KBFX-CD (channel 58) is a low-power,

Class A television station The class A television service is a system for regulating some low-power television (LPTV) stations in the United States. Class A stations are denoted by the broadcast callsign suffix "-CA" (analog) or "-CD" (digital), although very many analog -C ...

Bakersfield, California Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's populat ...

, United States, affiliated with the

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

network. It is owned by

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, t ...

alongside

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

affiliate

KBAK-TV KBAK-TV (channel 29) is a television station in Bakersfield, California, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside low-power, Class A Fox affiliate KBFX-CD (channel 58). Both stations share studio ...

(channel 29). Both stations share studios on Westwind Drive west of

Downtown Bakersfield Downtown is the central business district for Bakersfield, California. It contains several of the cities major theaters, sporting complexes, museums, and historical landmarks. What is considered to be “downtown” Bakersfield varies. In order ...

, while KBFX's transmitter is located atop Breckenridge Mountain. In addition to its own digital signal, KBFX-CD is

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...

in high definition on KBAK's second digital subchannel (58.2) from the same transmitter site.

History

KBFX signed on November 1, 1990 as K58DJ, a low-powered relay

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

of KMPH,

Fresno Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

's Fox affiliate. It changed its

call letters In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...

to KMPH-LP in 1995. Later, the Fox network wanted to include a new separate affiliate station for the Bakersfield market; as a result, in 1998, channel 58 was relaunched as KBFX-LP. Among the features on the new station was a KBAK-produced 10 p.m. newscast, "Fox 58 News @ 10". It was so successful that KBAK's then-owner Westwind Communications bought the station in 2005 from KMPH's owners,

Pappas Telecasting Pappas Telecasting Companies was a diversely organized broadcasting company headquartered in Visalia, California, United States. Founded in 1971, it was one of the largest privately held broadcasting companies in the country, with its stations ...

. On August 6, 2007, Westwind Communications announced the sale of KBAK and KBFX-CA to

Fisher Communications Fisher Communications was a media company in the United States. Based in Seattle, Washington, the company primarily owned a number of radio and television stations in the Western United States. It was the last company in the Seattle area to own ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, with the sale closing on January 1, 2008. KBFX58

On February 28, 2010,

Bright House Networks Bright House Networks, LLC also simply known as Bright House, was an American telecom company. Prior to its purchase by Charter Communications, it was the tenth-largest multichannel video service provider and the 6th largest cable internet provi ...

(now

Spectrum A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors i ...

) announced that KBFX will be carried in Tehachapi on cable channel 6. In January 2011, KBFX began airing its local news in high definition. Fisher Communications announced on April 11, 2013 that it would be acquired by

, pending

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

(FCC) approval. The deal was completed on August 8, 2013. On October 3, 2013, Sinclair announced the completion of the sale of four stations owned by Titan TV Broadcast Group, including KMPH, which reunites KBFX as sister-stations for the first time in eight years. KBFX is the only Bakersfield television station to never change its affiliation, having always been a Fox affiliate.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

: The analog signal went off the air in August 2010. KBFX just recently launched their new digital transmitter on RF channel 29. This signal carried This TV on its subchannel, which maps to virtual channel 29-2. The station's 29.2 subchannel was an initial affiliate of the

American Sports Network American Sports Network (ASN) was a sports brand owned by the U.S. television station owner Sinclair Broadcast Group through its Sinclair Networks subsidiary. Formed in July 2014, the multicast network component of ASN produced broadcasts of sp ...

with its first broadcast on August 30, 2014.

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kbfx-Cd BFX-CD Low-power television stations in the United States Fox network affiliates Comet (TV network) affiliates Sinclair Broadcast Group Pappas Telecasting Television channels and stations established in 1990 1990 establishments in California