KFSF-DT (channel 66) 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
Vallejo, California
Vallejo ( ; ) is a city in Solano County, California and the second largest city in the North Bay region of the Bay Area. Located on the shores of San Pablo Bay, the city had a population of 126,090 at the 2020 census. Vallejo is home to th ...
, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language
UniMás
UniMás (, stylized as ''UNIMÁS'', and originally known as TeleFutura from its launch on January 14, 2002, to January 6, 2013) is an American Spanish free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. The network's programming, which i ...
network to the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
. It is
owned and operated
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
by
TelevisaUnivision
TelevisaUnivision (formerly known as Univision Communications) is a Mexican-American media company headquartered in New York and Mexico City, which owns the American Spanish language broadcast network Univision. 45% of the company is held by the ...
alongside
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
–licensed
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 ...
outlet
KDTV-DT
KDTV-DT (channel 14) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the Spanish-language Univision network outlet for the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside ...
(channel 14). Both stations share studios on Zanker Road near the
North San Jose Innovation District
Rincon de los Esteros, also known as Innovation Triangle, the Golden Triangle, the Innovation District, or simply as Rincon, is a vast district of San Jose, California, making up a significant portion of North San Jose. The district has one of ...
in
San Jose, while KFSF's transmitter is located atop
Sutro Tower
Sutro Tower is a unique three-legged tall TV and radio lattice tower located in San Francisco, California. Rising from a hill between Twin Peaks and Mount Sutro near Clarendon Heights, it is a prominent feature of the city skyline and a landma ...
in San Francisco.
History
The station first signed on the air on November 25, 1986 as KPST-TV. Founded by
Millbrae-based Pan Pacific Television Inc., it originally maintained a part-time
independent station format, consisting of a three-hour block of
Mandarin language
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
programming during
prime time each night and programming from the Home Shopping Network (
HSN
HSN, an initialism of its former name Home Shopping Network, is an American free-to-air television network owned by the Qurate Retail Group, which also owns catalog company Cornerstone Brands. Based in the Gateway area of St. Petersburg, Flo ...
) filling the remaining 20 hours of its daily schedule.
However, from the start, other companies competed for the Channel 66
license, even after Pan Pacific Television was awarded it by 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). The most fervent competitor was Silver King Broadcasting, the broadcasting arm of HSN, which vied for the license for ten years after the station's sign-on. Shortly before KPST made its formal debut, Silver King announced that it would acquire the license. The deal was stalled for years until alleged improprieties by Pan Pacific cracked open the door for Silver King to try and take over the license. In 1989, the FCC opened an investigation into Pan Pacific Television over allegations that it intentionally declined to disclose its ownership by
Chinese investors on its application, in violation of agency rules restricting foreign companies from maintaining an ownership interest in an American broadcast television or radio property higher than 25%.
With the likelihood that the company would have to undergo a hearing by the FCC Commissioner's Board regarding the issue, Pan Pacific also realized that the station was ripe for a possible takeover by other prospective licensees, citing a federal law that permitted minority-owned firms to be able to purchase local broadcast media properties that were under FCC investigation at a discount bid. The company chose to sell the KPST license to Channel 66 of Vallejo, a company founded by veteran media executive
Barry Diller
Barry Charles Diller (born February 2, 1942) is an American businessman. He is Chairman and Senior Executive of IAC and Expedia Group and founded the Fox Broadcasting Company and USA Broadcasting. Diller was inducted into the Television Hall o ...
(who is
Caucasian
Caucasian may refer to:
Anthropology
*Anything from the Caucasus region
**
**
** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus region
*
*
*
Languages
* Northwest Caucasian l ...
) and businessman Edward Whitehead (who is
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
), the latter of whom held a 51% controlling interest in the company.
However, shortly after the transaction occurred, the
District of Columbia Court of Appeals
The District of Columbia Court of Appeals is the highest court of the District of Columbia, in the United States. Established in 1970, it is equivalent to a state supreme court, except that its authority is derived from the United States Congr ...
ruled that the FCC's rules giving preferential treatment to companies owned by minorities to allow them to acquire licenses under agency investigation were unconstitutional. As a result, the FCC rejected Whitehead's application. However, even though the
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
decided to uphold the ruling by the D.C. Appeals Court when the case regarding the purchase discounts for minority firms was brought to a hearing in 1990, Whitehead and Diller chose to submit their application to the FCC once again. However, San Francisco–based West Coast United Broadcasting Co.; Arthur Liu of
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
–based Multicultural Radio Broadcasting Inc. and a consortium between
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
-based Pen Holdings Inc. and San Jose developer John S. Wong each filed petitions objecting to the sale. West Coast United Broadcasting subsequently filed a competing application to the FCC, in doing so filing a challenge to Diller and Whitehead's argument that they had full rights to purchase the station.
Silver King/USA Broadcasting ownership
The dispute over the license was eventually resolved in late 1995, when the Whitehead-Diller partnership reached an out-of-court settlement for an undisclosed sum, in which West Coast Broadcasting agreed to rescind its application and allow Whitehead and Diller to purchase the station. In addition, Diller's company, Silver King Communications, agreed to the reimburse the legal fees incurred by the three petitioners (with Wong and Pen receiving up to $268,000, West Coast Broadcasting receiving up to $17,000 and Liu receiving up to $28,960), in exchange for each of the parties dropping their legal challenges.
On February 15, 1996, the Whitehead-Diller partnership was given permission by the FCC to acquire KPST-TV for $9 million (below the station's appraisal value of $12 million). Silver King's involvement in the deal gave the company an additional television station property as Diller had earlier announced on November 27, 1995, that he would acquire the Home Shopping Network and Silver King Broadcasting, which owned HSN-affiliated stations in several other larger
media market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...
s. Two years later in 1997, Silver King purchased the
USA Network
USA Network (simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. It was originally launched in 1977 as Madison ...
and renamed its broadcast television subsidiary as
USA Broadcasting
USA Broadcasting was an United States of America, American television broadcasting company owned by the veteran entertainment industry executive Barry Diller. This company was the over-the-air broadcasting arm of USA Networks. Before founding US ...
, as part of a corporate rebranding borrowing from the identity of its new cable channel property.
In June 1998, USA Broadcasting launched a customized independent station format, "CityVision", which infused syndicated programming—including a few produced by sister production unit
Studios USA
Universal Television LLC (abbreviated as UTV) is an American television production company that is a subsidiary of Universal Studio Group, a division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It serves as the network television production arm of NBC; a predece ...
that also aired nationally on USA Network—with a limited amount of local entertainment and magazine programs (reminiscent of the format used by
CITY-TV
CITY-DT (channel 57) is a television station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, serving as the flagship station of the Citytv network. It is owned and operated by network parent Rogers Sports & Media alongside Omni Television outlets CFMT-DT (chan ...
in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
and more prominently, that station's sister broadcast television properties that became charter stations of
Citytv
Citytv is a Canadian television network owned by the Rogers Sports & Media subsidiary of Rogers Communications. The licence of the original Citytv station, granted the callsign of CITY-TV by the CRTC on November 25, 1971 to Cable Television Ass ...
, when
CHUM Limited
CHUM Limited was a Canadian media company based in Toronto, Ontario in operation from 1945 to 2007. The company was founded in 1945 as York Broadcasters Limited when it launched CHUM-AM 1050 but was acquired by salesman Allan Waters in 1954. CHU ...
expanded the format to other
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
markets as a
television system
In Canada, a television system is a group of television stations which share common ownership, branding and programming, but which for some reason does not satisfy the criteria necessary for it to be classified as a television network under Cana ...
in 2002). At the time the concept formally launched on
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
sister station
WAMI-TV
WAMI-DT (channel 69) is a television station licensed to Hollywood, Florida, United States, serving the Miami area with programming from the Spanish-language UniMás network. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Univision outle ...
in September of that year (later expanding to sister stations WHOT-TV (now
WUVG-DT
WUVG-DT (channel 34) is a television station licensed to Athens, Georgia, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language Univision and UniMás networks to the Atlanta area. Owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision, the station maintains studios ...
) in
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 ...
, KHSX-TV (now
KSTR-DT
KSTR-DT (channel 49) is a television station licensed to Irving, Texas, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language UniMás network to the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is owned-and-operated station, owned and operated by TelevisaUnivisi ...
) in
Dallas
Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
–
Fort Worth
Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...
and WHUB-TV (now
WUTF-DT
WUTF-TV (channel 27) is a television station licensed to Worcester, Massachusetts, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language UniMás network to the Boston area. It is owned by Entravision Communications, which provides certain services t ...
) in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
), USA Broadcasting had not announced plans for KPST to switch to adopt the format.
Sale to Univision
In the summer of 2000, USA Networks announced that it would sell its television station group, in order to focus on its cable network and television production properties. Among the prospective buyers for the USA Broadcasting unit was
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
—which had acquired
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
in 1996—which was the original frontrunner to purchase the thirteen-station group (had Disney been successful in acquiring the station, such a deal would have made KPST a
sister station
In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement.
Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...
to
KGO-TV
KGO-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's ABC network outlet. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, KGO-TV maint ...
(channel 7), one of ABC's five original
owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
s). However,
Spanish-language
Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...
broadcaster Univision Communications beat out Disney and the competing bidders in a close race, securing a deal to purchase the USA Broadcasting stations for $1.1 billion on December 7, 2000. But because of the station's joint ownership structure, Whitehead and USA Networks had to sell their respective stakes in KPST to Univision; USA sold its 49% minority interest in the station for $37 million, while Whitehead sold his 51% share for $42 million. The sale to Univision faced opposition from a coalition of Bay Area residents of Chinese origin and San Francisco city supervisor Leland Yee, who each filed a complaint to the FCC over the sale. The FCC chose to approve the Univision acquisition, effectively allowing KPST to form a duopoly with Univision owned-and-operated station KDTV (channel 14).
The week prior to the sale's completion, on May 15, 2001, Univision Communications announced during its
upfront presentation that it would launch a secondary television network—later announced to be named TeleFutura (the forerunner of UniMás) on July 31—that would compete with Univision,
Telemundo
Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language Terrestrial television, terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Television and Streaming#NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a divi ...
and the then-recently launched
Azteca América
Azteca América (, sometimes shortened to Azteca) is an American Spanish-language free-to-air television network owned by INNOVATE Corp., which acquired the network from the Azteca International Corporation subsidiary of TV Azteca.
Headquartere ...
. Univision would utilize the former USA Broadcasting stations to serve as charter outlets of the network, which would cater to bilingual Latinos and young adult males between the ages 18 and 34 that seldom watch Spanish language television other than sporting events. Univision, however, continued to maintain
English-language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
programming formats on the nine HSN affiliates and four independent stations it acquired from USA Networks for fourteen months following the completion of the purchase, with KPST continuing to air HSN and Mandarin language programming.
Channel 66 officially converted into a Spanish-language station on January 14, 2002, when it became an owned-and-operated station of TeleFutura, which initially launched on that date on 18 Univision-owned stations (including eleven of its large-market sister stations under USA Broadcasting ownership); the station accordingly changed its call letters to KFSF (for "Telefutura San Francisco") on that date.
On December 3, 2012, Univision Communications announced that it would relaunch TeleFutura as UniMás—which loosely translates to "Univision Plus", to underline its ties to its parent network Univision—refocusing its programming to appeal towards Latino males between the ages of 12 and 35 years old. The rebranding took place on January 7, 2013.
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 conversion
KFSF shut down its analog signal, over
UHF channel 66, on June 12, 2009, as part of the
federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.
The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 34, using
PSIP
The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the AT ...
to display KFSF's
virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...
as 66 on digital television receivers, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.
References
External links
UniMás web page section of univision.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kfsf-Dt
Television channels and stations established in 1986
1986 establishments in California
UniMás network affiliates
Univision network affiliates
Bounce TV affiliates
Grit (TV network) affiliates
True Crime Network affiliates
Twist (TV network) affiliates
FSF-DT
FSF-DT