KUVI-DT (channel 45) 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
Bakersfield, California
Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's populat ...
, United States, affiliated with the digital multicast network
Twist
Twist may refer to:
In arts and entertainment Film, television, and stage
* ''Twist'' (2003 film), a 2003 independent film loosely based on Charles Dickens's novel ''Oliver Twist''
* ''Twist'' (2021 film), a 2021 modern rendition of ''Olive ...
. It is owned 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 two
Class A stations:
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 ...
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 ...
KABE-CD
KABE-CD (channel 39) is a low-power, Class A television station in Bakersfield, California, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language Univision network. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Class A UniMás outlet KBTF- ...
, channel 39, and
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 ...
owned-and-operated station
KBTF-CD
KBTF-CD (channel 31) is a low-power, Class A television station in Bakersfield, California, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language UniMás network. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Class A Univision outlet KABE-C ...
, channel 31 (both of which are
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 KUVI's respective second and third
digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...
s). The three stations share studios on Truxtun Avenue in the western section of Bakersfield; KUVI's transmitter is located atop Mount Adelaide. From 1998–2004 and again from 2014–2017, it was the only Univision-owned station for which the main channel broadcasts in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
.
History
The station first went on the air on December 18, 1988 as KDOB-TV. It was originally owned by Dorothy Owens. It first operated from studios located on North Chester Avenue in Bakersfield. Dorothy would later sold the station to her brother
Buck
Buck may refer to:
Common meanings
* A colloquialism for a dollar or similar currency
* An adult male in some animal species - see List of animal names
* Derby shoes, nicknamed "bucks" for the common use of buckskin in their making
People
*Buck ...
(1929–2006) in 1990. and would change its
call letters
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...
to KUZZ-TV on March 18, 1991. The station later moved its operations to a new studio facility located on Sillect Avenue in Bakersfield. The station became a charter affiliate of
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 ...
on January 16, 1995, and remained with that network for its entire existence. On October 17, 1997, the station once again changed its call letters, this time to KUVI. Buck Owens sold the station to current owner Univision in 1998. One last change to the call letters during the analog era came on
January 1
January 1 or 1 January is the first day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 364 days remaining until the end of the year (365 in leap years). This day is also known as New Year's Day since the day marks the beginning of the yea ...
, 2004, the station chose to add the "-TV" suffix to the letters, hence the current callsign KUVI-TV. With the digital transition completed, the station replaced the "-TV" suffix with the "-DT" duffix on June 23, 2009 (all Univision-owned full-service television stations, regardless of whether or not they had a suffix after their call signs prior to the transition, now have a "-DT" suffix as part of their legal call signs).
KUVI at first was tentatively awaiting to affiliate with
The CW Television Network
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
, but instead it was announced on June 15, 2006 that it would affiliate with
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...
, despite the fact that owner Univision was sold to a group led by children's television mogul
Haim Saban
Haim Saban (; he, חיים סבן; born October 15, 1944) is an Israeli-American media proprietor, investor, and producer of records, film, and television. A businessman with interests in financial services, entertainment, and media, and an e ...
(founder of
Saban Entertainment
Saban Entertainment, Inc. (along with Saban International; currently operating under the legal name is BVS Entertainment, Inc.) was a worldwide-served independent American-Israeli television production company formed in 1980 by Haim Saban and S ...
and former co-owner of Fox Family Channel with
News Corporation
News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Ne ...
before it became
Disney
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 ...
-owned
ABC Family Channel
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 ...
).
Providence Equity Partners
Providence Equity Partners L.L.C. is a specialist private equity firm, private equity investment firm focused on media, communications, education, technology investments across North America and Europe. The firm specializes in growth-oriented pri ...
, one of the private equity firms which are part of the Saban-led consortium, acquired a 19 percent stake in Univision at that time.
The CW affiliation ended up on KWFB, now officially called
KGET-DT2, as of September 18, 2006.
On April 20, 2007,
Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its entire television stations group (which included
KGET
Konqueror is a free and open-source web browser and file manager that provides web access and file-viewer functionality for file systems (such as local files, files on a remote FTP server and files in a disk image). It forms a core part of th ...
) to
Newport Television
Newport Television, LLC was a television station holding company founded by Providence Equity Partners and Sandy DiPasquale in 2007 to acquire the television stations owned by Clear Channel Communications.
History
In September 2007, Newport ag ...
, a broadcasting holding company controlled by
Providence Equity Partners
Providence Equity Partners L.L.C. is a specialist private equity firm, private equity investment firm focused on media, communications, education, technology investments across North America and Europe. The firm specializes in growth-oriented pri ...
. However, with only four full-power stations, Bakersfield does not have enough to legally support a co-owned duopoly operation. As a result, 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 ...
granted conditional approval of the deal, provided that Providence Equity Partners divest either KGET or its stake in Univision as soon as the sale was finalized. That occurred on March 14, 2008. KGET was divested by Newport Television to High Plains Broadcasting; however, Newport continued to manage that station through a
shared services
Shared services is the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group, where that service had previously been found, in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and th ...
agreement (SSA) until it was sold to its current owner
Nexstar Broadcasting Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
in February 2013.
On September 11, 2017, KUVI-DT became an affiliate of the Justice Network (now
True Crime Network
True Crime Network (formerly Justice Network) is an American digital multicast television network that is operated by True Crime Network, LLC, a limited liability company, which is owned by Tegna Inc. The network specializes in true crime, inv ...
).
On January 3, 2022, it switched affiliations from True Crime Network to
Twist
Twist may refer to:
In arts and entertainment Film, television, and stage
* ''Twist'' (2003 film), a 2003 independent film loosely based on Charles Dickens's novel ''Oliver Twist''
* ''Twist'' (2021 film), a 2021 modern rendition of ''Olive ...
.
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
KUVI-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over
UHF
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
channel 45, 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 relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 55, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era UHF channel 45.
See also
*
Buck Owens
Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), known professionally as Buck Owens, was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and band leader. He was the lead singer for the Buckaroos, Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 ...
(1929–2006)
References
External links
{{Univision Communications
Twist (TV network) affiliates
UVI-DT
Television channels and stations established in 1988
1988 establishments in California
Quest (American TV network) affiliates
Court TV affiliates