City Baytown, Texas Subchannels (see article) | Branding The KUBE Affiliations Independent | |
Channels Digital: 41 (UHF)
Virtual: 57 (PSIP) Owner NRJ TV, LLC
(NRJ TV Houston License Co., LLC) | ||
KUBE-TV, virtual channel 57 (UHF digital channel 41), is an independent television station serving Houston, Texas, United States that is licensed to the suburb of Baytown. The station is owned by NRJ TV, LLC and managed by Titan Broadcast Management. KUBE maintains studio facilities located on Fountain View Drive and Burgoyne Road on the southwest side of Houston, and its transmitter is located at the Richland Transmission Tower in Missouri City.
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Early history
The station first signed on the air on May 18, 1988 under the callsign KLTJ; it was founded by Eldred Thomas, who had earlier built radio station KVTT-FM (now KKXT) and television station KLTJ (now KSTR-TV) in Dallas. The station originally operated from studios located in Pasadena and a tower in Anahuac, and initially aired religious programs from a variety of sources, including the PTL Satellite Network, Christian Television Network and the Three Angels Broadcasting Network. The low-power signal and distance from Houston led to reception issues in the northern and western portions of the city; as a result, on May 18, 1989, Thomas moved the KLTJ programming and call letters to channel 22 on a tower based in Alvin. With the move of the KLTJ calls to channel 22, channel 57 changed its callsign to KRTW. It later changed its call letters to KVVV (a callsign formerly used on now-defunct channel 16 from 1968 to 1969) in 1994, when it switched to home shopping programming from Valuevision; it then became a FamilyNet affiliate as KAZH in 2000.
During its time as KAZH, the station was rebroadcast in Houston on translators KHMV-CA (channel 28) and KVVV-LP (channel 53); both of these translators were taken off the air in November 2007, due to owner Pappas Telecasting's ongoing financial problems (KHMV-CA was sold to Uniglobe Central America Network LLC on March 10, 2010, and currently broadcasts under the call sign KUGB-CD; KVVV-LP was spun off to a liquidation trust and returned to the air in digital format in January 2012).
As a Spanish-language station
In 2002, KAZH affiliated with Spanish-language network Azteca América. Early in 2007, then-owner Pappas Telecasting terminated KAZH's affiliation agreement with Azteca América, effective July 1. Azteca América programming moved to a low-powered station, KUVM-CA; and later, to another full-powered station, KYAZ (channel 51) on date to June 30, 2007. KAZH then joined Pappas' independent Spanish-language network, TuVisión.[1]
On May 10, 2008, thirteen of Pappas' stations, including KAZH, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Pappas cited "the extremely difficult business climate for television stations across the country" in papers filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware. Pappas was later ordered on September 10, 2008 that the affected stations must be sold off by February 15, 2009. In January 2009, the Pappas stations involved in the bankruptcy auction, including KAZH, were sold to New World TV Group, after the sale received bankruptcy court approval. On October 22, 2009, KAZH became the first affiliate of VasalloVision, a new network founded by Carlos Vasallo and Miguel Banojian; this followed the closure of TuVisión.
As an English-language independent station
Citing a larger advertising market, the station changed to an English-language general entertainment independent format on September 27, 2010. The station's call sign changed to KUBE-TV on the same date.
On January 18, 2013, NRJ TV announced that it would acquire KUBE-TV from New World TV Group for $19 million, as part of a two-station deal that also included San Francisco sister station KTNC-TV; following the sale's consummation, Titan Broadcast Management continues to operate the station.
Digital channels
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
During the 2011 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, KUBE added programming from PegasusTV on subchannel 57.4; this was replaced by MeTV in 2012. Cozi TV was added to 57.5 on May 23, 2013.
Analog-to-digital conversion
KUBE-TV (as KAZH) discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 57, 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 UHF channel 41, using PSIP to display KUBE-TV's virtual channel as 57 on digital television receivers, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition.
Programming
Syndicated programming seen on KUBE include The Doctors, The Middle, King of the Hill, The King of Queens, Everybody Loves Raymond, Seinfeld, Cougar Town, Hot Bench, Lauren Lake's Paternity Court, Judge Faith, Forensic Files, Justice with Judge Mablean, Bridezillas, Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen, Community, Family Guy, and American Dad!. The station also carries NCAA college football and basketball games from Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). As of the 2017 season, KUBE is the home of the MLS club Houston Dynamo.