KEYT-TV (channel 3) 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's s ...

licensed to

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara (, meaning ) is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States excepting A ...

, United States, serving the Central Coast of California as an affiliate of ABC, CBS, and

MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (stylized as mynetworkTV; unofficially abbreviated MNT or MNTV) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its Fox Television Stations ...

. It is owned by the

News-Press & Gazette Company The News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG) is an American media company based in St. Joseph, Missouri, wholly owned and operated by the Bradley family. It is presided by Brian Bradley and David R. Bradley, with Hank Bradley (retired), Eric Bradley, ...

(NPG) alongside

San Luis Obispo ; ; ; Chumashan languages, Chumash: ''tiłhini'') is a city and county seat of San Luis Obispo County, California, United States. Located on the Central Coast (California), Central Coast of California, San Luis Obispo is roughly halfway betwee ...

–licensed low-power, Class A Fox affiliate KKFX-CD (channel 24); NPG also provides certain services to Santa Maria–licensed

Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast. It provides content ...

affiliate KCOY-TV (channel 12) through a shared services agreement (SSA) with VistaWest Media, LLC. KEYT-TV's studios are located on Miramonte Drive on TV Hill, overlooking downtown Santa Barbara; KCOY-TV and KKFX-CD share separate facilities at West McCoy Lane and Skyway Drive in Santa Maria north of Santa Maria Public Airport. KEYT-TV's transmitter is located atop Broadcast Peak, between Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez in the

Santa Ynez Mountains The Santa Ynez Mountains are a portion of the Transverse Ranges, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges of the west coast of North America. It is the westernmost range in the Transverse Ranges. The range is a large fault block of Cenozoic age created ...

History

Early years

KEYT-TV first signed on the air on July 26, 1953, after obtaining a

construction permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...

from the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(FCC) on November 13, 1952. It was owned by the Santa Barbara Broadcasting & Television Corporation. Harry Butcher, who owned KIST (1340 AM), was a 14% owner of the new TV station. During the 1950s, the station ran programming from all four TV networks: ABC, CBS, NBC and the

DuMont Television Network The DuMont Television Network (also the DuMont Network, DuMont Television, DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont ) was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of being first overall in ...

. Dumont discontinued operations in 1956. The original owners sold the station to Key Television in 1957. KEYT-TV lost its NBC affiliation in 1964 when KCOY-TV in nearby Santa Maria signed on. KEYT then shared CBS with KCOY until 1969, when the inclusion of San Luis Obispo County into the Santa Barbara—Santa Maria

media market A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television station, television and radio broadcasting, ra ...

resulted in KEYT becoming exclusively affiliated with ABC. KCOY became the CBS affiliate, and KSBY in San Luis Obispo became the region's NBC affiliate. KEYT was purchased by Shamrock Broadcasting in 1984.

Later developments

In September 1998, KEYT-TV owner Smith Broadcasting purchased radio station KTMS (1250 AM) for $1.6 million and launched an

all-news All-news radio is a radio format devoted entirely to the discussion and broadcast of news. All-news radio is available in both local and radio syndication, syndicated forms, and is carried on both major US satellite radio networks. All-news sta ...

format with new call letters KEYT to match those of its new TV sister. "KEYT 1250" featured news reports from the

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American not-for-profit organization, not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association, and produces news reports that are dist ...

and simulcasts of KEYT-TV newscasts. (The previous

news/talk Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, interviews ...

format and call letters of KTMS moved to 990 AM upon the sale to Smith.) The radio operation was a financial drain on Smith Broadcasting from the beginning, losing $1 million over five years, and the station was sold to Lazer Broadcasting in October 2003. Between March and September 2007, as the station transitioned to a high definition signal, KEYT-HD was initially unavailable to cable subscribers in the Central Coast due to a carriage dispute with the local cable companies. KEYT eventually reached an agreement with

Cox Communications Cox Communications, Inc. (also known as Cox Cable and formerly Cox Broadcasting Corporation, Dimension Cable Services and Times-Mirror Cable), is an American digital cable television provider, telecommunications and home automation services comp ...

in Santa Barbara,

Comcast Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...

in Santa Maria, and Charter Cable in San Luis Obispo to carry its HDTV signal. In 2012,

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable Enterprises LLC 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, o ...

Ventura County Ventura County () is a county located in the southern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 843,843. The largest city is Oxnard, and the county seat is the city of Ventura. Ventura County comprises ...

began carrying the HDTV signal. On September 7, 2012,

announced that it had entered into an agreement to purchase KEYT-TV from Smith Media for $14.3 million. The transaction was approved by the FCC on November 6 and was completed on November 19, 2012. Smith Media had owned KEYT since 1987. On January 28, 2013, KEYT retired the longtime ''KEY News'' branding and, with the new owner's purchase, rebranded as ''NewsChannel 3''. The branding is similar to that of Palm Springs sister station KESQ-TV. KEYT's newscasts and site now include a graphics package that is similar to all NPG stations and is operated by

Internet Broadcasting Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...

. On April 1, 2013, KEYT began broadcasting its news in high definition. Up to that point, KEYT aired network and syndicated programming in HD but the newscasts were still in standard definition.

News Now

When KEYT acquired the

affiliation in June 2006, it initially showed only MyNetworkTV programming, with a test pattern running outside of network programming hours. By the fall of 2007, the station had managed to obtain syndication broadcast rights to ''

Family Guy ''Family Guy'' is an American animated sitcom created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series premiered on January 31, 1999, following Super Bowl XXXIII, with the rest of the first season airing from April 11, 1999. Th ...

'' and ''

South Park ''South Park'' is an American animated sitcom created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and developed by Brian Graden for Comedy Central. The series revolves around four boysStan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman, and Kenny McCormickand the ...

'', and officially launched its second digital subchannel under the branding "MyNetworkTV Central Coast" in October 2007, replacing

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

–based MyNetworkTV affiliate

KCOP KCOP-TV (channel 13), branded Fox 11 Plus, is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast of the United States, West Coast flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and op ...

on all cable systems in the Central Coast region. The subchannel initially ran a

standard-definition Standard-definition television (SDTV; also standard definition or SD) is a television system that uses a resolution that is not considered to be either high-definition television, high or enhanced definition. ''Standard'' refers to offering a ...

simulcast of KEYT's primary channel outside of MyNetworkTV programming. On October 30, 2007, KEYT-DT2 added a secondary affiliation with the Luken Communications-owned

Retro Television Network Retro TV (stylized as retrotv), formerly known as Retro Television Network, is an American broadcast television network owned by Get After It Media. The network mainly airs classic television sitcoms and drama series from the 1950s through t ...

to RTV programming outside of MyNetworkTV

prime time Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

program slots. The subchannel subsequently changed its branding to "My RTN" to coincide with the new affiliation, later changing to "My RTV" after the network modified its on-air acronym to "RTV", then finally "My Retro TV". On April 18, 2017, the 3.2 subchannel dropped Retro TV because station management was unsure of it continuing as a going concern with a declining affiliate base, along with contractual restrictions on using it as an overflow channel for breaking news. (Before that date, it was the only "Big Four" network affiliate nationwide left still carrying the network as a subchannel). In the interim, the station relaunched KEYT-DT2 as ''News Now'', airing simulcasts and rebroadcasts of newscasts from KEYT-TV and KKFX-CD, along with live rolling coverage of local political events, news coverage and other public affairs and local interest programming; the subchannel continues to carry MyNetworkTV programming in prime time. The News-Press & Gazette Company announced on October 10, 2018, that it was converting KSBB-CD to ATSC 3.0 operations, airing ''News Now'' in that format, with its own ATSC 1.0 signal and programming being moved to a subchannel of KEYT-TV. On January 1, 2021, CBS programming moved from sister station KCOY to KEYT-DT2, moving ''News Now'' and MyNetworkTV programming to a new third subchannel.

Notable former on-air staff

* Christine Craft, anchor/reporter (1970s) * Giselle Fernández, reporter (circa 1983) * Michelle Franzen, reporter/fill-in anchor (1993–1994) * Edie Lambert, anchor/reporter * Indra Petersons, reporter

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

KEYT-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 3, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 27, using

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 as digits on a receiver's ...

Translators

* Paso Robles *

, etc.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Keyt-Tv 1953 establishments in California American Broadcasting Company affiliates CBS affiliates News-Press & Gazette Company Television channels and stations established in 1953 EYT-TV