KVDA

KVDA (channel 60) is a television station in San Antonio, Texas, United States, airing programming from the Spanish-language Telemundo network. The station is owned and operated by NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group, and maintains studios on San Pedro Avenue in North Central San Antonio, near the enclave of Olmos Park; its transmitter is located off of Route 181 northeast of Elmendorf.

History

The station first signed on the air on September 10, 1989; KVDA has been with Telemundo since the station's sign-on, founded by the network as an owned-and-operated station.

On May 1, 2009, ZGS Communications took over the operations of KVDA and its Fresno, California sister station KNSO under time brokerage agreements, though NBCUniversal retained the licenses to both stations.

In 2014, NBC reassumed the operations of KVDA.

News operation

KVDA broadcasts seven hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with one hour each on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays).

Telemundo formed a news department for KVDA prior to the station's official sign-on; local newscasts debuted on channel 60 the day the station began operations on September 10, 1989, with the launch of newscasts at 5:00 and 10:00 p.m., under the title ''Noticiero 60''. Within one ratings period, the station was challenging Univision owned-and-operated station KWEX-TV (channel 41) for the position of the top-rated Spanish-language station, which KWEX had held for almost 30 years. In 2001, it debuted a 6 a.m. morning newscast, as part of Telemundo's strategic plans for its stations It was San Antonio's first and only Spanish-language morning newscast (until KWEX debuted its morning newscasts in 2019). However, in a cost-cutting move in July 2001, the morning and 5 p.m. newscasts were cancelled, leaving them with only a 10 p.m. newscast on weeknights. Three on-air staffers and multiple production and technical staffers for both the morning and 5 p.m. newscasts were laid off. (The 5 p.m. newscasts were later reinstated.) In 2007, NBC Universal announced it would reduce budgets company-wide, including its Telemundo owned-and-operated stations; as part of the cuts, KVDA shut down its news department and replaced its in-house San Antonio-based newscasts with a regional newscast based in a new production center at Dallas sister station KXTX-TV. This move attracted criticism from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, including formal statements against NBC Universal.

On May 21, 2012, KVDA relaunched in-house news operations with the debut of half-hour evening newscasts at 5:00 and 10:00 p.m. on Mondays through Fridays, that are produced at the station's San Pedro Avenue studios; the locally produced newscasts have been broadcast in high definition from the news department's launch.

Notable former on-air staff

* Patricio Espinoza – founding news director/anchor/Texas correspondent

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

KVDA discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 60, 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 remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 38, using PSIP to display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 60, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition. KVDA relocated its signal from RF channel 38 to RF channel 15 on May 1, 2020 as a result of the 2016 United States wireless spectrum auction.FCC TV spectrum Phase Assignment Table
''FCC Incentive Auction Television Transition Data Files'', April 13, 2017.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kvda
Hispanic and Latino American culture in San Antonio
Spanish-language television stations in Texas
Television channels and stations established in 1989
Telemundo Station Group
Cozi TV affiliates
Television stations in San Antonio
1989 establishments in Texas
TeleXitos affiliates
Former General Electric subsidiaries