City Rio Grande City, Texas Affiliations Telemundo (O&O) | Subchannels (see article) | |
Branding Telemundo 40
(general; read as "Telemundo Cuarenta")
Noticias Telemundo 40 (newscasts) Channels Digital: 40 (UHF)
Virtual: 40 (PSIP) Translators 22 (UHF) Harlingen, Texas
43 (UHF) Rio Grande City, Texas | ||
KTLM, channel 40, is a Telemundo owned-and-operated television station licensed to Rio Grande City, Texas, serving the Rio Grande Valley. Founded September 1, 1994, the station is owned by the NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations subsidiary of NBCUniversal. KTLM maintains studio facilities located in the Texas State Bank building in McAllen, and its transmitter is located near Rio Grande City.
Contents
History
The station was originally licensed under the call KAIO with the intention of being a non-commercial station promoting tourism in the Rio Grande Valley. That idea, however, was later abandoned. KAIO changed its calls to KTLM and picked up the Telemundo affiliation from XHRIO, which had struggled with signal strength in the western parts of the Lower Rio Grande Valley. The station went on the air in the summer of 1999.
The station was previously owned by Sunbelt Multimedia, a division of the Starr Camargo Bridge Company, unrelated to Sunbelt Communications Company until 2012. On September 10, 2012, station owner Sunbelt Media put up KTLM for sale, with Patrick Communications managing partner Larry Patrick named to run the station in receivership. Documents have been forwarded to the FCC to officially put the station under Patrick’s control. His media company will try to earn enough money to repay creditors of Sunbelt Multimedia. A year later, a deal was reached to sell KTLM to Telemundo Rio Grande Valley LLC, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal; this will make the station a Telemundo owned-and-operated station. The sale was finalized on December 31.
Digital channels
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
Analog-to-digital conversion
KTLM shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 40, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate.
News operation
KTLM launched a news department in 2003, with a 5pm and 10pm newscast on weeknights. The original anchor was Yolanda de la Cruz; in 2010, Dalia Garza was promoted from health reporter to main anchor.
After NBC's purchase, local news was expanded, with new weekend newscasts; a 9am morning show titled Buenos Días Frontera; in-house weather production with two new weather presenters; and a new public affairs program, Enfoque McAllen. On September 2, 2014 it debuted a new anchor team adding a co-anchor for Dalia Garza and adding a new weather anchor to replace Marlen Sosa who left two months ago with Elizabeth Robaina and an updated set re-titled back to Noticias Telemundo 40 from Noticiero Telemundo 40 and Noticias 40 Telemundo. On November 3, 2014 along with 14 other stations owned to NBCUniversal and Telemundo it launched a new 4:30PM newscast moving Al Rojo Vivo to 3:00PM and Lo Mejor De Caso Cerrado to half hour at 4:00PM then making the new 4:30PM extra half hour newscast before the 5PM newscast which would make an hour 4:30PM to 5:30PM. On May 26, 2016 The station launch a Consumer Investigative Unit Franchise called "Telemundo Responde", led by anchor and reporter Ana Cecilia Méndez who returned from Maternity Leave, and furthermore she bumped off her weekend anchor desk for this new role. [1]
Notable Former on-air staff
Daniel Tuccio - Anchored morning briefs during Un Nuevo Día and was a general assignment reporter for the weekday evening newscast.