KBCB (channel 24) is a

religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatur ...

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 ea ...

Bellingham, Washington Bellingham ( ) is the most populous city in, and county seat of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It lies south of the U.S.–Canada border in between two major cities of the Pacific Northwest: Vancouver, British Columbia (loc ...

, United States, owned and operated by

Tri-State Christian Television Tri-State Christian Television, Inc., doing business as TCT Network and TCT Ministries, is a religious television network in the United States. The network was founded in May 1977 by Garth Coonce and his wife, Tina Coonce. TCT Network includes t ...

(TCT). The station's studios are located on Meridian Street in Bellingham, and its transmitter is located near

Mount Constitution Mount Constitution is a mountain on Orcas Island, the highest point in the San Juan Islands and the second highest mountain on an ocean island in the contiguous 48 states. Only Devils Peak in the Channel Islands of California is higher. A sto ...

Orcas Island Orcas Island () is the largest of the San Juan Islands of the Pacific Northwest, which are in the northwestern corner of San Juan County, Washington. History and naming of the island The name "Orcas" is a shortened form of ''Horcasitas,'' fro ...

History

The station signed on as KEGA on February 10, 1989. It gained its current call-sign on October 2, 1989. From its sign-on until 2006, KBCB aired a mix of

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 * Independe ...

ImaginAsian ImaginAsian Entertainment, Inc was a multimedia company founded by Michael Hong and Augustine Hong and a group of investors that recognized the emerging importance of "all-things Asian." Based in New York City, its main attraction was a televis ...

programming targeted towards the

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...

area and

southwestern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

, Canada, in addition to news from European international broadcasters until the early 2000s decade, bearing the name ''World Television'' to reflect the international mix of programming carried on the station. In 2006, the station converted to an affiliation with ShopNBC. The network became ShopHQ in 2013. KBCB added the

Estrella TV Estrella TV () is an American Spanish-language broadcast television network owned by the Estrella Media subsidiary of HPS Investment Partners, LLC. The network primarily features programs, the vast majority of which are produced by the network ...

network as a multicast channel on August 1, 2011. KBCB's affiliation with Estrella ended on April 24, 2014.

Abandoned sale to Fox Television Stations

On September 19, 2014,

Venture Technologies Group Venture Technologies Group, LLC is an American television broadcasting company that was founded in 1996 and based in Los Angeles, California. The company currently owns 14 television stations. Stations owned Stations owned through Four Seaso ...

reached an agreement to sell the station to

Fox Television Stations Fox Television Stations, LLC (FTS; alternately Fox Television Stations Group, LLC), is a group of television stations located within the United States, which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Co ...

for $10 million; the purchase was submitted for

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 jurisdicti ...

(FCC) approval on October 3. The purchase came amid speculation that Fox was interested in having an owned-and-operated station in the home market of the

Seattle Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West, which they rejoined in 2002 a ...

football team, whose games primarily air on Fox as members of the

National Football Conference The National Football Conference (NFC) is one of the two conferences of the National Football League (NFL), the highest professional level of American football in the United States. The NFC and its counterpart, the American Football Conference ( ...

. Fox had reportedly threatened to not renew

KCPQ KCPQ (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Tacoma, Washington, United States, broadcasting the Fox network to the Seattle area. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV outlet ...

's affiliation when its affiliation agreement ended in January 2015, while the broadcaster had made similar transactions in other NFC markets, such as purchasing the

network affiliate In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or ...

serving the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area G ...

, where the 49ers play, as well as a station in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most popu ...

, home to the

Carolina Panthers The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. ...

. On October 17, 2014, Fox announced that it had reached a deal to maintain its affiliation with KCPQ through July 2018—agreeing to a reverse compensation arrangement. Following this development, Fox's application to acquire KBCB was dismissed by the FCC on November 20, 2014. On March 3, 2020, Fox completed its purchase of KCPQ and sister station KZJO after coming to terms with the stations' new 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 ...

, which had acquired KCPQ via its purchase of

Tribune Media Tribune Media Company, also known as Tribune Company, was an American multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Through Tribune Broadcasting, Tribune Media was one of the largest television broadcasting companies, owning 39 ...

. On January 1, 2015, KBCB replaced its affiliation of ShopHQ with that of the Sonlife Broadcasting Network. In March, the SD simulcast on 24.2 was replaced by

Jewelry TV Jewelry Television is an American television network specializing in the sale of jewelry for both men and women. On-air and online, the network is mainly branded by its jtv initials in lower-case letters. It has an estimated reach of more than ...

. Home shopping channel QVC was added on subchannel 24.3 in July 2017. February 2018 saw home shopping retailer Evine (the legal successor to ShopNBC/ShopHQ) added to channel 24.2 and Jewelry TV moved to channel 24.4. Evine returned to its previous name, ShopHQ, on August 21, 2019. In September 2020, ShopHQ ceased airing and was replaced with a "This channel is available for lease" notification.

Sale to Tri-State Christian Television

On February 8, 2021, Venture Technologies Group announced that it would sell KBCB to

Marion, Illinois Marion is a city in Williamson and Johnson Counties, Illinois, United States, and is the county seat of Williamson County. The population was 16,855 at the 2020 census. It is part of a dispersed urban area that developed out of the early 20th ...

-based

for $7.74 million, including a $2 million cash donation. The sale was completed on April 30, and KBCB became the third station in the Seattle market to be owned and operated by a religious organization (alongside

KTBW-TV KTBW-TV, virtual channel 20 (UHF digital channel 21), is a Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) owned-and-operated television station serving Seattle, Washington, United States, that is licensed to Tacoma. The station's studios are located on Sout ...

and KWDK). Christian programming from TCT's satellite channel now broadcasts on channel 24.1 and Sonlife airs on subchannel 24.2, as a result. Having gone dark since the sale, channels 24.3 and 24.4 began transmitting again in March 2022, carrying

Newsmax TV Newsmax TV is an American conservative television channel owned by Newsmax. The network primarily focuses on opinion-based talk shows. It carries a news/talk format throughout the day and night, with documentaries and films on weekends. During ...

and Shop LC, respectively. Subchannel 24.5 was added at the same time, displaying a static message that a yet to be named channel is coming soon.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

KBCB shut down 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 24, on February 17, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television (which Congress had moved the previous month to June 12).NBC News
/ref>List of Digital Full-Power Stations
The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 19, using PSIP to display KBCB'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 24 on digital television receivers.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kbcb Tri-State Christian Television affiliates BCB 1989 establishments in Washington (state) Television channels and stations established in 1989