KEGS (channel 7) was an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

Goldfield, Nevada Goldfield is an unincorporated community, unincorporated small desert city and the county seat of Esmeralda County, Nevada. It is the locus of the census-designated place, Goldfield CDP which had a resident population of 268 at the 2010 Unite ...

, United States. It served both the

Reno Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the c ...

and

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

markets Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: * Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand * Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, a ...

by way of

translators Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...

KRRI-LP (channel 25) in Reno and KEGS-LP (channel 30) in Las Vegas. Like many stations that were owned by

Equity Broadcasting Equity Media Holdings Corporation was a broadcasting company based in Little Rock, Arkansas that owned and operated television stations across the United States. Prior to March 30, 2007, the company was known as Equity Broadcasting, a name later ...

, the stations were operated remotely by satellite; their programming could be seen free-to-air on

Galaxy 18 Galaxy 18 is a Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) 1300-series hybrid communications satellite owned by Intelsat and located in geosynchronous orbit at 123° W longitude, serving the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, and Canada with 24 ...

History

The Las Vegas station was founded on January 12, 1993 as K63FD, and later gained the call sign KTVY-LP in 1997. In April 2002, the Goldfield station signed on as KTVY-TV, matching the station in Las Vegas. Finally, in late May 2005, both stations changed their call sign to the current KEGS. Until May 30, 2007, KEGS was affiliated with

ImaginAsian ImaginAsian Entertainment, Inc was a multimedia company founded by Michael Hong and Augustine Hong and a group of investors that recognized the emerging importance of "all-things Asian." Based in New York City, its main attraction was a televis ...

. On that day, the station switched to the

Retro Television Network Retro TV (stylized as retrotv), formerly known as Retro Television Network, is an American broadcast television network owned by Get After It Media. The network mainly airs classic television sitcoms and drama series from the 1950s through th ...

(RTN). On January 4, 2009, a contract conflict between Equity Media Holdings Corporation and RTN interrupted the programming on many RTN affiliates. As a result, Luken Communications, LLC (who had purchased RTN in June 2008), restored a national RTN feed from its headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with individual customized feeds to non-Equity-owned affiliates to follow on a piecemeal basis. As a result, KEGS lost its RTN affiliation immediately, though Luken vowed to find a new affiliate for RTN in the Las Vegas market. Viewers in the Reno area could still watch RTN on the digital subchannel of local

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 ...

affiliate

KRXI-TV KRXI-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Reno, Nevada, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to primary sports-formatted independent station and secondary ...

, while KGNG-LP's DT4 subchannel took the affiliation in Las Vegas in June 2009. At auction on April 16, 2009, KEGS-LP was sold to

Mako Communications , better known by the mononym name Mako (sometimes stylised MAKO), is a Japanese voice actress, singer and a member of the band Bon-Bon Blanco, in which her prominent role is as the maraca player. She has also performed in a Japanese television ...

, while KRRI-LP and

KELM-LP KELM-LP, UHF analog channel 43, was a low-powered Mexicanal- affiliated television station licensed to Reno, Nevada, United States. KELM-LP, the Mexicanal affiliate and its sister station, KRRI-LP, the Azteca America affiliate, both broadcast i ...

were sold to Ngensolutions LLC. In June 2013, Mako planned to sell what had become KEGS-LD to Landover 5 LLC as part of a larger deal involving 51 other low-power television stations; the deal fell through in June 2016, and in 2017 Mako's stations, including KEGS-LD, were acquired by

HC2 Holdings INNOVATE Corp. (formerly known as HC2 Holdings, Inc. and Primus Telecommunications Group, Inc.) is an American public financial services company founded in 1994. History Beginning (1994–1997) Primus commenced operations in 1994 intent on bei ...

. The full-service KEGS signal never found a buyer, and signed off permanently on June 12, 2009; its license was finally canceled on July 6, 2010.

Digital television

Because it was granted an original

construction permit Planning permission or developmental approval refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. It is usually given in the form of a building perm ...

after the

FCC 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 ...

finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997, the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital

. Instead, at the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, KEGS would have been required to turn off its

analog signal An analog signal or analogue signal (see spelling differences) is any continuous signal representing some other quantity, i.e., ''analogous'' to another quantity. For example, in an analog audio signal, the instantaneous signal voltage varies c ...

and turn on its digital signal (called a "

flash-cut A flash cut, also called a flash cutover, is an immediate change in a complex system, with no phase-in period. In the United States, some telephone area codes were split or overlaid immediately, rather than being phased in with a permissive dia ...

"). The station's owner, Equity Media Holdings, declared bankruptcy in 2008 and was unable to construct digital facilities, leaving the station to go

dark Darkness, the direct opposite of lightness, is defined as a lack of illumination, an absence of visible light, or a surface that absorbs light, such as black or brown. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low lum ...

in 2009. According to the station's DTV status report, "On December 8, 2008, the licensee's parent corporation filed a petition for

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

relief under

Chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, wheth ...

of the federal bankruptcy code... This station must obtain post-petition financing and court approval before digital facilities may be constructed. The station must cease analogue broadcasting on February 17, 2009, regardless of whether digital facilities are operational by that date. The station will file authority to remain silent if so required by the FCC."FCC DTV status report
/ref> While the

DTV Delay Act The digital transition in the United States was the switchover from Analog TV, analog to exclusively Digital television, digital broadcasting of terrestrial television programming. According to David Rehr, then president and CEO of the National ...

extended this deadline to June 12, 2009, Equity had applied for an extension of the digital

in order to retain the

broadcast license A broadcast license is a type of spectrum license granting the licensee permission to use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum in a given geographical area for broadcasting purposes. The licenses generally include restrictions, which vary ...

after the station became silent. Equity Broadcasting also held a construction permit to construct a digital companion station to KEGS-LP on channel 24 in Las Vegas; that station, as a

low-power broadcasting Low-power broadcasting is broadcasting by a broadcast station at a low transmitter power output to a smaller service area than "full power" stations within the same region. It is often distinguished from "micropower broadcasting" (more commonly " ...

operation, was not required to cease analog transmission due to DTV transition in 2009. While the majority of Equity's assets were sold in a 2009 liquidation, neither the digital KEGS transmitter nor the new Las Vegas station were ever constructed.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kegs (Tv) EGS (TV) EGS (TV) Defunct television stations in the United States Television channels and stations established in 2002 2002 establishments in Nevada Television channels and stations disestablished in 2009 2009 disestablishments in Nevada Equity Media Holdings EGS (TV)