Subchannels 33.2 Fox | Founded November 1, 1992 | |
Branding Fox 11 (general)
NewsChannel 3 HD
CBS Local 2 News Slogan The Desert's News Leader &
Where LOCAL Comes First! Channels Digital: 39 (UHF) &
KESQ-DT 42.4 (UHF)
Virtual: 33 (PSIP) Owner News-Press & Gazette Company
(Gulf-California Broadcast Company) | ||
KDFX-CD is the low-powered, Class A Fox-affiliated television station for the Inland Empire's Coachella Valley licensed to Indio/Palm Springs, California. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 39 (or virtual channel 33.2 via PSIP) from a transmitter on Edom Hill in Cathedral City.
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Owned by the News-Press & Gazette Company, the station is sister to ABC affiliate KESQ-TV, Class A CBS affiliate KPSP-CD, low-powered CW affiliate KCWQ-LP/LD, and low-powered Telemundo affiliate KUNA-LP/LD. All five outlets share studios at Melanie Place in Palm Desert. Syndicated programming on this station includes The Wendy Williams Show, The Real, Celebrity Name Game, The Simpsons and Mike & Molly among others. KDFX can also be seen over-the-air on KESQ's forth digital subchannel.
This can be seen on UHF channel 43.4 from the same Edom Hill transmitter which redirects to virtual channel 33.2 via PSIP. Along with other major Coachella Valley television stations, the station identifies itself on-air using its cable designation (Fox 11) rather than its over-the-air channel position. The unusual practice stems in part from the area's exceptionally high cable penetration rate of 80.5% which is one of the highest in the United States.
History
The station signed-on in 1990 as K40DB and was a translator of CBS affiliate KECY-TV in El Centro, California/Yuma, Arizona. The station was added on cable television on November 1, 1992. Along with its parent outlet, the station switched to Fox in 1995 becoming the first CBS affiliate in the United States to join the so-called "fourth network". 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. That company split the translator off and relaunched it as a separate Fox affiliate serving the Coachella Valley.
On August 23 of that year, the station moved to UHF channel 33 and adopted KDFX-LP as its call sign. The LMA and options to purchase the two stations were sold a year later to the News-Press Gazette Company of St. Joseph, Missouri. Lambert invested heavily in the station and upgraded it to Class A status on April 7, 2003, as KDFX-CA. In May 2008 with the operational options running out, that owner officially bought the stations for $2 million. Since that company was already controlling KESQ in Palm Springs, the transaction made KDFX a sister outlet to the ABC affiliate. The station was licensed for digital operation on March 18, 2015, taking on the call sign KDFX-CD.
Newscasts
KESQ produces a 2-hour extension of its weekday morning show seen from 7:00-9:00 a.m. on KDFX known as NewsChannel 3 HD in the Morning on Fox 11. The station also airs a nightly prime time broadcast called CBS Local 2 News Nightcast on Fox 11 which is produced by KPSP featuring the CBS outlet's branding, graphics, and anchors. Both of these offerings competed with now defunct low-powered MyNetworkTV affiliate KPSG-LP, which had local news seen at the same times produced by rival NBC affiliate KMIR-TV.