KBFD-DT (channel 32) is an Asian

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

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 ...

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

, United States. The station is owned by Allen Broadcasting (not to be confused with Allen Media Broadcasting, owner of

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affiliate KITV (channel 4) and

multicultural The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...

independent

KIKU KIKU (channel 20) is a multicultural independent television station in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands. It is owned by Allen Media Group alongside ABC affiliate KITV (channel 4). The two stations share studios ...

(channel 20)). KBFD-DT's studios are located on Bishop Street in downtown Honolulu, and its transmitter is located near Hawaii Pacific University. Unlike major network affiliates in the Hawaii market, KBFD-DT does not operate any satellite stations or

translators Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

, nor is it available on

DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...

or Dish Network. It can only be received via

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outside the Honolulu-area reach of its main signal.

Overview

The station first signed on the air on March 24, 1986. KBFD-DT is one of two television stations in Hawaii that specializes in Asian programming full-time (alongside KIKU). Although the station airs a variety programs from many Asian countries, most of the programs seen on KBFD are geared to a

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

audience as most of its lineup features programs acquired from the Korean Broadcasting System, the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation, and SBS. Most of the programs on KBFD are also subtitled in English, due to a growing audience of non-Asian viewers interested in its music shows and drama series. KBFD handles exclusive

home video Home video is prerecorded media sold or rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD, Blu-ray and streaming me ...

distribution of Korean shows and specials under the KBFDVD brand banner, which the station advertises on air and on their website. KBFD also carries programming from

KBS World KBS World is the Korean Broadcasting System's international broadcasting service. It consists of KBS World Radio, KBS World television channel and KBS Korea. History The foreign-language radio broadcast from KBS (before its restructure into a ...

, the international program service from KBS (broadcasting as KBFD2) on digital subchannel 32.2,

Arirang "Arirang" (; ) is a Korean folk song. There are about 3,600 variations of 60 different versions of the song, all of which include a refrain similar to "''Arirang, arirang, arariyo'' ()". It is estimated the song is more than 600 years old. ...

programming on digital subchannel 32.3, and operates the cable channel KLife, a Korean lifestyle programming service. KBFD airs infomercials during the morning hours (from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. local time). KBFD is one of few television stations in the Honolulu market (and the United States as a whole) that continues to sign-off each night from 12:30 a.m. to 6 a.m. local time. Its sign-on and sign-off features the

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s of both the

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and

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

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Analog-to-digital conversion

KBFD-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal over UHF channel 32 on January 15, 2009, the date in which full-power television stations in Hawaii transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 33, 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 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 32.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kbfd-Dt BFD-DT Korean-language television stations Television channels and stations established in 1986 1986 establishments in Hawaii