NBC affiliate in El Paso, Texas
KTSM-TV
(channel 9) is a
television station
in
El Paso, Texas
, United States, affiliated with
NBC
and owned by
Nexstar Media Group
. The station's studios are located on Oregon Street (near
El Paso Community College
) in northwest El Paso, and its transmitter is located atop the
Franklin Mountains
on the El Paso city limits.
History
[
edit
]
Early years
[
edit
]
The station first
signed on
the air on January 4, 1953. KTSM-TV was the second television station in the El Paso
TV market
, behind KROD-TV (channel 4, now
KDBC-TV
), which debuted in December 1952. KTSM-TV was owned by Tri-State Broadcasting, a nod to the
U.S. states
of Texas and
New Mexico
and the
Mexican
state of
Chihuahua
.
[2]
Channel 9 was co-owned with
KTSM
radio (then on
1380 AM
, now at 690 AM) and 99.9
KTSM-FM
. (The two radio stations are both now owned by
iHeartMedia
.)
The
call sign
stood for the company's original name, "Tri-State Music". The meaning has since changed to Tri-State Media. KTSM-TV claimed its
broadcast tower
at Ranger Peak, located within the
Franklin Mountains
, was the tallest
VHF
transmission tower in Texas, standing at 2,000 feet (610 m) above downtown El Paso, and 5,990 feet (1,830 m) above sea level.
Key figures
[
edit
]
Tri-State Broadcasting was controlled by El Paso broadcast pioneer Karl O. Wyler (1906-1990), who signed on KTSM (AM) in 1930. Wyler built the El Paso Aerial Tramway in the early 1960s to allow his staff to maintain the transmitters at Ranger Peak. The tramway was open to the public until the 1980s, when insurance laws in Texas became too costly for carrying people who were not employees. Wyler owned the station until his death in 1990, and donated his controlling stake in Tri-State Broadcasting to the El Paso Community Foundation. In 1991, the Foundation hired Richard E. Pearson, who served as station manager at
ABC
affiliate
KVIA-TV
(channel 7) at the time, to run the operations of the radio and television stations. Under Pearson's leadership, KTSM-TV flourished, and became a dominant force in the market, until the stations were sold to
Communications Corporation of America
in 1998.
Among KTSM-TV's most famous personalities was Ted Bender (1925?2013), who hosted numerous shows on the station including the local version of the
Dialing for Dollars
, which aired weekdays at 10:05 a.m., following a five-minute mid-morning newscast at 10 a.m. Bender gave four viewers a chance to win money while watching the station. Halfway through the calls, Bender (who was a city councilman) would interview a key figure in the El Paso community. Bender also served as KTSM-TV's lead weather forecaster, from the station's inception until his retirement in 1991.
Agreement with KDBC-TV
[
edit
]
On October 19, 2009, Communications Corporation of America entered into a
shared services
agreement (SSA) with Titan Broadcast Management, owner of
CBS
affiliate KDBC-TV. KTSM-TV provided advertising sales and administrative services as well as some news resources for Channel 4. Titan retained KDBC-TV's
license
and both stations employed separate news departments.
[3]
On April 24, 2013, ComCorp announced that it would sell all of its television stations, including KTSM-TV, to the
Nexstar Broadcasting Group
.
[4]
The sale was completed on January 1, 2015.
[5]
The acquisition, as well as the sale of KDBC-TV to the
Sinclair Broadcast Group
(which originally planned to transfer that station's license to partner company
Cunningham Broadcasting
), placed some uncertainty on the future status of the SSA between KTSM-TV and KDBC-TV, particularly as Channel 4 is now co-owned with
Fox
affiliate
KFOX-TV
(channel 14). The SSA was indeed terminated on October 16, 2014, at which point KDBC-TV began producing its newscasts in association with KFOX-TV.
Programming
[
edit
]
KTSM-TV clears most of the NBC network schedule. However, the station preempted the
CNBC
program
Mad Money
which formerly aired as part of the network's overnight block (although it cleared the rebroadcast of the
fourth hour
of
Today
which preceded it nationally). The station aired
infomercials
in place of
Mad Money
.
For many years, the station delayed the airing of NBC's daytime game shows which later were seen in the afternoon hours. Instead, KTSM-TV showed
Dialing for Dollars
and daytime
soaps
. The
NET
/
PBS
shows
Sesame Street
and
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
were also broadcast due to the lack of a full-market
public television
station in the area at the time.
Las Cruces
?based
KRWG-TV
(channel 22) was an NET/PBS member, but its reception was spotty in parts of the El Paso TV market due to the Franklin Mountains cutting across western El Paso. NET/PBS arranged for channel 9 to carry select children's programs including
Sesame Street
.
Sesame Street
aired on the station from its debut in 1969 until El Paso PBS station
KCOS
signed on in August 1978. Before KRWG-TV signed on the air in 1973, KTSM aired a number of additional programs from NET/PBS.
[
specify
]
News operation
[
edit
]
KTSM-TV presently broadcasts
24
+
1
⁄
2
hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with
4
+
1
⁄
2
hours each weekday and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). On August 3, 2008, starting with its 5 p.m. newscast, KTSM became the first television station in the El Paso market to begin broadcasting its local newscast in
high definition
.
In 2019, KTSM-TV reporter joined Nexstar-owned website
Border Report
as an El Paso correspondent.
[6]
Notable former on-air staff
[
edit
]
Technical information
[
edit
]
Subchannels
[
edit
]
The station's signal is
multiplexed
:
Broadcast on behalf of another station
KTSM began to carry the
Spanish-language
network
Estrella TV
on its second
digital subchannel
in 2009.
[8]
Analog-to-digital conversion
[
edit
]
KTSM-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 9, at 12:30 p.m. on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States
transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts
under federal mandate.
[9]
The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition
UHF
channel 16 to VHF channel 9.
[10]
[11]
Due to reports of reception issues with its signal on digital channel 9, KTSM-TV was granted permission by the
Federal Communications Commission
to operate a secondary signal on its former UHF digital channel 16 under special temporary authorization on July 23, 2009, mapped to virtual channel 9.1. KTSM had filed a petition to the FCC to permanently operate its digital signal exclusively on UHF channel 16.
[12]
It was issued a license for that channel on June 5, 2015.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Facility Technical Data for KTSM-TV"
.
Licensing and Management System
.
Federal Communications Commission
.
- ^
Murphree, Rachel.
"Library Research Guides: Borderlands: El Paso Broadcasting: The Stories Behind the Call Letters 12 (1994)"
.
epcc.libguides.com
. Retrieved
April 11,
2018
.
- ^
"You searched for 11339223"
.
Kvia
.
- ^
https://licensing.fcc.gov/cdbs/CDBS_Attachment/getattachment.jsp?appn=101552312&qnum=5040©num=1&exhcnum=1
[
bare URL
]
- ^
Consummation Notice
,
CDBS Public Access
,
Federal Communications Commission
, Retrieved January 6, 2015.
- ^
Winter, Meaghan (July 20, 2020).
"Nexstar Nation"
.
Columbia Journalism Review
. Retrieved
March 12,
2022
.
- ^
"RabbitEars TV Query for KTSM"
.
www.rabbitears.info
. Retrieved
April 11,
2018
.
- ^
"Coming, a new force in Hispanic TV"
.
Media Life Magazine
. March 20, 2009. Archived from
the original
on March 23, 2009
. Retrieved
April 11,
2009
.
- ^
Digital Switch Complete
, KTSM-TV, June 12, 2009.
- ^
"DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds"
(PDF)
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on August 29, 2013
. Retrieved
March 24,
2012
.
- ^
"CDBS Print"
.
fcc.gov
. Retrieved
April 11,
2018
.
- ^
"NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULEMAKING"
(PDF)
.
Federal Communications Commission
. January 11, 2011
. Retrieved
May 19,
2014
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
El Paso
|
- KDBC-TV
(4.1
CBS
, 4.2
MNT
/
TBD
, 4.3
ANT
, 4.4
Dabl
)
- KVIA-TV
(7.1
ABC
, 7.2
CW
, 7.3
Ion
, 7.4
QVC
, 7.5
Scripps News
, 7.6
Defy
, 7.7
Grit
, 7.8 Universal Church)
- KTSM-TV
(9.1
NBC
, 9.2
Estrella
, 9.3
Mystery
, 9.4
Laff
)
- KCOS
(13.1
PBS
, 13.2
Create
, 13.3
PBS Kids
)
- KFOX-TV
(14.1
Fox
, 14.2
Comet
, 14.3
Charge!
, 14.4
Nest
)
- K27OJ-D
(25.1 Voz y Vision, 25.2
Teleritmo
)
- KINT-TV
(26.1
UNI
, 26.2
Grit
, 26.3
LATV
, 26.4
Bounce
, 26.5
Court
)
- KSCE
(38.1
Rel.
Ind.
, 38.2 Vida, 38.3 Scriptures, 38.4 Kids & Youth)
- KTFN
(65.1
UniMas
, 65.2
Crime
, 65.3
Quest
, 65.4 Bienestar)
|
---|
Las Cruces
|
- KCWF-LD
(4.1
CBS
, 4.2
MNT
/
TBD
, 4.3
ANT
, 4.4
Dabl
)
- K22NM-D
(4.1
NBC
, 4.2
H&I
, 4.3
MeTV
, 4.4
Catchy
, 4.5
Defy
, 4.6
Scripps News
, 4.7
Start
)
- K38MH-D
(7.1
ABC
, 7.2
CW
, 7.3
Ion
, 7.4
QVC
, 7.5
Scripps News
, 7.6
Defy
, 7.7
Grit
, 7.8 Universal Church)
- KRWG-TV
(22.1
PBS
, 22.2
World
, 22.3
PBS Kids
)
- KNAT-TV
(23.1
TBN
, 23.2
Merit
, 23.3
Inspire
, 23.4
Smile
, 23.5
Positiv
)
- KTDO
(48.1
TMD
, 48.2
TXO
, 48.3
Lx
, 48.4
Cozi
, 48.5
Oxygen
)
|
---|
Ciudad Juarez
|
- XHCJE-TDT
(1.1
Azteca Uno
, 1.2
ADN 40
)
- XEPM-TDT
(2.1
Las Estrellas
Targeting Ciudad Juarez
, 2.2
Las Estrellas
Targeting El Paso
)
- XHCTCJ-TDT
(3.1
Imagen
, 3.4
Excelsior
)
- XHJUB-TDT
(5.1
Canal 5
, 10.1
Nu9ve
)
- XHMTCH-TDT
(6.1
Canal 6
, 6.2
Milenio
, 6.3 Teleritmo, 6.4
ABC Television
)
- XHJCI-TDT
(8.1
Televisa Regional
, 8.2
FORO
)
- XHCPCN-TDT
(16.1
Canal Catorce
)
- XHCJH-TDT
(20.1
Azteca 7
, 20.2
a+
)
- XHIJ-TDT
(44.1 Canal 44, 44.2 Canal 44 delayed, 44.3
Canal 14
, 44.4 Intermedia Television)
- XEJ-TDT
(50.1 XEJ, 50.2
Once Ninas y Ninos
)
|
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Adjacent Locals
| |
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|
NBC
network affiliates licensed to and serving the state of
Texas
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ABC
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CBS
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Fox
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NBC
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The CW
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MyNetworkTV
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PBS
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Other
|
- KVIA-DT 7.3
(
Ion
,
El Paso, TX
)
- KCHF 11
(
Rel.
Ind.
,
Santa Fe
)
- KUPT-LD 16
(
H&I
,
Albuquerque
)
- KWBQ-DT 19.4 / KRWB-DT 21.4
(
Ion
,
Santa Fe/Roswell
)
- KNAT-TV 23
(
TBN
,
Albuquerque
)
- KRPV-DT 27
(
GLC
,
Roswell
)
- KEYU-DT 31.4
(
Ion
,
Borger, TX
)
- KAZQ 32
(
Rel.
Ind.
,
Albuquerque
)
- KRTN-LD 33
(
MeTV
,
Albuquerque
)
- K38IM 38
(
3ABN
)
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ABC
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CBS
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The CW
(
O&O
)
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Fox
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MyNetworkTV
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NBC
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Other stations
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TV channels
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TV programs
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Other assets
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Acquisitions
| |
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- 1
Nexstar operates these stations under an
SSA
.
- 2
These stations broadcast these networks on their digital subchannels.
|