KMIR-TV (channel 36) 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 eart ...

licensed to Palm Springs, California, United States, serving as the

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

affiliate for the Coachella Valley. It is owned by

Entravision Communications Entravision Communications Corporation is an American media company based in Santa Monica, California. Entravision primarily caters to the Spanish-speaking Hispanic community and owns television and radio stations and outdoor media, in several o ...

(as the company's only NBC affiliate), and is

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares one or more parents with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a family, familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to r ...

MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...

affiliate

KPSE-LD KPSE-LD (channel 50) is a low-power television station licensed to Palm Springs, California, United States, serving the Coachella Valley as an affiliate of MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Entravision Communications (as the company's only MyNetworkTV ...

(channel 50, also licensed to Palm Springs), Indio-licensed

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 KVER-CD (channel 41) and

UniMás UniMás (, stylized as ''UNIMÁS'', and originally known as TeleFutura from its launch on January 14, 2002, to January 6, 2013) is an American Spanish free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. The network's programming, which i ...

affiliate

KEVC-CD KEVC-CD (channel 5) is a low-power, Class A television station licensed to Indio, California, United States, serving the Coachella Valley as an affiliate of the Spanish-language UniMás network. It is owned by Entravision Communications alongsi ...

(channel 5). KMIR and KPSE share studios on Parkview Drive in

Palm Desert Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley, approximately east of Palm Springs, northeast of San Diego and east of Los Angeles. The population was 48,445 at the 2010 census. The city has been ...

; KEVC and KVER maintain separate facilities on Corporate Way, also in Palm Desert. KMIR's transmitter is located atop Edom Hill in

Cathedral City Cathedral city is a city status in the United Kingdom. Cathedral city may also refer to: * Cathedral City, California, a city in Southern California, United States * Cathedral City Cheddar, a brand of Cheddar cheese * Cathedral City High Scho ...

History

The station was the first to broadcast in the Coachella Valley on September 15, 1968. Airing an

analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...

signal on UHF channel 36, it has been an NBC affiliate from the start. Actor John Conte owned the station through the Desert Empire TV Corporation, and was the proprietor of the Hotel el Mirador in Palm Springs, from which the call letters were derived. Desert Regional Medical Center now occupies the site of the old hotel. Today, one can still see the El Mirador broadcasting tower standing in front of the hospital. This is where the station originally transmitted from. The current tower is a replica structure emulating the original, which was destroyed in a 1989 fire. Journal Communications acquired KMIR from Conte in 1999 for $30 million. In 2008, the station celebrated its 40th anniversary. In October 2013, Journal reached a deal to sell KMIR to

OTA Broadcasting OTA Broadcasting, LLC was a broadcasting company founded in 2011 by Michael Dell. The company is based in Fairfax, Virginia. History OTA Broadcasting was founded in 2011 by Michael Dell's MSD Capital. It had been rumored that Dell formed OT ...

for $17 million. The sale was completed on January 1, 2014, making KMIR the company's first station affiliated with one of the Big Four television networks. Along with the other major Coachella Valley stations, KMIR formerly identified itself on-air using its

cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...

designation (at that time, channel 6) rather than its over-the-air digital channel position. This unusual practice (also common in the

Fort Myers Fort Myers (or Ft. Myers) is a city in southwestern Florida and the county seat and commercial center of Lee County, Florida, United States. The Census Bureau's Population Estimates Program calculated that the city's population was 92,245 in 20 ...

–

Naples, Florida Naples is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the historical city (i.e. in the immediate vicinity of downtown Naples) was 19,115. Naples is a principal city of the Naples-Marco Island, Flori ...

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, an ...

, where KMIR's former sister station

WFTX-TV WFTX-TV (channel 36) is a television station licensed to Cape Coral, Florida, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for Southwest Florida. Owned by the E.W. Scripps Company, the station has studios on Southwest Pine Island Road ( SR 78) ...

serves as the market's Fox affiliate) stems in part from Palm Springs's exceptionally high cable penetration rate of 80.5%, which is one of the highest in the United States. , the station branded simply with its call letters. Due to its low-power status, KPSE-LP was pulled from

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 ...

systems at midnight on July 11, 2013, in a

retransmission consent Retransmission consent is a provision of the 1992 United States Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act that requires cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to obtain permission from commer ...

dispute with Time Warner; KMIR continued to air on the system for thirteen days after due to rules disallowing full-power stations from being pulled during a sweeps period. KMIR, along with all Journal stations, was pulled at midnight on July 25, 2013, off Time Warner systems at the end of the sweeps period. The station's evening newscasts were simulcast by KRET-CA on Time Warner channel 14 during the dispute. On September 20, 2013, a deal was reached to return Journal's stations, including KMIR and KPSE, to Time Warner Cable; as part of the deal, KMIR's standard definition channel moved to channel 13, the former location for KPSE (which moved to channel 20). KMIR's previous position, cable channel 6, is now occupied by Game Show Network. With the station no longer carried on channel 6 on any cable or satellite systems in the Coachella Valley, the station rebranded in late 2013, dropping the '6' from its logo. On July 21, 2017, it was announced that Spanish-language broadcaster

(minority owned by Univision Communications) was acquiring KMIR and

for $21 million. The sale to Entravision made both stations

, KVER-CD and KVES-LD. The transaction was completed on November 1. On September 16, 2018, coinciding with the station's 50th anniversary, KMIR-TV rebranded as "NBC Palm Springs".

News operation

KMIR-TV presently broadcasts 28 hours of news per week (with five hours each weekday and 1½ hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). The station's newscasts are produced in full

1080i 1080i (also known as Full HD or BT.709) is a combination of frame resolution and scan type. 1080i is used in high-definition television (HDTV) and high-definition video. The number "1080" refers to the number of horizontal lines on the scre ...

high definition, including all video from the field. In September 2014, the station launched a new 9 p.m. newscast on sister station KPSE. It also produces a 10:00 p.m. newscast on KPSE known as ''KMIR News at 10:00 on KPSE My TV''. Former sister station

KTNV-TV KTNV-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Laughlin-licensed Ion Television owned-and-operated station KMCC (channel 34). KTNV-TV' ...

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

provided the station's weather forecasts until the start of 2015, when the station hired former

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

-based meteorologist

Geoff Fox Geoff Fox (born July 26, 1950) is an Emmy Award-winning American television broadcast meteorologist, with his career and expertise the industry covering 4 decades. For 27 years of his career he was at the television station WTNH in New Haven, Co ...

, However, on August 4, 2015, KMIR announced that Ginger Jeffries (former meteorologist on KESQ-TV) was making the switch to KMIR; replacing Geoff Fox due to his contract being "terminated". KMIR does not have a dedicated sports department, but its news department covers major sporting events and the station extensively covers

high school football High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, part ...

on Friday nights during football season. KMIR newscasts focus heavily on the station's news brand "You Ask. We Investigate" with stories submitted by viewers. In May 2013, the station launched the franchise "The Eyesore Next Door" focusing on viewer reports of eyesore properties across the Coachella Valley. Since 2012, the station's newscasts have seen an increase in viewership. In the May 2013 sweeps period, KMIR was top-rated at 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. in the coveted adults 25-54 demographic. The station's newscasts generally place 2nd in the Nielsen ratings in the Palm Springs market in households but win some newscast time periods in the adults 25-54 demographic. In 2018, KMIR News received a Golden Mic for the "Best Newscast in Southern California" from the Radio and Television Association of Southern California.

Notable former on-air staff

* Ross Becker – news director (later with KAAL-TV in

Austin, Minnesota Austin is a city in, and the county seat of, Mower County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 26,174 at the 2020 census. The town was originally settled along the Cedar River and has two artificial lakes, East Side Lake and Mill Po ...

; now CEO of TvNewsmentor.com) *

– meteorologist (2015; now with News Channel Nebraska) * Hank Plante – on-air Political Analyst * John Schubeck – anchor (1993-1995); died in 1997

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

References

External links