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  • 21 Aug, 2019

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KDTV
KDTV-DT (channel 14) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the Spanish-language Univision network outlet for the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Vallejo-licensed UniMás outlet KFSF-DT (channel 66). The two stations share studios on Zanker Road near the North San Jose Innovation District in San Jose; KDTV-DT's transmitter is located on Mount Allison in Fremont.

KDTV-CD (channel 28) in Santa Rosa operates as a Class A translator of KDTV relaying the station's signal into the northern half of the market; this station's transmitter is located atop Mount Saint Helena.

History

Former logo, used until December 31, 2012.

The Bahía de San Francisco Television Company, owned by principals of the Spanish International Network including Rene Anselmo and Danny Villanueva, applied on July 20, 1973, for a construction permit to build a new television station on San Francisco's channel 60. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted the application on November 13, 1974. Channel 60 had originally been assigned for noncommercial use in San Francisco, and KQED held a permit for it, but when that station accepted a gift from Metromedia of the facility for channel 32, the noncommercial reservation was switched to channel 32, changing channel 60 to commercial.

From studios on Palou Avenue in San Francisco and the former transmitting facilities of KBHK-TV on San Bruno Mountain, channel 60 made its debut on August 10, 1975. KDTV was the Bay Area's first full-time Spanish station; two other channels broadcast Spanish-language programs, KEMO channel 20 and KGSC channel 36.

KDTV did not remain on channel 60 for long. Desirous of a lower channel number, in early 1977, the station approached the College of San Mateo, which owned KCSM-TV, a small educational station in San Mateo. The trade, which the college approved that March, gave KDTV a lower channel number and KCSM-TV, then with anemic technical facilities, full-power coverage of the Bay Area and $400,000 in equipment. The swap took place on the morning of March 5, 1979.

It's a sad irony that it took a disaster for others to recognize our news department. We appreciate the attention, but we've been around for 10 years.

Emilio Nicolas, Jr., on how the 1985 Mexico City earthquake caused others to notice KDTV's news efforts

The station grew in the 1980s with Emilio Nicolas Jr., son of Emilio Nicolas Sr., as general manager. Its relief efforts in the aftermath of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake won the station a Peabody Award and an Emmy nomination for community service, the first one for a Spanish-language TV station in the United States.

In 1997, prompted by the growing Hispanic population in the Bay Area and the need to expand, KDTV moved its studios and offices to the 41st floor of 50 Fremont Center in downtown San Francisco (today known as Salesforce West), a relocation that one Univision executive noted changed San Francisco from the worst facility in the network to its best. The station's current transmitter sites also took shape, with the opening of the then-KDTV-LP in Santa Rosa and the move of the main transmitter to Mount Allison that year. In 2001, Univision further expanded its Santa Rosa presence and opened an office there.

In 2016, the station moved into a new, state-of-the-art studio facility in San Jose to reduce the cost of doing business (which had become prohibitive in the city of San Francisco) and increase its focus on the expanding Hispanic population to the south in Santa Clara County. KDTV had previously maintained a bureau on Old Oakland Road. The station retains a smaller bureau in San Francisco covering news in the city, along with the northern and eastern portions of the region.

News operation

The station's lone local programming at launch was an early evening local newscast. When Luis Echegoyén—who became one of KDTV's longtime anchors—arrived for an interview before the station launched in 1975, he instead found Anselmo painting a wall. In 1976, Enrique Gratas—later the anchor of Univision's network late news and Ocurrió Así on Telemundo—was named news director, being promoted to KMEX in 1978. His replacement, Guillermo Descalzi, later left KDTV for various SIN network posts, including head of the network's census registration program, national correspondent, and an eight-year stint as the host of Temas y Debates, the network's Sunday morning political program.

It was not until December 1996 that KDTV launched an 11 p.m. newscast. By 2000, the station's news ratings were on the rise and beating the English-language stations among younger viewers. In November 2007, KDTV had the highest-rated newscast in the Bay Area among adults 25 to 54 in the 6 p.m. timeslot. This was the first occurrence in the market in which a Spanish-language news program earned higher ratings than those of its English-language counterparts.

Technical information

Subchannels

The stations' signals are multiplexed, with KDTV-CD additionally carrying two subchannels of KFSF-DT:

Subchannels of KDTV-DT and KTSF
License Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
KDTV-DT 14.1 720p 16:9 KDTV-HD Univision
14.3 480i 4:3 GetTV getTV
14.4 16:9 Mystery Ion Mystery
KTSF 26.1 720p KTSF Multicultural independent
26.3 480i 26-3 Sino TV
26.5 Vietday Viet Today TV
26.6 VSTV Viet Shopping TV
Subchannels of KDTV-CD
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
28.1 720p 16:9 KDTV-CD Univision
28.2 KFSF-D2 UniMás (KFSF-DT)
28.3 480i 4:3 getTV getTV (KDTV-DT3)
28.4 16:9 Mystery Ion Mystery (KDTV-DT4)
28.5 Crime True Crime Network (KFSF-DT5)
  Simulcast of subchannels of another station

Analog-to-digital conversion

KDTV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 14, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 51, using virtual channel 14.

After the 2016 incentive auction, multicultural independent station KTSF entered a channel sharing agreement with KDTV, after the station sold its spectrum in 2018.

References

  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for KDTV-DT". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ Univision moves Bay Area studio to San Jose Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved on August 19, 2017.
  3. ^ Univision 14 will move SF headquarters to San Jose Media Moves. Retrieved on August 19, 2017
  4. ^ FCC History Cards for KDTV
  5. ^ "Goodlett Irked by Channel 32 Gift". San Francisco Examiner. September 11, 1970. p. 3. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  6. ^ Newton, Dwight (August 10, 1975). "Spanish station: TViva!!". San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle. p. C10. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  7. ^ Foster, Bob (November 29, 1974). "The Weekend of Too Much Football". The Times. p. 15. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  8. ^ "College TV Station Value Increasing". The Times. February 24, 1977. p. 8. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  9. ^ Foster, Bob (March 11, 1977). "More TV About Eleanor, Franklin". The Times. p. 16. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  10. ^ Mandel, Bill (March 5, 1979). "Gas-pump blues". San Francisco Examiner. p. 27. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  11. ^ Mandel, Bill (February 6, 1979). "Playing switchies". San Francisco Examiner. p. 23. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  12. ^ Villagrán, Nora (September 26, 1985). "Shaking up the big guys: Small UHF station gets the drop on the larger broadcasters". San Jose Mercury News. p. 1F.
  13. ^ Navarro, Mireya (November 30, 1986). "Emilio Nicolás: He's brought profit—and public service—to Spanish station KDTV". San Francisco Examiner. pp. D-3, D-14. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  14. ^ Coile, Zachary (July 20, 1997). "Changing channels: Spanish-language station KDTV moves downtown—and into the mainstream". San Francisco Examiner. pp. D-1, D-6. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  15. ^ Quong, Andrea A. (August 25, 2002). "The language of opportunity - Spanish, bilingual media outlets tap growing Latino market in North Coast". The Press Democrat. p. E1.
  16. ^ Miller, Ron (December 9, 1990). "Winning Hispanic viewers' hearts: Two networks wage a TV war in the Bay Area". San Jose Mercury News. p. 3.
  17. ^ O'Brien, Matt. "Univision to move its Bay Area headquarters to San Jose from San Francisco". San Jose Mercury News. Retrieved August 19, 2017.
  18. ^ Taillaco, Evelio (March 21, 2002). "Enrique Gratas: El enfático rumbo de un maestro". El Nuevo Herald (in Spanish). p. 37D. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  19. ^ Navarro, Mireya (November 20, 1979). "On Spanish TV: the '80 election". San Francisco Examiner. p. D-2. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  20. ^ Constable, Pamela (October 1, 1995). "The Man in the Street". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  21. ^ Garcia, Edwin (October 22, 1997). "Must-Sí TV: KSTS-TV has informed its viewers, and listened to them, for 10 years". Mercury News. p. 1A.
  22. ^ Berlin, Linda (December 15, 2000). "Spanish-language KDTV thriving after 25 years". San Francisco Chronicle. p. 11.
  23. ^ Garofoli, Joe (December 1, 2007). "Spanish-language KDTV celebrates top rating for 6 p.m. newscast". San Francisco Chronicle. p. A-1. Retrieved December 1, 2007.
  24. ^ "TV Query for KDTV". RabbitEars. Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  25. ^ "TV Query for KTSF". RabbitEars. Archived from the original on April 7, 2023. Retrieved November 17, 2023.
  26. ^ "RabbitEars TV Query for KDTV-CD". Retrieved September 6, 2021.
  27. ^ List of Digital Full-Power Stations Archived August 29, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
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