KCNS

History

Channel 38 first signed on the air on December 28, 1968 as KUDO-TV. The station initially broadcast financial programming during the morning and early afternoon hours, along with movies at night. The station went dark on April 15, 1971 due to financial difficulties. On October 4, 1974, Faith Center (managed by pastor Ray Schoch (1917-1977) acquired the station at a cheap price and returned it to the air as KVOF-TV, carrying Christian programming about 12 hours a day. Some was produced by Faith Center while other shows came from outside Christian groups. The station expanded to nearly 24 hours a day by 1975 when Dr. Gene Scott became pastor of Faith Center and assumed control of its television stations. By 1976, the station was only running programming from Scott's "University Network" 24 hours a day. However, the station lost its license, along with those of sister stations KHOF-FM (relicensed as KKLA) in Los Angeles and KHOF-TV (relicensed as KZKI-TV, now KPXN-TV) in San Bernardino, California, after Faith Center refused to disclose its private donor records to the Federal Communications Commission.

The current channel 38 license began broadcasting on January 6, 1986 as KWBB, with transmitter facilities located on San Bruno Mountain. The station shared a building on Radio Road with KTSF (channel 26), but could not continue with that arrangement. The licensee, West Coast United Broadcasting, and Dr. Gene Scott entered into an agreement, making available the original KVOF broadcasting facilities, in exchange for continuing Dr. Scott's nighttime programming. The new licensee ran infomercials and other programming during the day.

The station was sold to Global Broadcasting Systems and changed its call sign to KCNS on January 6, 1991. It switched to Chinese and Filipino language programming, with studios at the Hamms Building in San Francisco. In addition, the transmitter power was increased to five megawatts, and the transmitter moved to Sutro Tower on August 7, 1989, becoming the last analog television station to move there. On January 5, 1998, KCNS began carrying home shopping programming from the Shop at Home Network. This lasted until June 21, 2006, when the Shop at Home's parent, The E. W. Scripps Company, suspended the network's operations. KCNS switched to Jewelry Television, and two days later, it started broadcasting a mixture of programming from both networks, after Jewelry Television bought Shop at Home and resumed that network's operations.

On September 26, 2006, Multicultural Television announced it would purchase KCNS from Scripps, as part of a deal to buy all of Scripps' Shop at Home stations for $170 million. [1] Multicultural closed on KCNS and its sister stations in Cleveland and Raleigh on December 20, 2006. On January 14, 2007, KCNS ended its simulcast of Shop at Home and began carrying educational and informational programming on early weekday mornings and infomercials for the rest of the day. On April 8, 2007, KCNS began broadcasting Chinese language programming in Mandarin and Cantonese, under the "Sino TV" (華語電視 Huáyǔ Diànshì) banner nightly from 6:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., including news programs in both Mandarin and Cantonese. The following day on April 9, 2007, KCNS began carrying programming from the Retro Television Network during the daytime hours.

Financial difficulties and sale to NRJ TV

After Multicultural ran into financial problems and defaulted on its loans, KCNS was placed into a trust; in 2011, the station, along with WMFP in Boston, was sold to NRJ TV (a company unrelated to European broadcaster NRJ Radio). The sale was consummated on May 13, 2011. A one-third equity stake in NRJ TV is held by Titan Broadcast Management, which also operates KTNC-TV (channel 42); Titan had already managed KCNS for some time prior to the sale. On August 13, 2012, KCNS became a charter affiliate of the Spanish language network MundoFox/MundoMax.

In late 2016, KCNS switched their main channel to Estrella TV with the end of MundoMax's operations.

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

KCNS shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 38, on February 17, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television (the deadline was later moved to June 12). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 39, using PSIP to display KCNS' virtual channel as 38 on digital television receivers.