KNDO (channel 23) 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 ...

Yakima, Washington Yakima ( or ) is a city in and the county seat of Yakima County, Washington, United States, and the state's 11th most populous city. As of the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 96,968 and a metropolitan population of 256,728. The ...

, United States, affiliated with

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

. It is owned by the

Spokane Spokane ( ) is the most populous city in eastern Washington and the county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It lies along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south ...

-based

Cowles Company The Cowles Company is an American diversified media company based in Spokane, Washington. The company owns and operates ''The Spokesman-Review'' in Spokane, founded in 1894, and owned the ''Spokane Daily Chronicle'' until it was shut down in 19 ...

as part of the

KHQ Television Group The Cowles Company is an American diversified media company based in Spokane, Washington. The company owns and operates ''The Spokesman-Review'' in Spokane, founded in 1894, and owned the ''Spokane Daily Chronicle'' until it was shut down in 19 ...

. KNDO's studios are located on West Yakima Avenue in downtown Yakima, and its transmitter is located on

Ahtanum Ridge Ahtanum Ridge is a long anticline mountain ridge in Yakima County, Washington, Yakima County in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. It is located just south of the city of Yakima, Washington, Yakima, and much of its length is at the ...

. KNDU (channel 25) in Richland operates as a

semi-satellite A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or trans ...

of KNDO, serving the Tri-Cities area; this station maintains its own studios on West Kennewick Avenue in

Kennewick Kennewick () is a city in Benton County, Washington, Benton County in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. It is located along the southwest bank of the Columbia River, just southeast of the confluence of the Columbia and Yakima ...

, with transmitter on Jump Off Joe Butte. As a KNDO semi-satellite, it

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultaneously) ...

s all network and syndicated programming as provided through its parent, and the two stations share a website. However, KNDU airs separate commercial inserts and legal identifications. Local newscasts, produced by KNDU, are simulcast on both stations. KNDO serves the western half of the Yakima–Tri-Cities

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 *Marketing, the act of sat ...

while KNDU serves the eastern portion. The two stations are counted as a single unit for ratings purposes.

Master control Master control is the technical hub of a broadcast operation common among most over-the-air television stations and television networks. It is distinct from a production control room (PCR) in television studios where the activities such as swit ...

and some internal operations are based at the studios of

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

, fellow NBC affiliate and company

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of navy, naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically ...

KHQ-TV KHQ-TV (channel 6) is a television station in Spokane, Washington, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is the flagship (broadcasting), flagship and namesake of the KHQ Television Group, a subsidiary of the locally based Cowles Company, whic ...

on West Sprague Avenue in downtown Spokane. On

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

, KNDO is only available on

DirecTV DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...

, while

Dish Network DISH Network L.L.C., often referred to as DISH, an abbreviation for Digital Sky Highway, is an American provider of satellite television and IPTV services and wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation. The company was originally establ ...

carries KNDU instead.

History

KNDO debuted on the air on October 15, 1959. It was owned by Hugh Davis and his Columbia Empire Broadcasting Corporation. Previously, all three networks had been shoehorned on primary

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

affiliate

KIMA-TV KIMA-TV (channel 29) is a television station in Yakima, Washington, United States, affiliated with CBS and The CW Plus. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside low-power, Class A Univision affiliate KUNW-CD (channel 2). The two sta ...

(channel 29). Although conventional wisdom suggested that KNDO should have signed on as an NBC affiliate, it instead took on the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

affiliation. This was very unusual for a two-station market, especially one as small as Yakima. During this time, it carried a secondary affiliation with NBC, and also aired a few CBS programs turned down by KIMA-TV, including ''

The Andy Griffith Show ''The Andy Griffith Show '' is an American sitcom television series that was aired on CBS from October 3, 1960, to April 1, 1968, with a total of 249 half-hour episodes spanning eight seasons—159 in black and white and 90 in color. The series ...

''. On August 16, 1960, CEBC filed to build a new TV station on channel 25 in Richland. ( Guide to reading History Cards) The company was composed of employees of KNDO and

KTNT-TV KSTW (channel 11), branded on-air as Seattle 11, is an independent television station licensed to Tacoma, Washington, United States, serving the Seattle area. Owned by the CBS News and Stations group, the station maintains its transmitter on ...

Tacoma Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, southwest of Bellevue, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, northwest of Mount ...

and had also filed to buy KNDO. 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) granted the permit on May 24, 1961, and the station was announced to be a satellite of KNDO. Programming began August 10, 1961. A major increase in power was made in 1966. In 1965, KNDO and KNDU became primary NBC affiliates, but shared ABC with KIMA-TV until KAPP (channel 35) and

KVEW KAPP (channel 35) is a television station in Yakima, Washington, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Morgan Murphy Media. The station's studios are located in the Liberty Building on North 3rd Street in downtown Yakima, and its tra ...

(channel 42) debuted in 1970 to take the ABC affiliation; since then, KNDO and KNDU have been exclusive NBC affiliates. Davis sold the two stations to Farragut Communications in 1988. Federal Enterprises acquired KNDO and KNDU in 1995. Federal was bought out 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 ...

in 1997. Current owner Cowles Company purchased the two stations from Raycom in July 1999. On October 15, 2009, KNDO celebrated 50 years of broadcasting to the Yakima Valley. Leading up to that date, KNDO aired stories of local businesses and organizations that have also been around for 50 years or longer.

Programming

In the past, KNDO and KNDU preempted much of the NBC lineup post-'' Late Night'', including ''

Later Later may refer to: * Future The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the futur ...

'' and '' Friday Night Videos/Friday Night'', along with the network's '' Nightside'' rolling news block, as the stations carried syndicated programming, then continued to sign off the air nightly. It began to air all three programs in 1996, shortly after Federal took control of the stations.

Notable former on-air staff

Jamie Kern Jamie Kern Lima (''née'' Jamie Marie Kern) is an American entrepreneur, investor, and media personality. She co-founded IT Cosmetics, which she sold to L'Oréal for $1.2 billion, in 2016, becoming the first female chief executive officer of a ...

Whit Johnson Stephen Whitney "Whit" Johnson (born June 25, 1982) is an American journalist known as the co-anchor of the weekend editions of ''Good Morning America'', the anchor of the Saturday edition of ''ABC World News Tonight'', and thefill-in and substit ...

Anish Shroff Anish Shroff (born 1982) is the radio play-by-play man for the Carolina Panthers and a play-by-play announcer and on-air host at ESPN. Early life and education Shroff was born in Bloomfield, New Jersey to Hitesh and Nikita Shroff who are both fro ...

* Jim Snyder (1987–1989)

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— ...

: KNDO and KNDU have been digital-only since February 17, 2009.NBC News
/ref>

NBC Weather Plus NBC Weather Plus was an American weather-oriented digital multicast television network owned as a joint venture between NBCUniversal and the local affiliates of the NBC television network. The service, which was broadcast in standard definition, ...

had been carried on

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...

23.3 and 25.3; the originating national network ceased operation on December 1, 2008. On September 1, 2010, KNDO and KNDU discontinued broadcasting

Universal Sports Universal Sports was an American sports-oriented digital cable and satellite television network. It was owned as a joint venture between InterMedia Partners (which owned a controlling 92% interest) and NBCUniversal (which owned the remaining 8%). ...

on digital subchannels 23.2 and 25.2. Its bandwidth was reallocated to SWX Right Now (23.3/25.3) to improve the picture quality of SWX programming.

Translator

Ellensburg Ellensburg is a city in and the county seat of Kittitas County, Washington, United States. It is located just east of the Cascade Range near the junction of Interstate 90 and Interstate 82. The population was 18,666 at the 2020 census. and was ...

(translates KNDO)

References

External links

*
SWX Right Now
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kndo 1959 establishments in Washington (state) Cowles Company NBC affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1959 NDO