KQUP (channel 24) 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 earth ...
in
Pullman, Washington
Pullman () is the largest city in Whitman County, located in southeastern Washington within the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest. The population was 29,799 at the 2010 census, and estimated to be 34,506 in 2019. Originally founded as Thr ...
, United States, which is currently
silent. It is owned by the Word of God Fellowship, the parent company of the
Daystar Television Network
The Daystar Television Network (commonly referred to as Daystar Television, often shortened to Daystar) is an American evangelical Christian-based religious television network owned by the Word of God Fellowship, founded by Marcus Lamb in 1993. ...
, and serves the
Spokane
Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Ca ...
television 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 ...
. Its main transmitter is located atop
Tekoa Mountain
Tekoa Mountain, , is a dramatic, rocky high point overlooking the Westfield River Gorge at the eastern edge of the Berkshire plateau in the towns of Montgomery and Russell, Massachusetts, USA. Tekoa Mountain, very prominent from the "Jacob's La ...
. A
low-power television station, KQUP-LD (channel 47), serves as a supplement to KQUP for coverage of Spokane and
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Coeur d'Alene ( ; french: Cœur d'Alène, lit=Heart of an stitching awl, Awl ) is a city and the county seat of Kootenai County, Idaho, United States. It is the largest city in North Idaho and the principal city of the Coeur d'Alene Metropolita ...
.
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 ...
built KQUP in 2004 after significant delays. By way of the Spokane translator and cable, in 2002, it replaced
KSKN
KSKN (channel 22) is a television station in Spokane, Washington, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside CBS affiliate KREM (channel 2). Both stations share studios on South Regal Street in Spokane, while KSK ...
as the
UPN
The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which prod ...
affiliate in Spokane until switching 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 ...
at the start of 2006. Equity entered bankruptcy reorganization in 2008; the station lost RTN programming in 2009 as the result of a contract dispute with the network and was then sold at auction to Daystar.
History
A construction permit for channel 24, originally assigned the call sign KBGC, was awarded in 1998, but it was not for five and a half years that the station began broadcasting as intended. The construction of KQUP was fraught with difficulties. Equity had hoped to start broadcasting at full power by September 1, but by that time, only K47EJ, a translator in
Coeur d'Alene (the present KQUP-LD), was ready.
Consequently, the vast majority of cable and broadcast viewers lost UPN programming. Doug Krile, Equity's corporate public relations director, told the ''
Lewiston Morning Tribune
''The Lewiston Morning Tribune'' is an independently owned newspaper in the northwestern United States, located in Lewiston, Idaho. Founded in 1892, it serves counties in north-central Idaho and southeastern Washington, the southern portion o ...
'' in late September, "This was not the timetable everything was supposed to be operating on."
Equipment delays, including the shipping of a transmitter from Italy to the United States, and lease negotiations with
Washington State University
Washington State University (Washington State, WSU, or informally Wazzu) is a public land-grant research university with its flagship, and oldest, campus in Pullman, Washington. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest land-grant unive ...
for use of a tower held up completion of the facility. As an interim solution, KSKN contracted with UPN to air ''
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
''Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' is an American supernatural fiction, supernatural drama television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon. It is based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film), 1992 film of the same name, also written by W ...
'' and ''
WWE SmackDown
''WWE SmackDown'', also known as ''Friday Night SmackDown'' or simply ''SmackDown'', is an American professional wrestling television program produced by WWE that as of currently airs live every Friday at 8 p.m. ET on Fox. Fox Deportes simulc ...
'' from January 2003 through the end of the television season.
KQUP was added to the main
Comcast
Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...
cable system in Spokane on May 1, 2003,
but the Pullman transmitter was relocated to another site and was not activated until April 19, 2004.
KQUP dropped UPN for
Retro TV
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 ...
on January 1, 2006; Rod Hall, the general manager, told ''
The Spokesman-Review
''The Spokesman-Review'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Spokane, Washington, the city's sole remaining daily publication. It has the third-highest readership among daily newspapers in the state, with most of its readership base in ...
'', "In the long term, we just felt that UPN's shows were not ideally suited for the Spokane market."
The station also aired
Spokane Shock
The Spokane Shock were a professional indoor American football team based in Spokane, Washington, that played their home games at the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena. The team was initially a member of arenafootball2 (af2), the Shock won divisio ...
arena football.
On January 4, 2009, a contract conflict between Equity—which had filed the month before 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—and RTN—which had been sold to
Luken Communications
Get After It Media, formerly known as Luken Communications and Reach High Media Group, is a privately owned American broadcast holding company, based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which owns or operates around 80 television stations in the United St ...
in 2008—interrupted the programming on many RTN affiliates. As a result, Luken restored a national RTN feed from its headquarters in
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, ...
, with individual customized feeds to non-Equity-owned affiliates to follow on a piecemeal basis. KQUP lost its RTN affiliation immediately; the network never found a new home in the market.
At auction on April 16, 2009,
Daystar bought KQUP. KQUP-LP began airing Daystar programming that August, but the full-power KQUP digital signal did not sign on until January 2010.
As of August 2022, the station no longer broadcasts any programming.
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
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) finalized the
DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997, the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital
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 ...
. Instead, at the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, KQUP 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
A digital signal is a signal that represents data as a sequence of discrete values; at any given time it can only take on, at most, one of a finite number of values. This contrasts with an analog signal, which represents continuous values; at ...
(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 ...
"). Equity owned a significant number of such stations, and its financial condition meant that it owned a significant number of stations that needed digital conversion; the company warned the FCC that court approval and financing would be required to finance this conversion.
The station shut down analog broadcasting from Pullman on June 12, 2009.
Notes
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kqup
QUP
Television channels and stations established in 2004
QUP
Pullman, Washington
2004 establishments in Washington (state)