City St. George, Utah Affiliations MyNetworkTV | Branding My Utah TV | |
Slogan The TV Home of Real Salt Lake Channels Digital: 9 (VHF)
Virtual: 12 (PSIP) Translators KUTV 2.2 Salt Lake City
K49IF-D 49 Beryl/Modena | ||
KMYU, virtual channel 12 (VHF digital channel 9), is a primary MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station located in St. George, Utah, United States. The station is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, as part of a triopoly with Salt Lake City-based CBS affiliate KUTV (channel 2) and independent station KJZZ-TV (channel 14). KMYU and KUTV share studio facilities located on South Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City, and KMYU's transmitter is located atop Webb Hill 2.25 miles (3.62 km) south of downtown St. George. For official FCC purposes regarding a studio location in its city of license, KMYU has their studios in the J.C. Snow Building on East St. George Boulevard in downtown St. George, which also serves as KUTV's southern Utah news bureau.
Contents
- History
- Digital channels
- Analog to digital conversion
- Programming
- Newscasts
- Current on air promotional staff
- Current on air news staff
- References
As the broadcasting radius of KMYU's signal from St. George does not reach Salt Lake City due to its transmitter being located in the southern portion of the state, the station is simulcast over KUTV's second digital subchannel in order to reach that portion of the market, airing on virtual channel 2.2 from KUTV's transmitter located at Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains, southwest of Salt Lake City; similarly, because of the location of KUTV's transmitter, KMYU relays that station's signal on its second digital subchannel to provide over-the-air service of KUTV's CBS service to St. George. Many of KUTV's statewide digital translator stations also distribute both KUTV and the KMYU 2.2 simulcast to the northern and eastern portions of the state.
History
The original construction permit for channel 12 was granted on May 23, 1988, and the station was assigned the call letters KUSG (for KUTV in St. George) on September 11, 1989, however a license was not granted by the Federal Communications Commission until January 24, 2000. When KUSG first signed on the air on August 21, 1999, it was operated as a satellite station of KUTV, at that time a CBS owned-and-operated station. CBS sold KUTV and KUSG (along with five other smaller-market stations) to Four Points Media Group, a broadcast holding company operated by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, on January 10, 2008 (in a deal first announced on February 7, 2007).
On March 17, 2008, KUSG became a separately programmed station from KUTV, operating as a Retro Television Network affiliate; the station estimated this switch left a small number of viewers without KUTV programming.
Initially, KUSG's RTN programming was relayed on KUBX-LP (channel 58) and KCBU (channel 3), both owned by original RTN owner Equity Media Holdings, which brought the station's programming into Salt Lake City. However, on January 4, 2009, a contract conflict between Equity and Luken Communications (which had acquired RTN in June 2008) interrupted the programming on many RTN affiliates. As a result, Luken moved RTN operations to its headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and dropped all Equity-owned affiliates, including KUBX and KCBU, immediately. KUBX and KCBU were later sold to the Daystar Television Network; KUBX is currently silent while KCBU never completed its digital transition and went off the air for good. KUSG itself was not affected (aside from the aforementioned interruption in network programming), as it is not an Equity station, but its satellite and Salt Lake City-area Comcast coverage was lost, as they received the station's programming via KUBX/KCBU.
By June 2009, KUSG had dropped RTN (which rebranded to RTV that month) for This TV; RTV has since moved to KCSG (channel 14). The station again changed affiliations on September 20, 2010, adding programming from MyNetworkTV. KUSG retained This TV programming as a secondary affiliation. This switch briefly made it one of two MyNetworkTV affiliates serving the geographically large Utah media market, along with KCSG. The call letters were changed to KMYU on November 16, 2010.
In September and early October 2011, the station aired NBC's new period drama The Playboy Club in lieu of KSL-TV (channel 5), which refused to air it due to management concerns about content and the program's promotion of Playboy magazine. The program aired at NBC's original Monday night 9 p.m. (MT) timeslot for the series on KMYU. Like Coupling in 2003 however, which KSL also declined to air and aired on the then-KUWB (channel 30, now KUCW), it only aired three episodes before the network made it the first canceled new series of the new television season.
On September 8, 2011, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced its intent to purchase Four Points from Cerberus Capital Management for $200 million; Sinclair began managing the stations, including KMYU, under local marketing agreements following antitrust approval. The deal was completed on January 3, 2012.
On January 1, 2015, This programming moved over to KSL-TV's third subchannel, with Sinclair replacing the hours programmed by This TV with traditional syndicated programming, resembling most of Sinclair's other MyNetworkTV affiliates.
Digital channels
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
Analog-to-digital conversion
KMYU shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 12, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 9, using PSIP to display KMYU's virtual channel as 12 on digital television receivers.
Programming
Outside of the MyNetworkTV schedule, Syndicated programming on KMYU includes Are We There Yet?, The Cleveland Show, and Divorce Court, among othersThe station also broadcast Real Salt Lake games and Southern Utah University sports.
Newscasts
After KUSG adopted its own separate schedule in 2008, KUTV began producing a 7 p.m. newscast for the station, titled My News at 7; the newscast delays MyNetworkTV programming on the station by one hour. In addition, KMYU also simulcasts KUTV's 10 p.m. newscast and rebroadcasts the station's 7 a.m. morning newscast, daily at 8 a.m. Plus, it also airs KUTV's own sports highlight show called Talkin' Sports, every night at 10:35 p.m. after the news. Periodic southern Utah-oriented news updates are also aired on the station.