KTFF-DT (channel 61) 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 ...
licensed to
Porterville, California
Porterville is a city in the San Joaquin Valley, in Tulare County, California, Tulare County, California, United States. It is part of the Visalia Metropolitan Area, Visalia-Porterville metropolitan statistical area.
Since its incorporation in 1 ...
, 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 is ...
network to the
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 ...
area. 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 mass media, media company headquartered in New York and Mexico City, which owns the American Spanish language broadcast network Univision. 45% of the company is ...
alongside
Hanford-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
KFTV-DT
KFTV-DT (channel 21) is a television station licensed to Hanford, California, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language Univision network to the Fresno area. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Porterville-licensed ...
(channel 21). Both stations share studios on Univision Plaza near the corner of North Palm and West Herndon avenues in northwestern Fresno, while KTFF's transmitter is located on Blue Ridge in rural northwestern
Tulare County
Tulare County ( ) is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 473,117. The county seat is Visalia. The county is named for Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake west of the Great Lakes. ...
.
The station's programming is relayed to the northern half of the
market
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, an ...
on
low-power translator station
A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...
KTFF-LD (channel 41) in Fresno, with transmitter on
Bald Mountain Bald Mountain may refer to:
Geographic locations in the United States
* Bald Mountain (Heceta Island), Alaska
* Bald Mountain (California), a name given to over fifty summits in California
** Bald Mountain (Humboldt County)
* , a peak near Littl ...
near
Meadow Lakes. It is also
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 KFTV-DT's sixth digital subchannel (channel 21.6) from a separate transmitter on Bald Mountain.
History
The station first signed on the air on May 6, 1992 as KKAK; originally operating as an
independent station
An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...
, the station aired a mix of
infomercial
An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of dire ...
s,
religious
Religion is usually defined as a social system, social-cultural system of designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morality, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sacred site, sanctified places, prophecy, prophecie ...
and
home shopping Home shopping is the electronic retailing and home shopping channels industry, which includes such billion dollar television-based and e-commerce companies as Shop LC, HSN, Gemporia, TJC, QVC, eBay, ShopHQ, Buy.com and Amazon.com, as well as tradit ...
programs. The station changed its call letters to KKAG in 1994. In 1998, KKAG was sold to Paxson Communications (now
Ion Media Networks
Ion Media (formerly known as Paxson Communications Corporation and Ion Media Networks) was an American broadcasting company that owned and operated over 71 television stations in most major American markets (through its television stations group ...
). On August 31 of that year, the station became an owned-and-operated station of Paxson's family-oriented television network
Pax TV
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 entert ...
upon its launch, and changed its call letters to KPXF. In 2003, Paxson sold KPXF to
Univision Communications
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 ...
, creating a duopoly with Univision O&O KFTV (channel 21); after the sale was finalized, the station's calls were changed to KTFF, it also became an owned-and-operated station of Univision's secondary network TeleFutura (which relaunched as UniMás on February 7, 2013).
Univision subsequently purchased
Shop at Home
The Shop at Home Network (more commonly known as just Shop at Home, Shop at Home TV, SATH) was a television network in the United States. Before its acquisition by Jewelry Television in 2006, Shop at Home (SATH NASDAQ) was a public company which s ...
affiliate KAJA-LP (channel 68, now on channel 41) from
Cocola Broadcasting
Cocola Broadcasting is a broadcasting company based in Fresno, California. Founded in the early 1980s by Valley broadcasting veteran Gary Cocola, Cocola owns two full-power digital television stations KGMC in Fresno and KKJB in Boise, along with ...
to become a fill-in translator for KTFF, adopting the KTFF-LD call letters (ironically, the KAJA calls are currently used as a brand name for
low-power station
K68DJ
K22JA-D (channel 47) is a low-power television station in Corpus Christi, Texas, United States. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside NBC affiliate KRIS-TV (channel 6); Scripps also provides certain services to CBS affiliate KZT ...
in
Corpus Christi, Texas
Corpus Christi (; Ecclesiastical Latin: "'' Body of Christ"'') is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat and largest city of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patrici ...
, which also broadcasts on UHF channel 68).
In 2007, 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) issued an order concerning KTFF and former owner Paxson Communications, denying a review of the sale of KTFF to Univision; it also implemented a deal with Christian Network, Inc. (CNI), parent company of
The Worship Network
The Worship Network, or Worship, was a broadcast television service that provided alternative Christian worship-themed programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The network was based in Nashville, Tennessee, in the United States, and is av ...
(which formerly carried its programming on Pax TV's stations as both a late night block and later as a dedicated subchannel service), giving the religious broadcaster the right to program KTFF seven days a week from 1 to 6 a.m. In addition, the station was required to provide a digital channel for CNI's exclusive use (so long as certain conditions are met), after KTFF signed on its digital signal, if it used two or more subchannel slots. However, , KTFF broadcasts UniMás programming full-time, though the date the station stopped carrying The Worship Network is unknown. It is also unknown if the discontinuance is tied to Pax's successor,
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 enter ...
, ending carriage of The Worship Network in 2010.
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 ...
:
Translator
Analog-to-digital conversion
KTFF-TV shut down its analog signal, over
UHF channel 61, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States
transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 48. Through the use of
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 ...
, digital television receivers display the station'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 its former UHF analog channel 61, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.
Spectrum auction repack
KTFF-DT is one of nearly 1,000 television stations that were required to change their digital channel allocation in the spectrum auction repack in late 2017 or early 2018. KTFF was to reallocate its digital signal to UHF channel 23 in phase one of the repack.
The FCC licensed the station to broadcast on channel 23 on December 20, 2018.
References
External links
{{Major U.S. TV O-O Stations
TFF-DT
Television channels and stations established in 1992
1992 establishments in California
UniMás network affiliates
Quest (American TV network) affiliates
Porterville, California
TFF-DT