Subchannels 29.2
TBD/ASN
58.1 Fox Call letters' meaning K Bakersfield Fox | First air date August 23, 1989 | |
Branding Fox 58 (general)
Eyewitness News (newscasts) Channels Digital: 29 (UHF)
& KBAK-DT 33.2 (58.2) Owner Sinclair Broadcast Group
(Sinclair Bakersfield Licensee, LLC) | ||
KBFX-CD, channel 58, is a Class A low-power digital television station serving Bakersfield, California. The station is a Fox affiliate and is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. The station's studios are co-located with sister station and CBS affiliate KBAK-TV west of downtown Bakersfield, and the transmitter site is on Breckenridge Mountain.
Contents
Digital television
The analog signal went off the air in August 2010. KBFX currently broadcasts in high definition on RF channel 29 which maps to virtual channel 58-1, and also as a subchannel of KBAK-DT in high definition; this digital signal is RF channel 33-2 and virtual mapped channel 58-2. It is also available in high definition on Bright House Networks cable.
History
KBFX began in 1989 as K58DJ, a low-powered relay translator of KMPH, Fresno's Fox affiliate. It changed its call letters to KMPH-LP in 1995. Later, the Fox network wanted to include a new separate affiliate station for the Bakersfield market; as a result, in 1998, channel 58 was relaunched as KBFX-LP. Among the features on the new station was a KBAK-produced 10pm newscast, "Fox 58 News @ 10". It was so successful that KBAK's then-owner Westwind Communications bought the station in 2005 from KMPH's owners, Pappas Telecasting.
On August 6, 2007, Westwind Communications announced the sale of KBAK and KBFX-CA to Fisher Communications of Seattle [1], with the sale closing on January 1, 2008. On February 28, 2010, Bright House Networks announced that KBFX will be carried in Tehachapi also on cable 6. KBFX just recently launched their new digital transmitter on RF channel 29. This signal carries This TV on its subchannel, which maps to virtual channel 29-2. In January 2011, KBFX began airing its local news in high definition.
Fisher Communications announced on April 11, 2013 that it would be acquired by Sinclair Broadcast Group, pending Federal Communications Commission approval. The deal was completed on August 8, 2013. On October 3, 2013, Sinclair announced the completion of the sale of four stations owned by Titan TV Broadcast Group, including KMPH, which reunites KBFX as sister-stations for the first time in eight years.
KBFX is the only Bakersfield television station to never change its affiliation, having always been a Fox affiliate.
The station's 29.2 subchannel was an initial affiliate of the American Sports Network with its first broadcast on August 30, 2014.