KXTU-LD (channel 57) is a low-power television station in

Colorado Springs, Colorado Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

, United States, serving Southern Colorado with programming from The CW. It is owned and operated by network majority owner

Nexstar Media 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 ...

alongside

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelv ...

affiliate KXRM-TV (channel 21). Both stations share studios on Wooten Road in Colorado Springs, while KXTU-LD's transmitter is located on Cheyenne Mountain. The station is simulcast in

high definition High definition or HD may refer to: Visual technologies *HD DVD, discontinued optical disc format *HD Photo, former name for the JPEG XR image file format *HDV, format for recording high-definition video onto magnetic tape * HiDef, 24 frames-pe ...

on KXRM-TV's second

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 ...

. This signal increases KXTU's broadcasting radius; KXTU did not convert to digital until 2010, and even in digital, its coverage area is effectively limited to El Paso and Pueblo counties.

History

The station signed on as KXTU-LP on November 5, 1999, as a UPN affiliate under the brand of UPN57. When UPN left the air on September 17, 2006, KXTU switched to The CW, which was created by the merger of The WB (which had been available in the market by way of Denver's KWGN-TV) and UPN. Unlike most other low-powered stations, KXTU is available to viewers on DirecTV and

Dish Network DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling TV. A ...

, as well as on

cable systems Cable television is a system of delivering television broadcast programming, programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This ...

throughout southern Colorado. This is because under the retransmission consent portion of the must-carry rules, KXRM has the right to require cable and satellite providers to carry KXTU as part of the compensation for carrying KXRM. On August 30, 2010, KXTU-LP flash-cut from analog to digital on channel 57. On October 27, 2010, it changed its call sign to KXTU-LD. In early 2012, the station moved from channel 57 to channel 20 and rebranded from CW 57 to SOCO CW. On February 28, 2013,

Barrington Broadcasting Barrington Broadcasting Group, LLC, headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois was an American corporation focused on broadcast television, primarily in middle and small size media markets. Barrington owned or operated via duopoly twenty-four televi ...

announced the sale of its entire group, including KXTU-LD, to Sinclair Broadcast Group. The sale was completed on November 25. On August 20, 2014, Sinclair announced that it would sell KXRM-TV and KXTU-LD, along with WTTA in Tampa Bay and WHTM in Harrisburg, to Media General in a swap for WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, WLUK-TV and WCWF in

Green Bay, Wisconsin Green Bay is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The county seat of Brown County, it is at the head of Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It is above sea lev ...

, and

WTGS WTGS (channel 28) is a television station licensed to Hardeeville, South Carolina, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Savannah, Georgia, area. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, WTGS maintains transmitter facilities on Fort Argy ...

in Savannah, Georgia. The swap is part of Media General's merger with LIN Media. WHTM's sale of Media General was explored nearly two months earlier, and it was completed, nearly three months before the Media General/LIN deal was completed. The sale was completed on December 19.Sinclair Broadcast Group Closes on Certain Station Acquisitions and Divestitures with Media General
, Press Release, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Retrieved 19 December 2014 A condition of the sale maintained the station's affiliation with Sinclair's American Sports Network package of college sports.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed: The station carried programming from MundoFox/ MundoMax on its second subchannel throughout its three-year existence from August 2013 until December 2016. The station launched Antenna TV in June 2020.

News programming

Unlike its sister station, KXTU does not air newscasts, but during a breaking news event or weather bump, it simulcasts KXRM's coverage.

References

External links

SOCO CW
* {{Major U.S. TV O-O Stations XTU-LD The CW affiliates Bounce TV affiliates Laff (TV network) affiliates Antenna TV affiliates Low-power television stations in the United States Nexstar Media Group Television channels and stations established in 1999 1999 establishments in Colorado