KNSO (channel 51) 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

Clovis, California Clovis is a city in Fresno County, California, United States. It was established in 1890 as a freight stop for the San Joaquin Valley Railroad by a group of Fresno businessmen and Michigan railroad speculator Marcus Pollasky. The railroad bou ...

, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language

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 ...

network to the

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 ...

area.

Owned and operated 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 affiliate ...

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 ...

Telemundo Station Group Telemundo Station Group is the division of NBCUniversal Owned TV Stations (NBCUniversal), a subsidiary of Comcast that oversees their Telemundo owned-and-operated television stations and the TeleXitos network. The NBC owned-and-operated station ...

, KNSO maintains a transmitter on Bald Mountain, south of Meadow Lakes in

Fresno County Fresno County (), officially the County of Fresno, is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 1,008,654. The county seat is Fresno, the fifth-most populo ...

History

Early years

The UHF channel 43 allocation in the Fresno market was originally licensed to

KICU-TV KICU-TV (channel 36), branded as KTVU Plus, is a television station licensed to San Jose, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Oakland-licensed Fox Broadca ...

. Operating as an

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 ...

, the station signed on the air on December 23, 1961, five days after Fresno's first independent station, KAIL (channel 53, now a TCT O&O on channel 7) took to the air. KICU carried a mix of

movies A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, since ...

and other independent fare. Toward the end of its run, KICU also picked up some

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 ...

programs that were not cleared to air by that network's Fresno affiliate, KMJ-TV (channel 24, now KSEE-TV). The station ceased operations in 1968; the

call letters are now used by an independent station in San Jose.

1990s–present

Channel 43 returned to the air on September 11, 1992, as KSDI; the station was originally an affiliate of the viewer-request

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

network The Box. That December, the station changed its call letters to KGMC (the calls were previously used by KOCB in

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...

from 1979 to 1989). In January 1995, the station entered into 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 ...

with Pappas Telecasting Companies, owner of Fox affiliate KMPH-TV (channel 26). Pappas programmed the station from 7 to 9 a.m. and again from 3 to 11 p.m. daily, airing a blend of

cartoons A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently Animation, animated, in an realism (arts), unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or s ...

, classic

sitcom A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of character (arts), characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent settin ...

s and older movies. On January 11 of that year, the station became a charter affiliate of

The WB The WB Television Network (shortened to The WB, stylized as "THE WB", and nicknamed the "Frog Network" and/or "The Frog" for its former mascot Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network that ran from 1995 to 2006. It launched on ter ...

. KGMC continued to run religious programs, paid programming, and home shopping programs during time periods that were not programmed by Pappas. In 1997, KGMC terminated the LMA with Pappas, switching full-time to a format of infomercials and religious programs. Pappas then moved the WB affiliation first to KMPH on a secondary basis, and later to KNSO (channel 51) in 1998 and finally to KFRE-TV (channel 59) in 2001, where the network remained until The WB ceased operations in September 2006 and was replaced by

The CW The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...

. In the meantime, KGMC would join home shopping channel America's Store in 1998; after America's Store was shut down by HSN in 2007, KGMC switched its programming to

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 ...

. KGMC had been the only full-power independent television station in the Fresno market, until August 1, 2012, when it became an affiliate of the

Spanish-language Spanish () or Castilian () is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a world language, gl ...

network MundoFox. On December 1, 2016, with the demise of MundoMax, KGMC switched to Liberman Broadcasting's

Estrella TV Estrella TV () is an American Spanish-language broadcast television network owned by the Estrella Media subsidiary of HPS Investment Partners, LLC. The network primarily features programs, the vast majority of which are produced by the networ ...

network. On February 27, 2020, NBCUniversal agreed to transfer the license assets of KNSO to Cocola Broadcasting in exchange for acquiring the KGMC license. The sale was completed on September 1, 2020. Upon completion of transfer in which the call signs were also swapped, KNSO now operates on UHF channel 27, while KGMC operates on VHF channel 11.

News operation

On September 1, 2015, KNSO (then licensed to

Merced Merced (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Mercy") is a city in, and the county seat of, Merced County, California, United States, in the San Joaquin Valley. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 86,333, up ...

) launched its first local news production and the second local Spanish-language newscast in the market, . It is an hour-long weekday newscast produced from the studio of Nexstar Broadcasting Group-owned KSEE and KGPE; Serestar elected to partner with the two stations so that the production could leverage the resources of the stations' new facilities. The newscast is anchored and executive produced by Vanessa Ramirez-Avila, formerly of KFTV-DT, and features reporting from KGPE, KSEE, and its

Bakersfield Bakersfield is a city in and the county seat of Kern County, California, United States. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley, which is located in the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's population as of the ...

sister stations KGET and KKEY-LP. In 2017, an 11 p.m. weeknight newscast (co-produced and simulcast on sister station KCSO-LD in

Sacramento Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the seat of Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in Northern California's Sacramento Valley, Sacramento's 2020 p ...

) was added. Branded as , the newscast features some Fresno-area news via a pre-recorded package from the KSEE/KGPE studio.

Technical information

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— ...

Analog-to-digital conversion

KNSO (as KGMC) ended regular programming on its analog signal, over

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 43, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal was relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 44 to channel 43. As part of the SAFER Act, KGMC kept its analog signal on the air until June 26 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of

public service announcement A public service announcement (PSA) is a message in the public interest disseminated by the media without charge to raise public awareness and change behavior. Oftentimes these messages feature unsettling imagery, ideas or behaviors that are des ...

s from the

National Association of Broadcasters The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is a Industry trade group, trade association and lobbying, lobby group representing the interests of commercial and non-commercial over-the-air radio and television broadcasting, broadcasters in th ...

Spectrum auction repack

KNSO (as KGMC) was one of nearly 1,000 television stations that were required to change their digital channel allocation in the upcoming spectrum auction repack in early 2018. The station reallocated its digital signal to UHF channel 27 in phase one of the auction.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Knso 1992 establishments in California Clovis, California Cozi TV affiliates NSO Telemundo Station Group Television channels and stations established in 1992 NSO TeleXitos affiliates