KOAT-TV

KOAT-TV
Albuquerque/Santa Fe, New Mexico
United States
City Albuquerque/Santa Fe
Branding KOAT 7 (general)
KOAT Action 7 News (newscasts)
Slogan Coverage You Can Count On
Channels Digital: 7 (VHF)
Virtual: 7 (PSIP)
Subchannels 7.1 ABC
7.2 Estrella TV
7.3 Justice Network
Owner Hearst Television, Inc.
(KOAT Hearst Television, Inc.)
First air date September 28, 1953 (1953-09-28)
Call letters' meaning COAT or KO Albuquerque Television
Former channel number(s) Analog:
7 (VHF, 1953–2009)
Digital:
21 (UHF, 2002–2009)
Former affiliations Secondary:
DuMont (1953–1955)
Transmitter power 26.5 kW
Height 1292 m
Facility ID 53928
Transmitter coordinates 35°12′53.3″N 106°27′2.7″W / 35.214806°N 106.450750°W / 35.214806; -106.450750
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Profile
CDBS
Website www.koat.com

KOAT-TV, channel 7, is an ABC network affiliated television station serving Albuquerque, New Mexico. Its transmitter is located on Sandia Crest, northeast of Albuquerque, and has studios located on Carlisle Boulevard in Northeast Albuquerque.

History

Television

KOAT signed on the air on September 28, 1953, less than a week before KGGM-TV (now KRQE). It was locally owned by Albert M. Cadwell & Walter Stiles. It first operated from studios located on Tulane Drive, just off Central Avenue in Southeast Albuquerque. The local owners sold the station to Alvarado Television (the owner of KVOA in Tucson, Arizona) in 1957,[1] Alvarado sold both stations to Steinman Stations in 1962, who owned WGAL-TV in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and later acquired WTEV (now WLNE-TV) in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The station later moved its studios to a new facility located on University Boulevard in Northeast Albuquerque.

Steinman sold both KOAT and KVOA to Pulitzer, the then-owner of KSD-TV (now KSDK) in St. Louis, in 1969.[2][3] This made KOAT Pulitzer's second television station acquisition outside of its home city of St. Louis; the KOAT acquisition was consummated a year after Pulitzer closed on its purchase of KVOA. A decade later, the other two Steinman stations were sold to Pulitzer as well, reuniting them with KOAT (KVOA was spun off in 1972).

In 1999, Pulitzer sold its entire broadcasting division, including KOAT and WGAL, to Hearst-Argyle. In mid-2009 the Hearst Corporation, already majority owner of what was Hearst-Argyle Television, bought out all of the then-publicly traded shares and changed the broadcasting group's name to Hearst Television.

KOAT uses a version of the Circle 7 logo used by many other ABC stations, both owned-and-operated stations and affiliates. The "Circle 7" logo has been used at KOAT since 1971 and the Action News title since 1974.[4]

Radio

KOAT AM went on the air in 1946 at 1450 kHz on the ABC network.[5][6]

A KOAT radio remote appears frequently in the 1951 Billy Wilder film, Ace in the Hole.[7]

1450 kHz in Albuquerque is now KRZY.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[8]
7.1 720p 16:9 KOAT-DT Main KOAT-TV programming / ABC
7.2 480i 4:3 KOAT-ET Estrella TV
7.3 KOAT-JN Justice Network[9]

KOAT has carried the Spanish language TV network Estrella TV on its second digital subchannel since it launched on September 14, 2009. On July 11, 2016 KOAT added the Justice Network featuring true crime and investigation programming and also providing alerts of local criminals who are wanted by police.

Analog-to-digital conversion

KOAT-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, 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. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 21 to VHF channel 7.[10]

Satellite stations

KOAT-TV formerly operated three satellite stations, which rebroadcast its signal and add local content for other parts of the broadcast market:

Station City of license Channels
(Digital)		 Channels
(Virtual)		 First air date Last air date Former callsigns ERP
(Digital)		 HAAT
(Digital)		 Facility ID Transmitter Coordinates
KOCT Carlsbad 19 (UHF) 6 August 24, 1956 July 18, 2012 KAVE-TV (1956–1987)
KVIO-TV (1987–1993)		 15 kW 333 m 53908 32°47′38″N 104°12′29″W / 32.79389°N 104.20806°W / 32.79389; -104.20806 (KOCT)
KOFT1 Farmington 8 (VHF) 3 2002 November 2007 40 kW 165.9 m 53904 36°40′17″N 108°13′52.7″W / 36.67139°N 108.231306°W / 36.67139; -108.231306 (KOFT)
KOVT Silver City 10 (VHF) 10 September 19872 July 18, 2012 KWNM-TV (1987–1992) 3.2 kW 485 m 53911 32°51′46″N 108°14′28″W / 32.86278°N 108.24111°W / 32.86278; -108.24111 (KOVT)

Notes:

KOCT, formerly KAVE-TV and KVIO-TV, became part of the KOAT-TV operation in 1993 after previously serving as a satellite of El Paso ABC affiliate KVIA-TV.[11] The Carlsbad station began in 1956 as KAVE-TV, a CBS/NTA Film Network[12] affiliate with studio and transmitter facilities on Church Street in Carlsbad. In 1966, when Roswell, New Mexico station KBIM-TV became the CBS affiliate for southeastern New Mexico, KAVE became a satellite station of then-ABC affiliate KMOM-TV in Monahans, Texas (now NBC affiliate KWES-TV, Midland-Odessa, Texas) and then of KVIA-TV in El Paso in 1976.

Hearst-Argyle surrendered the license of KOFT to the FCC on November 13, 2007,[13] though its license was not canceled until May 5, 2010.[14] Hearst then informed the FCC on July 18, 2012 that it would discontinue the operations of KOCT and KOVT; their licenses were canceled on August 1.[15][16] The move was made to eliminate the need to maintain the KOCT and KOVT public files in their respective cities due to FCC regulations which went into effect on that date; both stations were promptly replaced with KOAT translator stations on the same channels to continue providing service to both cities.[17]

In addition, there are several low-powered repeaters that carry KOAT's programming throughout New Mexico, northeastern Arizona and southern Colorado.

Programming

Syndicated programming on KOAT includes: Entertainment Tonight, Ellen, The Dr. Oz Show, and Live! with Kelly and Michael.

News operation

Ordinarily, KOAT produces just over four hours of local news each weekday, and 4½ hours each on Saturdays and Sundays. Up until sometime in the 2000s, it produced newscasts at noon. The station's newscasts, known as Action 7 News, have led the ratings in New Mexico for over 30 years. Weather forecaster Howard Morgan worked at KOAT for 28 years before retiring in 1999.

KOAT is also one of six ABC affiliates and one of three Hearst-owned ABC stations to have an hour-long 10 p.m. newscast, along with KITV in Honolulu and WISN in Milwaukee; as well as KRGV in Weslaco, Texas, KSTP in Saint Paul, Minnesota, KIFI in Idaho Falls, Idaho and WEAR in Pensacola, Florida.

Upon its current ownership by Hearst (then Hearst-Argyle) in 1999, KOAT rolled out a new set and began using the then-current Hearst mandated graphics and "Image News" theme music package around December of that year. Then in 2004, Image News was dropped in favor of Jerome Gilmer's Hearst-Argyle TV News Music Package. Another new set was introduced in September 2008. Currently, KOAT doesn't broadcast in high definition. However, on June 13, 2010, the station began airing its newscasts in 16:9 widescreen standard definition. Finally in August 2013, KOAT switched to the new Hearst TV standardized graphics along with the Strive news music package.

References

  1. ↑ KOAT Purchase is for $12,500 Plus Its Debts, Albuquerque Tribune (Albuquerque, NM) Jan. 12, 1957 pg. 1-2
  2. ↑ "$20 million in TV sales approved." Broadcasting, May 12, 1969, pg. 48.
  3. ↑ FCC Approves KOAT-TV Sale For $5 million, Albuquerque Journal (Albuquerque, NM) May 9, 1969 pg. F8
  4. ↑ Advertisement: Albuquerque Tribune (Albuquerque, NM), Aug. 19, 1974 pg. A-9
  5. ↑ US Network-Affiliated AM Radio Stations, 1949
  6. ↑ Directory of AM, FM and TV Stations of the US
  7. ↑ Radio truck seen in Ace in the Hole, IMCDb
  8. ↑ RabbitEars TV Query for KOAT
  9. ↑ http://www.justicenetworktv.com/find-justice/
  10. ↑ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-03-24.
  11. ↑ KOAT to buy Carlsbad station, Roswell Daily Record (Roswell, NM) May 28, 1993 pg. 27
  12. ↑ "Require Prime Evening Time for NTA Films", Boxoffice: 13, November 10, 1956
  13. ↑ KOFT-DT request to FCC to cease operation
  14. ↑ Pendarvis, Clay C. (May 5, 2010). "Re: KOFT, Farmington, New Mexico" (PDF). CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved August 9, 2012.
  15. ↑ Harding, Kevin R. (August 1, 2012). "In Re: BLCDT-20090616ABK" (PDF). CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved August 9, 2012.
  16. ↑ Harding, Kevin R. (August 1, 2012). "In Re: BLCDT-20090616ABR" (PDF). CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. Retrieved August 9, 2012.
  17. ↑ "Request for Waiver of Filing Freeze" (PDF). CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. July 7, 2011. Retrieved August 12, 2012.

External links

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