KFVE (channel 6) 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

Kailua-Kona, Hawaii Kailua-Kona is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County, Hawaii, Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States. It is also known as Kailua (a name it shares with Kailua, Honolulu County, Hawaii, a community located o ...

, United States, serving the

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...

as an affiliate of the Spanish-language

Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language Terrestrial television, terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Television and Streaming#NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a divi ...

network. It is owned by

Gray Television Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...

alongside

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...

affiliate

KGMB KGMB (channel 5) is a television station in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands as an affiliate of CBS. It is owned by Gray Television alongside NBC affiliate KHNL (channel 13) and Kailua-Kona–licensed Telemundo affi ...

(channel 5) and

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

affiliate

KHNL KHNL (channel 13) is a television station in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands as an affiliate of NBC. It is owned by Gray Television alongside CBS affiliate KGMB (channel 5) and Kailua-Kona–licensed Telemundo affi ...

(channel 13). The stations share studios on Waiakamilo Road in

Honolulu 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 ...

Kapālama Kapālama, now often called Pālama, is a neighborhood of Honolulu, Hawaii. It is often combined with the adjacent Kalihi and referred to as a single entity, Kalihi–Pālama. History The name comes from ''ka pā lama'' in the Hawaiian language w ...

neighborhood, while KFVE's transmitter is located near

Kalaoa, Hawaii Kalaoa is a census-designated place (CDP) in Hawaii County, Hawaii, Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States. The population was 9,644 as of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, up from 6,794 residents at the 2000 United States Census, 2000 ce ...

. KFVE serves a area, and covers an estimated population of 71,400. The station's signal is relayed on

satellite 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 ...

KLEI, channel 21 in

Wailuku Wailuku is a census-designated place (CDP) in and county seat of Maui County, Hawaii, United States. The population was 17,697 at the 2020 census. Wailuku is located just west of Kahului, at the mouth of the Iao Valley. In the early 20th centur ...

(owned by Mango Broadcasting and operated by Gray under a

local marketing agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or tim ...

(LMA)), on KHNL's sixth

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 ...

, and on

KKAI KKAI (channel 50) is a religious independent television station licensed to Kailua, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands. The station is owned by Kailua Television, LLC, and maintains a transmitter north of Kailua. Since March 2018, ...

's second digital subchannel.

History

The station went on the air in 1988 as KVHF, a satellite of Mauna Kea Broadcasting's KMGT channel 26, and changed its call letters to KLEI on March 9, 1992. The station was affiliated with Pax TV/i/Ion (as a

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

KPXO-TV KPXO-TV (channel 66) is a television station licensed to Kaneohe, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands as an affiliate of Ion Television. Owned by Inyo Broadcast Holdings, KPXO-TV maintains offices on Waimanu Street in Honolulu. It ...

), and later with The Family Channel in 2011. On October 19, 2012, KLEI was granted statewide

must-carry In cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system. North America Canada Under current CRTC regulations, the lowest tier of service on ...

status on the Oceanic

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...

(now Spectrum) and

Hawaiian Telcom Hawaiian Telcom, Inc., is the incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) or dominant local telephone company, serving the state of Hawaii. In 2005, Hawaiian Telcom Holdco, Inc., was formed by The Carlyle Group, following its purchase of the Hawaiian ...

cable services, provided it delivers a good quality signal to the

cable television headend A cable television headend is a master facility for receiving television signals for processing and distribution over a cable television system. A headend facility may be staffed or unstaffed and is typically surrounded by some type of security ...

s. In late 2017, KLEI dropped its Family Channel affiliation and became Hawaii's first over-the-air affiliate of

Spanish-language Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a world language, global language with more than 500 millio ...

network

, filling a void in the market for a Spanish language station that opened up when KHLU-CD (a

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 ...

affiliate) ceased operations in 2016. Shortly after assuming the Telemundo affiliation, KLEI became available on all cable systems in Hawaii for the first time. On December 3, 2018, the station's call sign changed to KSIX-TV. On July 8, 2020,

, owner of

-based stations

and

and their satellites, agreed to purchase KSIX-TV for $1 million, pending approval of 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). Maui-based satellite KLEI was not included in the sale. The transaction was finalized on September 9."Consummation Notice"
''CDBS Public Access'',

, September 11, 2020, Retrieved September 11, 2020. The call letters of KSIX-TV and Hilo's

KFVE KFVE (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands as an affiliate of the Spanish-language Telemundo network. It is owned by Gray Television alongside CBS affiliate KGMB (chann ...

were switched on November 13.

Subchannel

References

Television channels and stations established in 1988 FVE 1988 establishments in Hawaii Telemundo network affiliates Gray Television {{Hawaii-tv-station-stub