KZSW-LD is a digital low-power

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

Riverside, California Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States, in the Inland Empire metropolitan area. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. It is the most populous city in the Inland Empire an ...

. Founded on May 23, 1994, the station is owned by

3ABN The Three Angels Broadcasting Network, or 3ABN, is a Christian media television and radio network which broadcasts Seventh-day Adventist religious and health-oriented programming, based in West Frankfort, Illinois, United States. Although it ...

History

KZSW began as K53DU, a 100-watt low-power television station on channel 53 in

Hemet, California Hemet is a city in the San Jacinto Valley in Riverside County, California. It covers a total area of , about half of the valley, which it shares with the neighboring city of San Jacinto. The population was 89,833 at the 2020 census. The foundi ...

. The station was founded by Ray Wilson of Buffalo Communications, and in 1995, it was sold to Victor and LaVerta Page. The station's power was then upgraded to 2.3 kW ERP, along with a call sign change to KHEM-LP. In 2000 the station applied for displacement relief from the FCC and was granted a channel change to channel 27, with a licensed power of 9.99 kW ERP. The station ran exclusively religious programming until April 2004, when it launched the "Neighborhood Newsroom," a half-hour local news program that focused on the daily happenings in Hemet and San Jacinto. In 2005 the station moved its studios to Temecula and adopted a traditional commercial programming format with morning and evening local newscasts. In 2006, ownership of the station was transferred to KZSW Television, Inc. The next year, KZSW slashed positions and ditched live newscasts in favor of taped programs. It routinely faced difficulties getting on local cable systems, such as

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 ...

. In 2008, José Aquino, a Mexican-American businessman, signed contracts with the Page family, which owned KZSW-LD television; the Page family rejected Aquino's proposal to convert the station to a Spanish-language format. In February 2009, the station affiliated with

NewsNet NewsNet (stylized as NEWSnet) is an American news-oriented free-to-air television network and newscast production company owned by Bridge News, LLC, which itself is owned by Bridge Media Networks. The network is structured to broadcast a tigh ...

in a bid to provide local news, weather, and sports coverage pertinent to the Inland Empire and

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban a ...

. In 2009, the Pages sold the operating assets of the station, but not its license, to Michael Sterby, and it is believed that Aquino provided the funds for Sterby to buy the station and used NewsNet to operate it. This set off a series of lawsuits, sparked by the fact that the license was not sold. A source from ''Milenio'' newspaper in Mexico reported that Aquino created a new company, also using the KZSW name, with the intent of confusing advertisers. The Pages responded by claiming that their license had been usurped. On March 22, 2011, Aquino attempted to place NewsNet in bankruptcy, a declaration thrown out six months later. At some point, the news and local programming stopped, and KZSW began carrying all religious programming from

. The station held a construction permit for digital facilities on VHF channel 10, licensed in Riverside, until 2015, when it built those facilities.

References

External links

{{LA TV ZSW Mass media in Riverside, California Mass media in San Bernardino, California Mass media in the Inland Empire Television channels and stations established in 1994 Temecula, California ZSW-LD