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| City | Borger, Texas |
| Channels | |
| Branding |
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| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| KFDA-TV | |
| History | |
| Founded | February 6, 1998 |
First air date | November 2, 2004 (21 years ago) (2004-11-02) |
Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | Equity Univision (original owner and affiliation) |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 83715 |
| ERP | 700kW |
| HAAT | 305 m (1,001 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 35°20′33.1″N101°49′21.2″W / 35.342528°N 101.822556°W /35.342528; -101.822556 |
| Translator(s) | KFDA-DT 10.3 (VHF) Amarillo |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
KEYU (channel 31) is atelevision station licensed toBorger, Texas, United States, serving theAmarillo area as an affiliate of the Spanish-language networkTelemundo. It is owned byGray Media alongsideCBS affiliateKFDA-TV (channel 10). The two stations share studios on Broadway Drive (just south of West Cherry Avenue) in northern Amarillo; KEYU's transmitter is located on Dumas Drive (US 87-287) and Reclamation Plant Road in rural unincorporatedPotter County.
Despite its full-power status, the station'sbroadcasting radius does not reach the entire Amarillo market (covering a 55.2-mile-wide [88.8 km] area, compared to KFDA's 75.2-mile-wide [121.0 km] signal contour). To reach portions of theTexas Panhandle that do not receive KEYU's signal adequately, if at all, KEYU issimulcast in480iwidescreenstandard definition on KFDA's third subchannel (10.3) from a separate transmitter at the KEYU/KFDA studios.
The station first signed on the air on November 2, 2004; it was founded and owned byLittle Rock–based Equity Broadcasting Corporation (laterEquity Media Holdings). KEYU originally operated as an affiliate ofUnivision, becoming the first Amarillo television station to have affiliated with theSpanish-language network. The station originally broadcast from studio facilities located on South Kentucky Street (behindI-40) on Amarillo's southwest side. Prior to the station's sign-on, Univision had previously been only receivable via local cable providers within the state (such asCox Communications in Amarillo andCanyon), which carried the Spanish language network's programming via its national feed; that feed was eventually replaced by a directfiber optic feed of KEYU—whose schedule mirrored the national feed outside of local advertising, news inserts and occasionalpaid programming substitutions—from the station's studios.
On June 25, 2008, Equity announced that it would sell KEYU and its low-power repeaters—along with Univision affiliatesKUOK inWoodward, Oklahoma (and itsOklahoma City andSulphur translators), KUTW-LP/KWKO-LP inWaco, Texas,WLZE-LP/WEVU-CA inFort Myers, Florida; andWUMN-CA inMinneapolis–Saint Paul—toLuken Communications (owned by former Equity executive Henry Luken) for $25 million, with a contingency to reduce the sale price to $17.5 million if Luken closed its purchase on all of the stations simultaneously.[2][3] That December, Equity Media Holdings filed forChapter 11 bankruptcy protection;[4] offers by Luken Communications to acquire Equity-owned stations in six markets were later withdrawn.[5] According to theRetro Television Network website, KEYU had at one point planned to add an RTN affiliate on DT3 sometime in the future. However, after Equity filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2008, Luken began to distance itself from Equity; its offers to acquire KEYU and other Equity stations were eventually withdrawn, and on January 4, 2009, RTN affiliation was removed from all Equity-owned or operated stations as a result of a commercial dispute with Luken.[6]
In 2009, KEYU and three AmarilloLPTV stations—Telefutura affiliateKAMT-LP and KEYU repeaters KEYU-LP and KEAT-LP—were put up for sale for $7.5 million, as part of a sell-off of all of Equity's stations.[7] A buyer was not found until October, whenDrewry Communications announced that it would purchase the stations, with a failing station waiver being obtained to allow KEYU to be co-owned with KFDA. The station subsequently relocated its operations to KFDA's studios on Broadway Drive in northern Amarillo. (The former KEYU studio building is now occupied by the Mewbourne Oil Company.)[8] Shortly after assuming control in 2010, Drewry dropped the station's affiliation with Univision and moved the programming ofKTMO-LP, including its Telemundo affiliation and local newscasts, to KEYU.
On August 10, 2015,Montgomery, Alabama–basedRaycom Media announced that it would purchase Drewry Communications' eight television stations as well as radio stationsKEYU-FM (102.9 FM) in Amarillo andKTXC inLamesa for $160 million. The sale was completed on December 1; as a result, KEYU became the first full-power Spanish-language television station to be owned by Raycom. (The remainder of the group's Telemundo-affiliated stations were low-power or subchannel-only outlets.)[9][10][11][12]
On June 25, 2018,Atlanta-basedGray Television announced it had reached an agreement with Raycom to merge their respective broadcasting assets (consisting of Raycom's 63 existing owned-and/or-operated television stations, including KFDA-TV and KEYU as well as Lubbock sister stationKCBD, and Gray's 93 television stations) under the former's corporate umbrella. The cash-and-stock merger transaction valued at $3.6 billion—in which Gray shareholders would acquire preferred stock currently held by Raycom—resulted in KFDA/KEYU gaining a newsister station in theOdessa–Midland market as Gray plans to retain ownership of fellow CBS affiliateKOSA-TV in exchange for selling NBC affiliateKWES-TV (which was sold to an independent company to comply with FCC ownership rules prohibiting common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market, instead KWES andWTOL inToledo, Ohio, would be sold toTegna Inc.).[13][14][15][16] The sale was approved on December 20,[17] and was completed on January 2, 2019.[18]
In August 2018, the station droppedLATV programming on its second digital subchannel and opened a third subchannel affiliating withIon Television, returning the network's programming to the Amarillo market after low-power station K39HF ceased operations in 2014.
From 2005 until May 2008, Equity Broadcasting produced Spanish-language newscasts for KEYU, titledNoticias Univision Amarillo. The twice-nightly newscasts – which aired at 5 and 10 p.m. each weeknight – consisted of a single broadcast that was repeated later in the evening. While KEYU maintained its own locally based full-time reporters and photographers at its Amarillo facility, most of the newscast segments were produced out of studios located at Equity's headquarters in Little Rock, which served as a production hub for local newscasts aired by the group's Univision-affiliated stations. As with Equity's Univision newscasts elsewhere, the program consisted of nine minutes of local news and weather segments, accompanied by pre-recorded national and international news and sports segments produced for inclusion in all of the broadcasts. As a result of corporate cutbacks spurred by the company's financial issues, Equity discontinued the newscasts it produced for all six of its Univision affiliates (including KEYU) on June 6, 2008.[19][20][21]
After becoming a sister station to KFDA-TV, KEYU restored full-scale news programming to its schedule in September 2009; the station assumed production responsibilities for its newscasts, launching weeknight-only newscasts at 5 and 10 p.m. produced at the Broadway Drive studios.
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 31.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | KEYU | Telemundo |
| 31.2 | 480i | H&I | Heroes & Icons | |
| 31.3 | KEYUOUT | Outlaw | ||
| 31.4 | ION | Ion | ||
| 31.5 | DABL | Dabl | ||
| 31.6 | StartTV | Start TV | ||
| 31.7 | DEFY | Defy TV |
As the station's originalconstruction permit was granted after theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) finalized theDTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997,[23] the station did not receive a companion channel for itsdigital signal. Instead, at the end of the digital conversion period for full-service television stations, KEYU would have been required to turn off itsanalog signal and turn on its digital signal (called a "flash-cut").
As a result of then-KEYU-owner Equity Media Holdings filing a bankruptcy relief petition under Chapter 11 of thefederal bankruptcy code on December 8, 2008, the station was required to obtain post-petition financing and court approval before digital facilities were to be constructed, and had to cease itsanalog signal onFebruary 17, 2009, regardless of whether digital facilities were operational by that date. The station filed an authority to remainsilent if required by the FCC. While theDTV Delay Act extended this deadline to June 12, 2009, Equity had applied for an extension of the digital construction permit in order to retain thebroadcast license after the station went dark. In 2011, the main KEYU signal was later added as adigital subchannel of CBS-affiliated sister station KFDA-TV for viewers in Amarillo with an over-the-air digital receiver.
Includes Spanish-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Texas | ||
| Telemundo | ||
| Estrella TV | ||
| UniMás | ||
| Univision | ||
| Latino-related | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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Includes English-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Texas | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
| Religious | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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Includes Spanish-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of New Mexico | ||
| Telemundo | ||
| Univision | ||
| UniMás | ||
| Other | ||
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Includes English-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of New Mexico | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
| Religious | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofOklahoma | ||
|---|---|---|
Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Oklahoma | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS |
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| Religious | ||
| Spanish | ||
| Other |
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