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KUNP (channel 16) is an
independent television station An independent station is a broadcast station, usually a television station, not affiliated with a larger broadcast network. As such, it only broadcasts syndicated programs it has purchased; brokered programming, for which a third party pays t ...
licensed to
La Grande, Oregon La Grande () is a city in and the county seat of Union County, Oregon, Union County, Oregon, United States. La Grande is Union County's largest city, with a population of 13,082 at the time of the 2010 U.S. Census. The La Grande metro population ...
, United States. It is owned by
Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair, Inc., doing business as Sinclair Broadcast Group, is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb o ...
alongside
Portland Portland most commonly refers to: *Portland, Oregon, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon *Portland, Maine, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maine *Isle of Portland, a tied island in the English Channel Portland may also r ...
-based
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 ...
affiliate
KATU KATU (channel 2) is a television station in Portland, Oregon, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside La Grande–licensed independent station KUNP, channel 16 (which KATU simulcasts on its sec ...
(channel 2). The two stations share studios on Northeast Sandy Boulevard in Portland; KUNP's transmitter is located east of
Cove A cove is a small bay or coastal inlet. They usually have narrow, restricted entrances, are often circular or oval, and are often situated within a larger bay. Small, narrow, sheltered bays, inlets, creek (tidal), creeks, or recesses in a coast ...
atop Mount Fanny, within
eastern Oregon Eastern Oregon is a region of the U.S. state of Oregon. It is not an officially recognized geographic entity; thus, the boundaries of the region vary according to context. It is sometimes understood to include only the eight easternmost countie ...
's
Wallowa–Whitman National Forest The Wallowa–Whitman National Forest is a United States National Forest in the U.S. states of Oregon and Idaho. Formed upon the merger of the Wallowa and Whitman national forests in 1954, it is located in the northeastern corner of Oregon, in W ...
. Because of the location of its transmitter facilities from
downtown Portland Downtown Portland is the central business district of Portland, Oregon, United States. It is on the west bank of the Willamette River in the northeastern corner of the southwest section of the city and where most of the city's high-rise buildi ...
, KUNP's over-the-air signal is unable to reach Portland proper. To overcome this, its signal is relayed on a low-power
translator station 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 tran ...
, KUNP-LD (channel 47), which serves the immediate Portland area from a transmitter on Willamette Stone Park Road (near Skyline Boulevard) in the
Sylvan-Highlands Sylvan-Highlands is a neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States located on the west side of the West Hills. History In 1850, Nathan B. Jones, a pioneer of 1847, settled at the head of Tanner Creek and platted lots for a community he ...
section of Portland, along with
cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
and
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 ...
coverage folded into KATU's
retransmission consent Retransmission consent is a provision of the 1992 United States Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act that requires cable operators and other multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) to obtain permission from commerc ...
agreements to cover the
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 ...
, along with some outlying areas. Additionally, KUNP is
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) ...
in full
high definition High definition or HD may refer to: Visual technologies *Blu-ray Disc, the universal optical High Definition disc format *HD Photo, former name for the JPEG XR image file format *HDV, format for recording high-definition video onto magnetic tap ...
on KATU's second
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 ...
.


History

The station was founded on August 6, 1999, and formally signed on the air on December 3, 2001, as KBPD; it changed its call letters to KPOU on May 14, 2002. From the start, the station was an affiliate of the Spanish-language
Univision Univision () is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television, free-to-air television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. It is the United States' largest provider of Spanish-language content. The network's programming is aimed at the L ...
network. As KBPD and KPOU, the station was owned by
Equity Broadcasting Corporation Equity Media Holdings Corporation was a broadcasting company based in Little Rock, Arkansas, that owned and operated television stations across the United States. Prior to March 30, 2007, the company was known as Equity Broadcasting, a name late ...
; it was acquired by
Fisher Communications Fisher Communications, Inc. was a media company in the United States. Based in Seattle, Washington, the company primarily owned a number of radio and television stations in the Western United States. It was the last company in the Seattle area ...
on November 3, 2006, for $19.3 million. Fisher would associate KPOU with KATU, the ABC affiliate it owned in Portland. Fisher changed the call letters to the current KUNP on December 5, 2006. On August 21, 2012, Fisher Communications signed an affiliation agreement with
MundoFox MundoMax (; originally known as MundoFox from August 13, 2012, to July 28, 2015) was an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network that was owned by RCN Televisión. The network broadcast programs aimed at Hispanic and Latino Americ ...
, a Spanish-language competitor to Univision that was owned as a joint venture between
Fox International Channels Fox Networks Group (FNG), formerly known as Fox International Channels (FIC), was the television networks division of News Corporation and later 21st Century Fox that operated from 1993 to 2021. It oversaw the production, broadcasting and distrib ...
and Colombian broadcaster
RCN TV RCN may refer to: * '' Radio Cadena Nacional (disambiguation)'', a broadcast network in Colombia ** RCN Radio ** RCN TV * RCN Corporation (formerly Residential Communications Network), a cable television, telephone, and Internet service provider ...
, for KUNP and Seattle sister station
KUNS-TV KUNS-TV (channel 51) is a television station licensed to Bellevue, Washington, United States, serving the Seattle area as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside American Broadcasting Company, ABC affiliate KOM ...
to be carried on both stations as
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 ...
s starting in late September. MundoFox would eventually rebrand as MundoMax in 2015 before ending all operations on December 1, 2016. On April 10, 2013, KUNP, KATU, and Fisher Communications's other holdings were acquired by the
Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair, Inc., doing business as Sinclair Broadcast Group, is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb o ...
. 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 ...
granted its approval of the deal on August 7, and the sale was completed the following day. On May 8, 2017, Sinclair Broadcast Group entered into an agreement to acquire
Tribune Media Tribune Media Company, also known as Tribune Company, was an American multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Through Tribune Broadcasting, Tribune Media was one of the largest television broadcasting companies, owning 39 ...
—owner of CW affiliate
KRCW-TV KRCW-TV (channel 32) is a television station licensed to Salem, Oregon, United States, serving as the Portland-area outlet for The CW. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside CBS affiliate KOIN (channe ...
(channel 32)—for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune. Sinclair would have been required to sell one of KUNP or KRCW-TV if the deal were to be approved. However, in 2018, the FCC designated the deal for hearing by an
administrative law judge An administrative law judge (ALJ) in the United States is a judge and trier of fact who both presides over trials and adjudicates claims or disputes involving administrative law, thus involving administrative units of the executive branch of go ...
; the deal was then terminated by Tribune. On September 23, 2024, the
Portland Trail Blazers The Portland Trail Blazers (colloquially known as the Blazers) are an American professional basketball team based in Portland, Oregon. The Trail Blazers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Northwest Division (N ...
announced a new television deal with Sinclair to create the Rip City Television Network. Under the deal, KUNP would begin airing Blazers games in January 2025. On September 26, Sinclair announced that KUNP would drop its Univision affiliation in 2025 to pivot the station to English-language programming.


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

Since KUNP did not sign on-the-air before the April 21, 1997, deadline for the FCC's digital television allotment plan, the station was not granted a companion digital signal. Therefore, on or before June 12, 2009, the station was required to turn off its analog signal and turn on a new digital signal (a method known as a "
flash cut A flash cut, also called a flash cutover, is an immediate change in a complex system, with no phase-in period. In the United States, some telephone area codes were split or overlaid immediately, rather than being phased in with a permissive di ...
") on UHF channel 16. KUNP-LP, as a low-power station, continued to broadcast in analog until April 13, 2012, when it made its flash-cut to digital transmission on UHF channel 47 and changing its callsign suffix from "-LP" to "-LD".


Translator


Former translators

KUNP also previously relayed its signal via
analog Analog or analogue may refer to: Computing and electronics * Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable ** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals *** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...
translator KABH-LP (channel 15) in Bend. KABH was owned by WatchTV, Inc., alongside its crosstown Portland
HSN HSN, Inc. an initialism of its former name Home Shopping Network, is an American free-to-air television network owned by the QVC Group (formerly Qurate Retail Group), which also owns Catalog merchant, catalog company Cornerstone Brands. It is ...
affiliate KORK-CA, but was operated by Sinclair 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 ...
(LMA). KABH-LP was founded on June 1, 1992, as K15DO, but did not take to the air until November 3, 1993. KABH's license was canceled by the FCC on March 19, 2015, for failure to file a license renewal application. At one point, KUNP also had KKEI-CA as another translator prior to the Fisher acquisition. That station is now a
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 ...
affiliate owned by WatchTV, Inc., which owned the now-defunct KABH-LP.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kunp 2001 establishments in Oregon Charge! (TV network) affiliates Independent television stations in the United States La Grande, Oregon The Nest (TV network) affiliates Sinclair Broadcast Group Roar (TV network) affiliates Television channels and stations established in 2001 UNP