KDRC-LD (channel 26) is a low-power

religious television station Religious broadcasting, sometimes referred to as faith-based broadcasts, is the dissemination of television and/or radio content that intentionally has religious ideas, religious experience, or religious practice as its core focus. In some coun ...

Redding, California Redding is a city in and the county seat of Shasta County, California, and the economic and cultural capital of the Shasta Cascade region of Northern California. Redding lies along the Sacramento River, north of Sacramento, California, Sacrame ...

, United States. The station is owned by

Medford, Oregon Medford is a city in and the county seat of Jackson County, Oregon, in the United States. As of the 2020 United States census on April 1, 2020, the city had a total population of 85,824, making it the List of cities in Oregon, eighth-most populo ...

–based theDove Media, Inc.

History

Origins

The station began as KGEC-LP in the late 1990s.

Fresno Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley region. It covers a ...

businessman George E. Cooper and his wife Millie founded Cooper Communications, LLC, in 1993 upon moving to the Redding area. KGEC signed on for the first time in late October 1997 and became an

America One America One was an American television network established in 1995 by USFR Media Group through its America One Television subsidiary.

network affiliate on January 14, 1998, and would remain so until that network went to KMCA-LP in 2000. It would begin local coverage of

Golden State Warriors The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. Founded in 1946 i ...

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

basketball in 1999 and would last just one season. The station's call letters were the initials of Cooper, the station's primary founder. He was quoted as saying, "We love the market and the people, and will do everything we can to serve it well!" On July 1, 2000, KGEC-LP became an affiliate of the fledgling FamilyNet, a faith-based, family-oriented network. This brought more family-friendly programming that had been lacking among its major competition. KGEC-LP began promoting themselves as "FamilyTV 26" to coincide with FamilyNet. Because of FamilyNet's ownership, management and programming changes, KGEC-LP severed ties with FamilyNet on January 4, 2010, and became a full-time affiliate of

Retro TV Retro TV (stylized as retrotv), formerly known as Retro Television Network, is an American terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by Get After It Media. The network mainly airs classic television sitcoms and drama series f ...

, which airs classic television series to keep with the station's tradition of providing good quality television. In 2002, KGEC tried its hand at local programming with ''Northstate Sports Replay'', local sporting events produced by Action Video Entertainment (now Siskiyou Broadcast Group) of

Mount Shasta, California Mount Shasta (also known as Mount Shasta City) is a city in Siskiyou County, California, United States, at about above sea level on the flanks of Mount Shasta, a prominent northern California landmark. The city is less than southwest of the s ...

, and hosted by Mike Summers and staff. The weekly program only lasted one season ending in 2023. It also aired ''Pray Northstate'' hosted by Jim Wilson in the early 2000's before it moved to

KCVU KCVU (channel 20) is a television station licensed to Paradise, California, United States, serving the Chico– Redding market as an affiliate of the Fox network. It is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agree ...

FOX 20 in Chico. On February 17, 2005, KGEC-LP co-founder and chief executive officer George Cooper died after a long battle with cancer. His widow and station president, Millie, would assume the role of primary owner and CEO as well. In March 2011, KGEC-LP was granted its digital license on channel 26 for four virtual channels and provides family-friendly programs from

(26.1), Tuff TV (26.2), The Family Channel (26.3) and NASA Television (26.4). It also aired

Jewelry Television Jewelry Television is an American television network specializing in the sale of jewelry. On-air and online, the network is mainly branded by its jtv initials in small caps, lower-case letters. It has an estimated reach of more than 80 million ...

in the overnight hours on 26.1, 26.3 and 26.4 until 2020. Subchannel 26.2 later changed to The Action Channel and 26.4 has since gone

dark Darkness is the condition resulting from a lack of illumination, or an absence of visible light. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low luminance because the hue-sensitive photoreceptor cells on the retina are ...

. Later in 2011, KGEC-LP was sold to another group, but they basically ran the station as a repeater for Retro TV, causing the station to lose money. However, Millie Cooper-Brogan, widow of founder George Cooper, bought the station back in 2014 in hopes of finding new ownership. KGEC-LD once again flies under the Cooper Communications banner. Mrs. Brogan reassumed the position of owner, president and general manager while Jim McKeown served as the station's chief engineer until his death in January 2021.

theDove TV affiliation and changes

On May 21, 2021, KGEC-LD officially became an affiliate of theDove TV, based out of

, and owned by theDove Media, LLC. They joined two other Redding stations KRDT-CD Channel 23 (repeater for One Ministries, Inc.-owned

KKPM-CD KDSO-LD (channel 16), branded on-air as theDove TV, is a low-power religious television station in Medford, Oregon, United States. KDOV-LD (channel 18) serves as a translator of KDSO. The stations are owned by theDove Media alongside KDOV (91 ...

Yuba City Yuba City (Maidu: ''Yubu'') is a city in Northern California and the county seat of Sutter County, California, United States. The population was 70,117 at the 2020 census. Yuba City is the principal city of the Yuba City Metropolitan Statistical ...

) and K16IW-CD Channel 16.1 (also owned by theDove Media) as a repeater station broadcasting theDove TV. The official announcement was made during ''Mornings on theDove'' the following Monday. The network now provides its full content to KGEC-LD and a possible ownership change of the station could be finalized in the coming months pending FCC approval. KGEC-LD was officially sold to theDove Media of Medford in February 2022. The call sign changed to the current KDRC-LD on June 11, 2022. As of January 2024, KDRC subchannel 26.2 airs Newsmax 2.Watch Newsmax2!
Newsmax Official Website

Subchannels

The station's 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— ...

References

{{California Religious Stations 1998 establishments in California DRC-LD Religious television stations in the United States Television channels and stations established in 1998 DRC-LD