City Bellevue, Washington Affiliations .1: Univision
.2: TBD | Branding Univision Seattle | |
Channels Digital: 50 (UHF)
Virtual: 51 (PSIP) Translators 20 (Wave Broadband)
(see article) Owner Sinclair Broadcast Group
(Sinclair Seattle Licensee, LLC) | ||
KUNS-TV "Univision Seattle" is a full-power commercial television station licensed to Bellevue, Washington. As an affiliate of the Univision Spanish-language network, this station serves the entire Seattle-Tacoma, Washington metropolitan area. The station is owned and operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group as part of a duopoly with the area's ABC affiliate KOMO-TV. Sinclair also owns ABC affiliate KATU and Univision affiliate KUNP in neighboring Portland, Oregon. KUNS is also one of only two television stations with the Univision network affiliation alongside network owned and operated WQHS-TV in Cleveland, Ohio in or near Canadian bordering markets.
Contents
Technical information
The station's digital broadcasts on channel 50 with an ERP of 240 kilowatts. Its transmitter is situated atop West Tiger Mountain — which is also known as West Tiger #3 and in turn is located near Interstate 90 and State Route 18 on the outer fringe of the Seattle metropolis. Its transmitter measures about 2,358.92 feet (or 719 m) above the average terrain level, and because of this the station can be received through many areas of Western Washington. Previously locally owned and operated and at one point being minority owned, the station was sold to Fisher Communications on September 29, 2006. [1]
Digital channels
The station's digital channel is multiplexed:
Analog-to-digital conversion
KUNS-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 51, 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 50, using PSIP to display KUNS-TV's virtual channel as 51 on digital television receivers.
History
On February 10, 1988, the Federal Communications Commission issued a construction permit for television station KBEH. However, channel 51 would not begin its broadcasting operation until August 8, 1999, transmitting programs from the ValueVision Network, which became ShopNBC in 2001 after NBC (now part of NBC Universal) acquired a 37% ownership stake in that network. In December 2000, the station would change its call letters to KWOG. On October 31, 2006, the station would change its call letters one more time, this time to the current KUNS-TV. On January 1, 2007, it rang in the year by going from broadcasting home retail programs to broadcasting Hispanic programming as a Univision affiliate almost instantly, providing viewers with programs such as Sabado Gigante, Despierta América and El Gordo y La Flaca, in addition to an assortment of telenovelas, along with many other programs. The station also started its own local newscast, Noticias Noroeste with Jaime Méndez and Roxy de la Torre. The newscast originates from a studio at KOMO Plaza (formerly Fisher Plaza) in Seattle.
On August 21, 2012, Fisher Communications signed an affiliation agreement with MundoFox, a Spanish-language competitor to Univision that is owned as a joint venture between Fox International Channels and Colombian broadcaster RCN TV, for KUNS and Portland sister station KUNP to be carried on both stations as digital subchannels starting in late September. On April 11, 2013, Fisher announced that it would sell its properties, including KUNS-TV, to the Sinclair Broadcast Group. The deal was completed on August 8, 2013.
Availability on cable and satellite
"Must-carry" regulations imposed by the Federal Communications Commission require most cable television providers across western Washington to carry KUNS on their lineups. In the past under Equity ownership, the station was not available on all cable systems, as many of these providers were under carriage agreements for the national cable feed for the network, which allowed them control of several minutes throughout the day of local commercial time that would not be available if they instead carried KUNS. Equity traditionally depended completely on must-carry to bring their stations to cable providers, and the same was the case with KUNS before the sale of the station to Fisher. Retransmission consent agreements for providers in the Seattle market made after Sinclair's purchase of the station effectively made carriage of KUNS compulsory to carry KOMO-TV (along with its subchannels), though some smaller systems with a low Spanish-speaking population have been given a waiver from KUNS carriage.
KUNS is available on satellite television through DirecTV on channel 45 in Tacoma, and is also available on Dish Network channels 51 and 8624 — the network's national East and West Coast feeds are also still available to satellite customers.
Also, neither the station nor the network is available on cable or satellite systems in Canada. This is because the CRTC did not approve the network or any of its affiliates to be aired on cable/satellite systems for Canadian audiences. This was eventually rectified as Telelatino's all-Spanish network, launched on October 23, 2007 with Univision content, was relaunched with a brand licensing agreement with Univision as Univision Canada on May 5, 2014.
Call sign history
This is the station's call sign history according to the FCC. [2]
Translators
KUNS also has three translator stations, serving the Yakima-Walla Walla-Pasco-Richland-Kennewick market of Eastern Washington. All of these stations are owned and operated by Fisher Communications as of 2007.
At one point, KUNS had a fourth translator, KWWA-CA channel 49, which served Ellensburg. However, its license was canceled on June 4, 2008.