KEYU (channel 31) is a
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 eart ...
licensed to
Borger, Texas
Borger ( ) is the largest city in Hutchinson County, Texas, United States. The population was 12,551 at the 2020 census. Borger is named for businessman Asa Philip "Ace" Borger, who also established the Hutchinson County seat of Stinnett ...
, United States, serving the
Amarillo
Amarillo ( ; Spanish for " yellow") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Potter County. It is the 14th-most populous city in Texas and the largest city in the Texas Panhandle. A portion of the city extends into Randall Cou ...
area as an affiliate of the Spanish-language
Telemundo
Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by Comcast. It provides content nationally with pr ...
network. It is owned by
Gray Television 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
KFDA-TV
KFDA-TV (channel 10) is a television station in Amarillo, Texas, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Borger-licensed Telemundo affiliate KEYU (channel 31). Both stations share studios on Broadway Drive ( ...
(channel 10). The two stations share studios on Broadway Drive (just south of West Cherry Avenue) in northern Amarillo; KEYU's transmitter is located on Dumas Drive (
US 87
U.S. Highway 87 (US 87) is a north–south United States highway (though it is signed east–west in New Mexico) that runs for 1,998 miles (3,215 km) from northern Montana to southern Texas, making it the longest north-south roa ...
-
287
Year 287 (Roman numerals, CCLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. In the Roman Empire, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Diocletian and Maximian (or, less frequ ...
) and Reclamation Plant Road in rural
unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to:
* Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality
* Unincorporated entity, a type of organization
* Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...
Potter County.
Despite its full-power status, the station's
broadcasting radius does not reach the entire Amarillo market (covering a area, compared to KFDA's signal contour). To reach portions of the
Texas Panhandle
The Texas Panhandle is a region of the U.S. state of Texas consisting of the northernmost 26 counties in the state. The panhandle is a square-shaped area bordered by New Mexico to the west and Oklahoma to the north and east. It is adjacent to ...
that do not receive KEYU's signal adequately, if at all, KEYU's fourth
digital subchannel (affiliated with
Ion Television
Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented en ...
) 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, simulta ...
in
480i
480i is the video mode used for standard-definition digital television in the Caribbean, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Laos, Western Sahara, and most of the Americas (with the exception of Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay). The ...
widescreen
Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...
standard definition
Standard-definition television (SDTV, SD, often shortened to standard definition) is a television system which uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high or enhanced definition. "Standard" refers to it being the prevailing sp ...
on KFDA's third subchannel (10.3) from a separate transmitter at the KEYU/KFDA studios.
History
The station first signed on the air on November 2, 2004; it was founded and owned by
Little Rock
( The "Little Rock")
, government_type = Council-manager
, leader_title = Mayor
, leader_name = Frank Scott Jr.
, leader_party = D
, leader_title2 = Council
, leader_name2 ...
-based Equity Broadcasting Corporation (later
Equity Media Holdings
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 ...
). KEYU originally operated as an affiliate of
Univision
Univision () is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the Latino public and includes ...
, becoming the first Amarillo television station to have affiliated with the
Spanish-language network. The station originally broadcast from studio facilities located on South Kentucky Street (behind
I-40
Interstate 40 (I-40) is a major east–west Interstate Highway running through the south-central portion of the United States. At a length of , it is the third-longest Interstate Highway in the country, after I-90 and I-80. From west to ea ...
) on Amarillo's southwest side. Prior to the station's sign-on, Univision had previously been only receivable via local cable providers within the state (such as
Cox Communications in Amarillo and
Canyon), which carried the Spanish language network's programming via its national feed; that feed was eventually replaced by a direct
fiber optic
An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means t ...
feed of KEYU—whose schedule mirrored the national feed outside of local advertising, news inserts and occasional
paid programming
Paid or PAID may refer to:
* ''Paid'' (1930 film), an American film starring Joan Crawford
* ''Paid'' (2006 film), a Dutch film
*''Personality and Individual Differences'', a journal
See also
* Paide
Paide is a town in Estonia and the ...
substitutions—from the station's studios.
On June 25, 2008, Equity announced that it would sell KEYU and its low-power repeaters—along with Univision affiliates
KUOK
KUOK (channel 36) is a television station licensed to Woodward, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with the Spanish-language Univision network. Owned by the Oklahoma City–based Tyler Media Group, the station maintains a transmitter near Stat ...
in
Woodward, Oklahoma
Woodward is a city in and the county seat of Woodward County, Oklahoma, Woodward County, Oklahoma, United States. It is the largest city in a nine-county area. The population was 11,975 at the United States Census, 2020, United States Census.
T ...
(and its
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...
and
Sulphur translators), KUTW-LP/KWKO-LP in
Waco, Texas
Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the st ...
,
WLZE-LP/
WEVU-CA in
Fort Myers, Florida; and
WUMN-CA in
Minneapolis–Saint Paul
Minneapolis–Saint Paul is a metropolitan area in the Upper Midwestern United States centered around the confluence of the Mississippi, Minnesota and St. Croix rivers in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is commonly known as the Twin Cities ...
—to
Luken Communications (owned by former Equity executive Henry Luken) for $25 million, with a contingency to reduce the sale price to $17.5 million if Luken closed its purchase on all of the stations simultaneously.
That December, Equity Media Holdings filed for
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 ...
bankruptcy protection;
offers by Luken Communications to acquire Equity-owned stations in six markets were later withdrawn. According 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 t ...
website, KEYU had at one point planned to add an RTN affiliate on DT3 sometime in the future. However, after Equity filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2008, Luken began to distance itself from Equity; its offers to acquire KEYU and other Equity stations were eventually withdrawn, and on January 4, 2009, RTN affiliation was removed from all Equity-owned or operated stations as a result of a commercial dispute with Luken.
In 2009, KEYU and three Amarillo
LPTV
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 ...
stations—
Telefutura affiliate
KAMT-LP and KEYU repeaters KEYU-LP and KEAT-LP—were put up for sale for $7.5 million, as part of a sell-off of all of Equity's stations.
A buyer was not found until October, when
Drewry Communications
The Drewry Communications Group was a media company based in Lawton, Oklahoma, wholly owned and operated by the Drewry family. The company was run by Robert Drewry (as the company's president), Bill Drewry (as its chief executive officer), and ...
announced that it would purchase the stations, with a failing station waiver being obtained to allow KEYU to be co-owned with KFDA. The station subsequently relocated its operations to KFDA's studios on Broadway Drive in northern Amarillo. (The former KEYU studio building is now occupied by the Mewbourne Oil Company.)
Shortly after assuming control in 2010, Drewry dropped the station's affiliation with Univision and moved the programming of
KTMO-LP
KTMO-LP, UHF analog channel 36 ( VHF digital channel 10.3), was a low-powered Telemundo- affiliated television station licensed to Amarillo, Texas, United States. Founded in 2002 by Drewry Communications, Telemundo Amarillo was the first Spani ...
, including its Telemundo affiliation and local newscasts, to KEYU.
On August 10, 2015,
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 202 ...
–based
Raycom Media
Raycom Media, Inc. was an American television broadcasting company based in Montgomery, Alabama. Raycom owned and/or provided services for 65 television stations and two radio stations across 44 markets in 20 states. Raycom, through its Communi ...
announced that it would purchase Drewry Communications' eight television stations as well as radio stations
KEYU-FM (102.9 FM) in Amarillo and
KTXC in
Lamesa for $160 million. The sale was completed on December 1; as a result, KEYU became the first full-power Spanish-language television station to be owned by Raycom. (The remainder of the group's Telemundo-affiliated stations are low-power or subchannel-only outlets.)
On June 25, 2018,
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
-based
Gray Television announced it had reached an agreement with Raycom to merge their respective broadcasting assets (consisting of Raycom's 63 existing owned-and/or-operated television stations, including KFDA-TV and KEYU as well as Lubbock sister station
KCBD
KCBD (channel 11) is a television station city of license, licensed to Lubbock, Texas, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned Gray Television alongside Wolfforth, Texas, Wolfforth-licensed The CW Plus, CW+ affiliate KLCW-TV (channel 22) a ...
, and Gray's 93 television stations) under the former's corporate umbrella. The cash-and-stock merger transaction valued at $3.6 billion—in which Gray shareholders would acquire preferred stock currently held by Raycom—resulted in KFDA/KEYU gaining a new
sister station in the
Odessa–
Midland market as Gray plans to retain ownership of fellow CBS affiliate
KOSA-TV
KOSA-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Odessa, Texas, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Permian Basin area. It is owned by Gray Television alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KWWT (channel 30, also licensed to Ode ...
in exchange for selling NBC affiliate
KWES-TV
KWES-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Odessa, Texas, United States, serving the Permian Basin area as an affiliate of NBC. The station is owned by Tegna Inc. and maintains studios on West County Road 127 near the Midland Inte ...
(which will be sold to an independent company to comply with FCC ownership rules prohibiting common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market, instead KWES and
WTOL
WTOL (channel 11) is a television station in Toledo, Ohio, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Tegna Inc., which provides certain services to Fox affiliate WUPW (channel 36) under a joint sales agreement (JSA) with American Spi ...
in
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...
would be sold to
Tegna Inc.
Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into tw ...
).
The sale was approved on December 20, and was completed on January 2, 2019.
In August 2018, the station dropped
LATV
LATV (; originally pronounced on-air as from 2007 to 2014 and, since 2014, serving as a backronym for its on-air slogan, "Latino Alternative Television") is an American bilingual broadcast television network, digital publisher and media company ...
programming on its second digital subchannel and opened a third subchannel affiliating with
Ion Television
Ion Television is an American broadcast television network owned by the Katz Broadcasting subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company. The network first began broadcasting on August 31, 1998, as Pax TV, focusing primarily on family-oriented en ...
, bringing the network's programming back to the Amarillo market since low-power station K39HF ceased operations in 2014.
Newscasts
From 2005 until May 2008, Equity Broadcasting produced Spanish-language newscasts for KEYU, titled ''Noticias Univision Amarillo''. The twice-nightly newscasts – which aired at 5:00 and 10:00 p.m. each weeknight – consisted of a single broadcast that was repeated later in the evening. While KEYU maintained its own locally based full-time reporters and photographers at its Amarillo facility, most of the newscast segments were produced out of studios located at Equity's headquarters in Little Rock, which served as a production hub for local newscasts aired by the group's Univision-affiliated stations. As with Equity's Univision newscasts elsewhere, the program consisted of nine minutes of local news and weather segments, accompanied by pre-recorded national and international news and sports segments produced for inclusion in all of the broadcasts. As a result of corporate cutbacks spurred by the company's financial issues, Equity discontinued the newscasts it produced for all six of its Univision affiliates (including KEYU) on June 6, 2008.
After becoming a sister station to KFDA-TV, KEYU restored full-scale news programming to its schedule in September 2009; the station assumed production responsibilities for its newscasts, launching weeknight-only newscasts at 5:00 and 10:00 p.m. produced at the Broadway Drive studios.
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 ...
:
Analog-to-digital transition
As the station's original
construction permit was granted after the
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 jurisdicti ...
(FCC) finalized the
DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997,
the station did not receive a companion channel for its
digital signal. Instead, at the end of the digital conversion period for full-service television stations, KEYU would have been required to turn off its
analog signal and turn on its digital signal (called a "
flash-cut").
As a result of then-KEYU-owner Equity Media Holdings filing a bankruptcy relief petition under Chapter 11 of the
federal bankruptcy code on December 8, 2008, the station was required to obtain post-petition financing and court approval before digital facilities were to be constructed, and had to cease its
analog signal on
February 17, 2009, regardless of whether digital facilities were operational by that date. The station filed an authority to remain
silent if required by the FCC. While the
DTV Delay Act
The digital transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of terrestrial television programming. According to David Rehr, then president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, th ...
extended this deadline to June 12, 2009, Equity had applied for an extension of the digital construction permit 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 f ...
after the station went dark. In 2011, the main KEYU signal was later added as a
digital subchannel of CBS-affiliated sister station KFDA-TV for viewers in Amarillo with an over-the-air digital receiver.
References
External links
* - KEYU official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keyu
Television channels and stations established in 2004
Telemundo network affiliates
Heroes & Icons affiliates
Circle (TV network) affiliates
Ion Television affiliates
Dabl affiliates
TheGrio affiliates
Defy TV affiliates
TeleXitos affiliates
EYU (TV)
Gray Television
Spanish-language television stations in Texas
2004 establishments in Texas