talk shows and other Bible-based instruction. The new programming was branded TV Inspiración. It was lacking in production values, and had an amateur, almost public-access television cable TV-quality presentation, as evidenced by the station's ID slide (pictured below), which would appear full-screen for a few seconds in the middle of programming. KPHE affiliated with Multimedios in November 2006, while keeping TV Inspiración as secondary programming. In February 2007, KPHE announced that it would carry Spanish-language telecasts of Arizona Diamondbacks Major League Baseball home games, beginning with the 2007 season. Unlike most Spanish-language telecasts, the Diamondbacks games featured a full Spanish-language broadcast, with its own play-by-play, color commentary and on-field announcers. These broadcasts stopped sometime in 2009. In June 2007, the channel started to broadcast half-hour religious programs produced by Zion TV from 11:30 am to 6:00 p.m. Monday-Sunday.^[5]

From March, 2009 - June, 2009 KPHE-LD aired Red ADVenir on 44.2, the Spanish-language broadcast arm of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

In August 2010, KPHE-LD started broadcasting programming from My Family TV on 44.4.

Digital television

Digital channels

In May 2006, the FCC opened up a brief application period in which low-power television licensees and permittees could apply for a digital companion channel by short form application. KPHE-LP applied for UHF channel 16, to broadcast from the same location as the analog station. In September, the FCC identified the station as a singleton applicant, meaning that there were no competing applications on the same or adjacent channels, and giving the station until October 31 to file a long form application. On October 26, 2006, KPHE-LP formally applied for a digital companion channel on UHF channel 16.^[6] The construction permit was granted December 26, 2007.^[7]

On March 26, 2009, they turned on their digital signal, KPHE-LD, simulcasting their analog programming through the use of PSIP on channel 44.1.

Programming

KPHE-LP is an affiliate of Multimedios Television, a Spanish-language network based in Monterrey, Mexico and Telemax, a Spanish-language network based in Sonora, Mexico. When not airing Multimedios and Telemax programming, the station broadcasts locally-produced programming and paid programming. On 44.2 the station broadcasts programming from Esperanza TV and 3ABN Latino under the brand Good News TV in Español, on 44.3 the station broadcasts programming from 3ABN, Hope Channel and LLBN under the brand Good News TV, and on 44.4 the station broadcasts programming from My Family TV.

References

External links

• Official KPHE website
• Official Good News TV channel 44.3 website
• Multimedios Television official site
• Old KPHE/BVM website (2004 - before move to channel 44)
• Lotus Communications Corp
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KPHE-LD