KASA-TV (channel 2) 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 Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , literal translation, lit. "Holy Faith") is the capital city, capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Santa Fe County. With over 89,000 residents, Santa Fe is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, fourt ...

, United States, serving the

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...

area and most of the state as an

owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an network af ...

of the Spanish-language network

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 ...

. KASA-TV's studios are located on Monroe Street NE in Albuquerque; its transmitter is located on

Sandia Crest Sandia Crest, also known locally as Sandia Peak or simply as the Crest, is a mountain ridge that, at , is the highpoint of the Sandia–Manzano Mountains, and is located in the Sandia Mountains of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United State ...

, with translators in much of the state and southwestern

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

extending its signal and on subchannels of two high-power stations, KTEL-TV in

Carlsbad Carlsbad may refer to: Geographical locations * Carlsbad, California, San Diego County, United States ** Carlsbad Santa Fe Depot, NRHP ID No. 93001016 * Carlsbad, New Mexico, United States ** Carlsbad Caverns National Park ** Carlsbad Irriga ...

and KUPT in Hobbs. Channel 2 in Santa Fe was established in 1983 and struggled for its first decade on air as an independent station. It went silent in 1992 during a merger with KGSW-TV, which resulted in 1993 in its relaunch as

Fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

affiliate KASA-TV. KASA remained the Albuquerque market's Fox affiliate until a merger led to Fox's move to a subchannel of

KRQE KRQE (channel 13) is a television station in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, affiliated with CBS and Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister station, sister to ''de facto'' The CW, CW owned-and-operated ...

; at that time, channel 2 and its translators were sold to

Lubbock, Texas Lubbock ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Lubbock County. With a population of 272,086 in 2024, Lubbock is the 10th-most populous city in Texas and the 84th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the ...

-based Ramar Communications and switched to Telemundo, which had previously aired on that company's KTEL-CD. Telemundo's parent company,

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and Trade name, doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media and Show business, entertainment conglomerate (comp ...

, purchased all of Ramar's stations in New Mexico in 2021.

History

Early years

The New Mexico Media Co., a group of Santa Fe businessmen backed by California industrialist John J. Pollon, applied on September 10, 1977, for a new television station to serve Santa Fe on very high frequency (VHF) channel 11 (amended two months later to specify channel 2). ( Guide to reading History Cards) Both the New Mexico Media application and the other channel 11 bid, which became KCHF, were contested by the

television stations for specifying the use of

as the transmitter site, which they contended would have meant an insufficient signal over the city of license. 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) approved the application on May 10, 1982. By that time, the application had been amended to change the transmitter site to No Name Peak in the

Jemez Mountains The Jemez Mountains (, Tewa: ''Tsąmpiye'ip'įn'', Navajo: ''Dził Łizhinii'') are a group of mountains in Rio Arriba, Sandoval, and Los Alamos counties, New Mexico, United States. Numerous Puebloan Indian tribes have lived in the Jemez Moun ...

. Channel 2 came to the air on October 31, 1983—a day later than announced, prompting the station to apologize on local radio stations and claim it was "a day late but ... not a single program short"—as

independent station An independent station is a broadcast station, usually a television station, not affiliated with a larger broadcast television network, network. As such, it only broadcasts broadcast syndication, syndicated programs it has purchased; brokered pr ...

KSAF-TV. Based in a new studio building at the corner of St. Francis and St. Michael's Drive in Santa Fe, channel 2 promised a strong signal for Santa Fe and Albuquerque, as well as the first live newscast for New Mexico's capital city; the 9 p.m. newscast was scrapped just three months after launch, with the general manager calling it a "drain" on the station's resources as a startup operation. In October 1984, a California-based investor group bought into KSAF-TV. The new ownership upgraded the programming by acquiring 600 films from a financially troubled KNAT-TV; in order to avoid confusion with radio station KAFE and "KSFE-TV", a former cable channel in Santa Fe, the call letters were changed to KNMZ-TV (stylized as "KNM2") on March 1, 1985. The station filed for bankruptcy in August 1987, citing $11 million in assets but $15 million in liabilities. Coronado Communications Company, a subsidiary of the

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

–based

Sunbelt Communications Company Intermountain West Communications Company (formerly Sunbelt Communications Company) was an American telecommunications company, formerly owned by James E. Rogers (1938–2014), that remains as the licensee company for a number of local televisio ...

, purchased channel 2 for $3 million in early 1988. Founding investor Pollon bought back the studio building, and KNMZ-TV moved its Santa Fe offices to smaller quarters on Calle Nava while shifting the bulk of operations to Albuquerque. Coronado also laid off 17 staffers to cut back to the "bare bones" necessary for operation. Coronado made its own repositioning of channel 2 in 1989, changing the call letters to KKTO-TV.

Merger with KGSW-TV and Fox era

By mid-1992, KKTO-TV was economically struggling: Coronado had lost $6.6 million in its ownership of the station, and it warned that it could not continue to operate KKTO-TV much longer. That July, the Providence Journal Company (ProJo)—owners of KGSW-TV (channel 14), New Mexico's Fox affiliate—reached a deal to purchase KKTO from Coronado. The deal was made with the express purpose of moving the Fox affiliation and channel 14 programming to the VHF station, which in turn would move its transmitter to Sandia Crest in a $1 million upgrade. ProJo immediately took control of KKTO under a

local marketing agreement In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one corporation, company agrees to operate a radio station, radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it ...

, firing its 18 staff and rehiring 10. Programming from KKTO ceased at midnight on September 6, 1992. That same week, 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 ...

news agency had sued the station for $78,700 in unpaid wire service bills. The FCC approved the ProJo purchase of KKTO in January 1993, along with new KASA-TV call letters for channel 2. On April 5, 1993, at 6 p.m., KGSW-TV signed off channel 14, and KASA-TV began telecasting on channel 2. In 1997, Belo acquired the Providence Journal Company. However, it found that there was no synergy between KASA-TV and its clusters of stations in Texas, the Pacific Northwest, and the mid-Atlantic states and put the station up for sale, along with

KHNL KHNL (channel 13) is a television station in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands as an affiliate of NBC and Telemundo. It is owned by Gray Media alongside CBS affiliate KGMB (channel 5), a combination known as Hawaii ...

Honolulu Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

, in May 1999. The Albuquerque and Honolulu operations were purchased by

Raycom Media Raycom Media, Inc. was an American television broadcasting company based in Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery, Alabama. Raycom owned and/or provided services for 65 television stations and two radio stations across 44 markets in 20 states. Raycom ...

for $88 million. Under Raycom ownership, KASA began airing a 9 p.m. local newscast produced for it by

KOB-TV KOB (channel 4) is a television station in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, whose sister cable channel Reelz is also based in Albuquerque (KOB and Reelz, however, maintain separat ...

in November 2000. After purchasing the

Liberty Corporation The Liberty Corporation was a media corporation originally based in Greenville, South Carolina. At its peak, Liberty owned 15 network-affiliated television stations across the Midwest and Southern regions of the United States. Cable advertisin ...

in August 2005, Raycom announced its intent to sell KASA and several other stations. On July 27, 2006, Raycom announced that

LIN TV LIN Media was an American holding company founded in 1994 that operated 43 television stations. All except one were affiliates of the six major U.S. television networks. One of the remaining stations was a low-powered weather station in In ...

, owner of CBS affiliate

, would purchase KASA for $55 million and take over operations at the end of August. The creation of a television duopoly involving two " Big Four" affiliates—typically the four highest-rated stations in a market, which cannot be commonly owned—was allowed since KASA was New Mexico's fifth-rated station at the time. The deal also saw KASA move out of its Albuquerque studio site—which had been used by KGSW-TV since its start—to KRQE's facility and switch from airing a 9 p.m. newscast produced by KOB to one from KRQE.

The Telemundo era

While LIN was able to retain both KRQE and KASA in its merger with

Media General Media General, Inc. was an American media company based in Richmond, Virginia. The company's origins can be traced back to 1887 when Richmond attorney Joseph Bryan acquired ''The Richmond Daily Times'', which later became ''The Richmond Times-D ...

in 2014, this would prove not to be the case in 2016 when

Nexstar Broadcasting Group Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarters in Irving, Texas, Midtown Manhattan, and Chicago. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 television stations ...

reached a deal to purchase Media General for $4.6 billion. KASA and KRQE were both ranked among the top four stations in the market during the November 2015 sweeps period, which meant that the company had to divest one of the two stations to comply with the FCC duopoly rules. On June 30, 2016, it agreed to sell KASA-TV and associated translators to Ramar Communications, owner of

affiliate KTEL-CD (channel 15),

Movies! Movies! (also known as simply M!) is an American free-to-air television network, owned by Popcorn Entertainment, LLC, a joint venture between Weigel Broadcasting and the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of Fox Corporation. The network's pr ...

affiliate

KUPT-LD KUPT-LD (channels 2 and 16) is a low-power television station in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. Owned by the Telemundo Station Group subsidiary of NBCUniversal, it is sister to Telemundo owned-and-operated station KASA-TV (channel 2) ...

(channel 16), and

MeTV MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television progra ...

affiliate KRTN-LD (channel 33), for $2.5 million. On January 18, 2017, Fox programming moved to a subchannel of KRQE, as Ramar did not acquire the Fox affiliation in the transaction. KASA switched to Telemundo; Ramar also converted its three existing full-power stations in the market—KRTN-TV (channel 33) in

Durango, Colorado Durango is the home rule city that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of La Plata County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 19,071 at the 2020 United States census. Durango is the home of Fort Lewis College ...

, KTEL-TV (channel 25) in

, and KUPT (channel 29) in Hobbs—into satellites of KASA. Ramar announced the sale of its entire Albuquerque-market television operation—KASA-TV, the other three full-power stations, and all of their dependent translators—to

on July 30, 2021. The $12.5 million deal gave NBCU Telemundo

s in 31 markets and marked the end of 23 years of Ramar's ownership of the Telemundo affiliation in the city. The sale was completed on October 5.

Newscasts

Initially, local news on Telemundo Nuevo México originated from the studios of KJTV-TV, formerly owned by Ramar, in

, with reports from Albuquerque-based reporters. As part of the sale, NBC entered into a transitional services agreement with

Gray Television Gray Media, Inc., doing business as Gray Television, is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 statio ...

, which had purchased KJTV-TV and other Ramar television assets in Lubbock earlier in 2021, to continue news production in the short term; in announcing the purchase, NBC declared its intention to start its own local news service for KASA. On October 18, 2021, Albuquerque's NBC affiliate, KOB, assumed production of the local newscasts.

Rebroadcasters

Satellite stations

KASA-TV operates two satellite stations to rebroadcast the station's programming to southeastern New Mexico.

Translators

KASA-TV has 23 low-power rebroadcasters in New Mexico and Colorado. In early 1987, KGSW-TV began building translators in such cities as Alamosa, Durango, and Farmington. Around the same time, the then-KNMZ-TV built its first rebroadcaster, to serve Farmington. *

Alamogordo Alamogordo () is a city in and the county seat of Otero County, New Mexico, Otero County, New Mexico, United States. A city in the Tularosa Basin of the Chihuahuan Desert, it is bordered on the east by the Sacramento Mountains (New Mexico), Sac ...

: K27HP-D *

: KUPT-LD 16.4 * Artesia: K16LR-D *

Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...

: K27ND-D * Caballo: K31DR-D *

: K17MN-D * Deming: K15IG-D * Eagle Nest: K31NZ-D * Farmington: K23KL-D * Gallup: K18HF-D * Hobbs: K27GL-D *

: K20GQ-D * Roswell: K15FT-D * Ruidoso: K28PS-D * Santa Fe: K31NB-D * Silver City: K25DI-D *

Taos Taos or TAOS may refer to: Places * Taos County, New Mexico, United States ** Taos, New Mexico, a city, the county seat of Taos County, New Mexico *** Taos art colony, an art colony founded in Taos, New Mexico ** Taos Pueblo, a Native American ...

: K12OG-D *

Truth or Consequences ''Truth or Consequences'' is an American game show originally hosted on NBC radio by Ralph Edwards (1940–57) and later on television by Edwards (1950–54), Jack Bailey (1954–56), Bob Barker (1956–75), Steve Dunne (1957–58), Bob Hi ...

: K22JY-D * Bayfield, CO: K19LD-D * Cortez, CO: K07UY-D, K27IG-D *

Durango, CO Durango is the home rule city that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of La Plata County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 19,071 at the 2020 United States census. Durango is the home of Fort Lewis College. ...

: KXZQ-LD 35 * Pagosa Springs, CO: K19LC-D

Technical information

Subchannels

The stations' signals are

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— ...

. The use of major channel numbers 15 and 33 for KASA-TV's other subchannels correlates to the other full-power former Ramar stations in New Mexico.

Analog-to-digital conversion

KASA-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

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 ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kasa-Tv 1983 establishments in New Mexico Cozi TV affiliates Hispanic and Latino American culture in Albuquerque, New Mexico ASA-TV Roar (TV network) affiliates Telemundo affiliates Telemundo Station Group Television channels and stations established in 1983 TeleXitos affiliates