KECY-TV
Encyclopedia
KECY-TV is the primary Fox
and secondary MyNetworkTV
-affiliated television station
for El Centro, California
and Yuma, Arizona
. It broadcasts a high definition
digital signal on VHF channel 9 from a transmitter between the two cities in the Chocolate Mountains
in Imperial County, California
. Owned by the News-Press & Gazette Company
, the station has studios on South 4th Avenue in Yuma. It also operates a sales office on West Main Street in El Centro. Syndicated
programming on KECY includes: Two and a Half Men
, Judge Alex
, Friends
, Judge Judy
, Martha Stewart, and Ellen
. Programming from MyNetworkTV airs weeknights from 10 to 12.
affiliate on a second digital subchannel. This can also be seen on Time Warner Cable
channel 5 (hence the ABC 5 branding) and in high definition on digital channel 705. Syndicated programming on KECY-DT2 includes: Everybody Loves Raymond
, George Lopez
, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
, and The Dr. Oz Show
. KECY operates the area's CW affiliate on a third digital subchannel. This is also offered on Time Warner Cable channel 6 (hence the Desert CW 6 branding). KECY-DT3 gets all of its programming from The CW Plus
. KECY-DT4 simulcasts Telemundo
affiliate KESE-LP
, as it currently does not air a digital signal of it own.
), it later separated in 1968 as an ABC affiliate until 1972 and remained a CBS
affiliate until 1995. The station, along with a low-powered translator licensed to Palm Desert
known as KDBA-LP, was sold to Pacific Media Corporation and became the first CBS affiliate in the country to switch to Fox.
The translator originally aired as K20CB and K40DB in the late-1980s/early-1990s. KDBA-LP went on-air on November 1, 1992 from Indio
and signed-off January 1, 1999. KECY's first studios were located on Main Street in a former Bank of America
building in El Centro. The station moved to Yuma when that area's growth began to accelerate rapidly.
In 1997, Pacific Media Corporation (which was principally controlled by Judge Robinson O. Everett
of Wilmington, North Carolina
) entered into a local management agreement (LMA) with a subsidiary of Lambert Broadcasting. Lambert split the KDBA translator off and relaunched it as Palm Desert's Fox affiliate KDFX-CA
and the channel was moved to 33. The LMA and options to purchase the two stations were sold a year later to News-Press Gazette Company (NPG) of St. Joseph, Missouri. In May 2008 with the options running out, NPG officially bought the stations for $2 million. It was already the owners of KESQ-TV
in the Palm Springs market
.
After the switch of KSWT to CBS network in 1994, Yuma was left without an ABC affiliate. But in the interim, ABC programming where available on satellite and cable operators via KGTV from San Diego and KESQ from Palm Springs. 13 years later went ABC service back to Yuma, KECY launched a full-time ABC affiliate in the El Centro/Yuma market on a new second digital subchannel and Time Warner Cable channel 5 and this went return ABC to the market. In Yuma, it replaced KNXV from Phoenix
which was seen on that channel. In the California
portion of the market, it replaced San Diego
's KGTV
which was seen on cable channel 10; that channel slot now only airs KGTV's local news and syndicated programming, with ABC programming blacked out and replaced with other programming. Currently, some over-the-air viewers in the Coachella Valley
facing south to the Imperial Valley can receive KECY over-the-air but interference may occur from KVCR-TV
repeater K09XW.
KECY began broadcasting in high definition during early-2006 becoming the first station in the market to make the upgrade. KECY broadcasts Fox prime time and Fox Sports
in high definition. As of March 29, 2010, the station gained the CW affiliation on its third digital subchanel. KESE-LP was moved to DT4 to make room for this new service. Previously, CBS affiliate KSWT carried The CW on its second digital subchannel. The network also began airing prime time an hour earlier at 7 like other affiliates in the Mountain Time Zone.
on weekdays from 5 to 8.
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
and secondary MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...
-affiliated television station
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...
for El Centro, California
El Centro, California
El Centro is a city in and county seat of Imperial County, the largest city in the Imperial Valley and the east anchor of the Southern California Border Region, and the core urban area and principal city of the El Centro metropolitan area which encompasses all of Imperial County. El Centro is also...
and Yuma, Arizona
Yuma, Arizona
Yuma is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner of the state, and the population of the city was 77,515 at the 2000 census, with a 2008 Census Bureau estimated population of 90,041....
. It broadcasts a high definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
digital signal on VHF channel 9 from a transmitter between the two cities in the Chocolate Mountains
Chocolate Mountains
The Chocolate Mountains of California are located in Imperial County and Riverside County in the Colorado Desert in Southern California. The mountains stretch more than 60 miles in a northwest to southeast direction, and are located east of the Salton Sea and south and west of the Chuckwalla...
in Imperial County, California
Imperial County, California
Imperial County is a county located in the Imperial Valley, in the far southeast of the U.S. state of California, bordering both Arizona and Mexico. It is part of the El Centro Metropolitan Area, which encompasses all of Imperial County. The population as of 2000 was 142,361. The county seat is the...
. Owned by the News-Press & Gazette Company
News-Press & Gazette Company
The News Press & Gazette Company is a media company based in St. Joseph, Missouri, wholly owned and operated by the Bradley family. It is presided by Brian Bradley and David R. Bradley, with Hank Bradley , Eric Bradley and Kit Bradley serving on its Board of Directors. All are descendants of...
, the station has studios on South 4th Avenue in Yuma. It also operates a sales office on West Main Street in El Centro. Syndicated
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
programming on KECY includes: Two and a Half Men
Two and a Half Men
Two and a Half Men is an American television sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 22, 2003. Starring Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and Angus T. Jones, the show was originally about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie Harper; his uptight brother, Alan; and Alan's growing son, Jake...
, Judge Alex
Judge Alex
Judge Alex is a United States syndicated courtroom television show that debuted September 12, 2005. The host/arbitrator is the Hon. Alex Ferrer, a former police officer, lawyer, and Florida judge. The show was produced in Houston at the television studios of Fox's KRIV , as was previously done with...
, Friends
Friends
Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
, Judge Judy
Judge Judy
Judge Judy is an American court show featuring former family court judge Judith Sheindlin arbitrating over small claims cases in small claims court...
, Martha Stewart, and Ellen
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
The Ellen DeGeneres Show, often shortened to Ellen, is an American television talk show hosted by comedian/actress Ellen DeGeneres. Debuting on September 8, 2003, it is produced by Telepictures and airs in syndication, including stations owned by NBC Universal. For its first five seasons, the show...
. Programming from MyNetworkTV airs weeknights from 10 to 12.
Digital programming
Its signal is multiplexed. It operates the area's ABCAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
affiliate on a second digital subchannel. This can also be seen on Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable
Time Warner Cable is an American cable television company that operates in 28 states and has 31 operating divisions...
channel 5 (hence the ABC 5 branding) and in high definition on digital channel 705. Syndicated programming on KECY-DT2 includes: Everybody Loves Raymond
Everybody Loves Raymond
Everybody Loves Raymond is an American television sitcom that originally ran on CBS from September 13, 1996, to May 16, 2005. Many of the situations from the show are based on the real-life experiences of lead actor Ray Romano, creator/producer Phil Rosenthal and the show's writing staff...
, George Lopez
George Lopez (TV series)
"The George Lopez Show" redirects here. For the late-night program hosted by the same comedian, see Lopez Tonight.George Lopez is an American sitcom starring comedian George Lopez...
, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (US game show)
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is an American television quiz show which offers a maximum prize of $1,000,000 for correctly answering 14 consecutive multiple-choice questions of random difficulty. Until 2010, the format required contestants to correctly answer 15 consecutive questions of increasing...
, and The Dr. Oz Show
The Dr. Oz Show
The Dr. Oz Show is an American syndicated television talk show, hosted by Dr. Mehmet Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and teaching professor at Columbia University who became famous for his appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show from 2004 until 2009....
. KECY operates the area's CW affiliate on a third digital subchannel. This is also offered on Time Warner Cable channel 6 (hence the Desert CW 6 branding). KECY-DT3 gets all of its programming from The CW Plus
The CW Plus
The CW Plus is a group of primarily digital sub-channels, analog, and non-broadcast cable television outlets for the CW Television Network, for markets below the top 99 television media markets in the United States....
. KECY-DT4 simulcasts Telemundo
Telemundo
Telemundo is an American television network that broadcasts in Spanish. The network is the second-largest Spanish-language content producer in the world, and the second-largest Spanish-language network in the United States, behind Univision....
affiliate KESE-LP
KESE-LP
KESE-LP is the lone Telemundo affiliate serving the Yuma-El Centro TV market, located in Yuma, Arizona. It is owned and operated by Gulf-California Broadcast Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of the News-Press & Gazette Company of St...
, as it currently does not air a digital signal of it own.
| Virtual Channel | Physical Channel | Video | Aspect Aspect ratio The aspect ratio of a shape is the ratio of its longer dimension to its shorter dimension. It may be applied to two characteristic dimensions of a three-dimensional shape, such as the ratio of the longest and shortest axis, or for symmetrical objects that are described by just two measurements,... |
Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9.1 | 9.1 | 720p 720p 720p is the shorthand name for 1280x720, a category of High-definition television video modes having a resolution of 1080 or 720p and a progressive scan... |
16:9 16:9 16:9 is an aspect ratio with a width of 16 units and height of 9. Since 2009, it has become the most common aspect ratio for sold televisions and computer monitors and is also the international standard format of HDTV, Full HD, non-HD digital television and analog widescreen television ... |
Main KECY programming / FOX and MyNetworkTV |
| 9.2 | 9.2 | "ABC 5" | ||
| 9.3 | 9.3 | 480i 480i 480i is the shorthand name for a video mode, namely the US NTSC television system or digital television systems with the same characteristics. The i, which is sometimes uppercase, stands for interlaced, the 480 for a vertical frame resolution of 480 lines containing picture information; while NTSC... |
4:3 | "Desert CW 6" |
| 9.4 | 9.4 | KESE-LP/Telemundo programming |
History
Founded in 1965 as a satellite of KBLU-TV (now KSWTKSWT
KSWT is a television station serving the Yuma, Yuma/El Centro, California market. Licensed to Yuma, it serves as a CBS affiliate. It broadcasts locally in digital on VHF channel 13, and is owned by the Pappas Telecasting Companies of Visalia, California under the name Pappas Telecasting of...
), it later separated in 1968 as an ABC affiliate until 1972 and remained a CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
affiliate until 1995. The station, along with a low-powered translator licensed to Palm Desert
Palm Desert, California
Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley, approximately east of Palm Springs. The population was 48,445 at the 2010 census, up from 41,155 at the 2000 census...
known as KDBA-LP, was sold to Pacific Media Corporation and became the first CBS affiliate in the country to switch to Fox.
The translator originally aired as K20CB and K40DB in the late-1980s/early-1990s. KDBA-LP went on-air on November 1, 1992 from Indio
Indio, California
Indio is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, located in the Coachella Valley of Southern California's Colorado Desert region. It lies east of Palm Springs, east of Riverside, and east of Los Angeles. It is about north of Mexicali, Baja California on the U.S.-Mexican border...
and signed-off January 1, 1999. KECY's first studios were located on Main Street in a former Bank of America
Bank of America
Bank of America Corporation, an American multinational banking and financial services corporation, is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets, and the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by market capitalization. The bank is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina...
building in El Centro. The station moved to Yuma when that area's growth began to accelerate rapidly.
In 1997, Pacific Media Corporation (which was principally controlled by Judge Robinson O. Everett
Robinson O. Everett
Robinson O. Everett was an American lawyer, judge and a professor of law at Duke University.Everett was born in Durham, North Carolina, to a family of lawyers: his grandfather and both of his parents being noted North Carolina attorneys...
of Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington, North Carolina
Wilmington is a port city in and is the county seat of New Hanover County, North Carolina, United States. The population is 106,476 according to the 2010 Census, making it the eighth most populous city in the state of North Carolina...
) entered into a local management agreement (LMA) with a subsidiary of Lambert Broadcasting. Lambert split the KDBA translator off and relaunched it as Palm Desert's Fox affiliate KDFX-CA
KDFX-CA
KDFX-CA is the Class A Fox-affiliated television station for the Coachella Valley licensed to Indio and Palm Springs, California. It broadcasts an analog signal on UHF channel 33 from a transmitter on Edom Hill northeast of Cathedral City and I-10...
and the channel was moved to 33. The LMA and options to purchase the two stations were sold a year later to News-Press Gazette Company (NPG) of St. Joseph, Missouri. In May 2008 with the options running out, NPG officially bought the stations for $2 million. It was already the owners of KESQ-TV
KESQ-TV
KESQ-TV is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Coachella Valley of California licensed to Palm Springs. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 42 from a transmitter on Edom Hill northeast of Cathedral City and I-10...
in the Palm Springs market
Media market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area , Television Market Area , or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same television and radio station offerings, and may also include other types of media including newspapers and Internet content...
.
After the switch of KSWT to CBS network in 1994, Yuma was left without an ABC affiliate. But in the interim, ABC programming where available on satellite and cable operators via KGTV from San Diego and KESQ from Palm Springs. 13 years later went ABC service back to Yuma, KECY launched a full-time ABC affiliate in the El Centro/Yuma market on a new second digital subchannel and Time Warner Cable channel 5 and this went return ABC to the market. In Yuma, it replaced KNXV from Phoenix
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
which was seen on that channel. In the California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
portion of the market, it replaced San Diego
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
's KGTV
KGTV
KGTV, digital channel 10, is the ABC television affiliate in San Diego, California. The station can be seen on Cox Communications, Time Warner Cable, and AT&T U-verse on cable channel 10 in standard definition. Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable carry its high definition signal on cable...
which was seen on cable channel 10; that channel slot now only airs KGTV's local news and syndicated programming, with ABC programming blacked out and replaced with other programming. Currently, some over-the-air viewers in the Coachella Valley
Coachella Valley
Coachella Valley is a large valley landform in Southern California. The valley extends for approximately 45 miles in Riverside County southeast from the San Bernardino Mountains to the saltwater Salton Sea, the largest lake in California...
facing south to the Imperial Valley can receive KECY over-the-air but interference may occur from KVCR-TV
KVCR-TV
KVCR-DT digital channel 26 is a member of the Public Broadcasting Service, and is owned by the San Bernardino Community College District. The District also operates sister station KVCR-FM. KVCR-TV began broadcasting on September 11, 1962, making it the first successful UHF television channel for...
repeater K09XW.
KECY began broadcasting in high definition during early-2006 becoming the first station in the market to make the upgrade. KECY broadcasts Fox prime time and Fox Sports
Fox Sports (USA)
Fox Sports is a division of the Fox Broadcasting Company . It was formed in 1994 with Fox's acquisition of broadcast rights to National Football League games...
in high definition. As of March 29, 2010, the station gained the CW affiliation on its third digital subchanel. KESE-LP was moved to DT4 to make room for this new service. Previously, CBS affiliate KSWT carried The CW on its second digital subchannel. The network also began airing prime time an hour earlier at 7 like other affiliates in the Mountain Time Zone.
Newscasts
At present unlike most Fox affiliates, KECY does not carry any newscasts either produced in-house or by another station in the market. As a CBS affiliate, it had a local newscast titled News 9 which ended sometime in the early-1990s. KECY-DT3 airs the nationally syndicated morning show The Daily BuzzThe Daily Buzz
The Daily Buzz is a nationally syndicated breakfast television news and infotainment program. The show is produced by Fisher Communications and is owned and distributed by ACME Communications; it is broadcast every weekday morning from studios at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida...
on weekdays from 5 to 8.
Newscast titles
- The Channel 9 News (1968–1980)
- NewsChannel 9 (1980–1987)
- Channel 9 News (1987–1988)
- News 9 (1988–1992)