KTUD-CD (channel 25) was a
low-power,
Class A independent television station in
Las Vegas, Nevada
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 ...
, United States. The station was owned by the Greenspun Broadcasting subsidiary of
The Greenspun Corporation.
Unlike other low-power television stations not connected to a full-power mother station, the station was available on channel 14 through
Cox cable systems in the
Las Vegas Valley
The Las Vegas Valley is a major metropolitan area in the Southern Nevada, southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada, and the second largest in the Southwestern United States. The state's largest urban agglomeration, the Las Vegas Metropolitan St ...
.
The "-CD" suffix in the call letters denoted the station's status as a "Class A" digital television station, a slight upgrade from its previous "low power" (-LD) designation. The station's transmitter was located atop Mount Arden, south of
Henderson. Its studios and offices were located in unincorporated
Paradise Valley, south of
McCarran International Airport.
History
Sinclair Broadcast Group acquired what was then known as KUPN (channel 21, now
KSNV) and switched the station's affiliation to
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 ...
in 1998 as part of a bulk affiliation deal, with a subsequent call change to KVWB. KFBT (now
KVCW) was thought to become a
UPN affiliate but Sinclair, who took over the operations of KFBT via a
local marketing agreement during the WB deal, declined UPN's offer and KFBT became 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 ...
instead, leaving Las Vegas without a UPN affiliate. The next year on February 12, 1999, channel 25 signed on as KCNG-LP and picked up the UPN affiliation. The station's callsign was changed to KTUD-LP in 2000, before switching to the "-CA" suffix in 2003. Initially owned by King Kong Broadcasting Inc., KTUD would go through a series of ownership changes before its acquisition by Greenspun from Venture Technologies Group.
The station struggled due to problems with local cable providers, as their low-power designation meant KTUD-LP was not bound by the
FCC must-carry rules requiring cable coverage.
Cox Communications refused to carry the station at first, but by November 2000 began to carry it on channel 14 after customer demand from ''
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...
'' fans and ahead of UPN's coverage of the
XFL football league featuring the
Las Vegas Outlaws locally.
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 ...
eventually also picked up the station, though
Dish Network never did.
The station's standing was severely affected by the January 2006 announcement that The WB and UPN would merge into one network,
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 ...
. Unlike in 1999 when the market's main independent stations were all owned separately and the ability for KTUD-LP to receive the UPN affiliation was easier, by 2006 both KVWB and independent
KFBT were owned by
Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which was one of the largest affiliate groups for both The WB and UPN. KVWB was part of an early bulk affiliation deal for
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (stylized as mynetworkTV; unofficially abbreviated MNT or MNTV) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its Fox Television Stations ...
, with the CW affiliation still up for grabs by mid-April 2006. However, KTUD-LP withdrew from negotiations with the CW on April 24, 2006. KFBT was thus announced as the market's CW affiliate on May 2, 2006, and KTUD-LP was left to become an independent station when UPN ended operations in September 2006.
On September 18, 2009, KTUD-LD signed on its digital signal on channel 20.
The 2008 recession that heavily affected the Las Vegas Valley and slashed advertising revenue, and a lack of a network affiliation, eventually lead to the LLC behind KTUD-LP to file for bankruptcy protection in late February 2010, though no on-air operations were affected at the time.
On March 16, 2012, the station transferred its Class A license over to their digital signal, with the call sign changing to KTUD-CD. Simultaneously, the analog license was canceled by the FCC and the KTUD-CA call sign was deleted from the FCC's database.
Station closure
On October 10, 2013, KTUD announced that it would leave the airwaves as of 11:59 p.m. that evening due to insufficient advertising revenues; in addition, The Greenspun Corporation had been struggling as of late. Staffers for the station refused to elaborate on the station's closure.
In 2014, Mako Communications announced it would purchase KTUD's license out of bankruptcy, though the transaction was never completed.
On October 14, 2014, the FCC canceled KTUD-CD's license due to the station having been silent for more than a year.
KPVM-LP now broadcasts on virtual channel 25 in Las Vegas.
Newscasts
In the fall of 2002,
CBS affiliate
KLAS-TV (channel 8) began producing a 10 p.m. newscast for KTUD-CA called ''
Eyewitness News at 10 on UPN'', which was originally anchored by Kate Maddox, and later by Denise Saunders. In the fall of 2006 when KTUD became an independent station, that station was rebranded on-air as "Vegas TV" and the newscasts was renamed to suit the new identity. Shortly afterward however, the station dropped the 10 p.m. newscast and Saunders would later go to KTNV. KTUD later revived its 10 p.m. newscast, under a news share agreement with
NBC affiliate
KSNV-DT (channel 3), which debuted in October 2009 and ran until its cancellation in August 2010.
Subchannels
The station's signal was
multiplexed:
References
External links
Official website, defunctVegasTV on Facebook
{{Las Vegas TV
1999 establishments in Nevada
TUD-CD
Independent television stations in the United States
TUD-CD
Television channels and stations disestablished in 2014
Television channels and stations established in 1999