| ATSC 3.0 station | |
|---|---|
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| Channels | |
| Branding | KJZZ 14 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| KUTV,KMYU | |
| History | |
First air date | February 14, 1989 (36 years ago) (1989-02-14) |
Former call signs | KXIV (1988–1993) |
Former channel number(s) |
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Call sign meaning | Formerly co-owned with theUtah Jazz |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 36607 |
| ERP | 312kW |
| HAAT | 1,258.8 m (4,130 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 40°39′33″N112°12′10″W / 40.65917°N 112.20278°W /40.65917; -112.20278 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | kjzz |
KJZZ-TV (channel 14) is anindependent television station inSalt Lake City, Utah, United States. It is owned bySinclair Broadcast Group alongsideCBS affiliateKUTV (channel 2) andMyNetworkTV affiliateKMYU (channel 12) inSt. George. The stations share studios on South Main Street indowntown Salt Lake City; KJZZ-TV's transmitter is located onFarnsworth Peak in theOquirrh Mountains, southwest of Salt Lake City. KJZZ-TV is theATSC 3.0 (Next Gen TV) host station for the Salt Lake City market; in turn, other stations broadcast its subchannels on its behalf.
The station went on the air as KXIV in 1989. It was the second successful attempt at an independent station for the Salt Lake City area. In 1993,Larry H. Miller, the then-owner of theUtah Jazz of theNBA, purchased the station and renamed it KJZZ-TV; it also became the new TV home of the basketball team for 16 seasons. During Miller's ownership, the station affiliated for five years withUPN, with the station's decision not to renew leading to accusations of racism against management; in the latter years, operations and programming were outsourced in turn to two other Salt Lake stations.
Sinclair purchased KJZZ-TV from the Miller family in 2016; the station airs syndicated programming and local newscasts from KUTV. In 2023, pre-season and regular season Jazz games returned to the station under a new rights agreement between current Jazz ownerRyan Smith and Sinclair.
An originalconstruction permit was granted by theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) on December 6, 1984, to American Television of Utah, Inc., a subsidiary of Salt Lake City–basedAmerican Stores Company, for a full-power television station on UHF channel 14 to serve Salt Lake City and the surrounding area. American Stores had filed for the construction permit in 1979; its original intention for the station was to broadcastsubscription television programming, as it would eventually do on a microwave distribution system known as American Home Theatre. In 1981, Skaggs Telecommunications Services, a division of American Stores, had built a studio facility to house its various divisions, including the planned television station.[2] The construction permit took the call letters KAHT.[3]
By the time the construction permit was awarded, however, STV had fallen out of favor. Instead, in late 1986, American reached a deal with theGrant Broadcasting System, which had started new independent television stations inChicago,Miami, andPhiladelphia, to form a joint venture which would run channel 14.[4] The construction permit took the call letters KGBS in November 1986,[5] the same month that the general manager of the Miami station mentioned the agreement in an interview withThe Miami News.[6] Grant, however, was headed for its own problems, filing not long after for bankruptcy reorganization.[4] The joint venture never came to fruition; channel 14 was renamed again on February 29, 1988, to KXIV (representing theRoman numeral for 14); and American Television took up the task of building the station. Transmission tests began in January 1989 from a transmitter on Little Farnsworth Peak,[7] and KXIV began broadcasting programming on February 14 as "Real TV", broadcasting a general entertainment lineup.[8] "Real TV" cast itself as an alternative to the programming offered by Salt Lake's existing television stations, emphasizing classic shows.[9]
Changes elsewhere in the Salt Lake television landscape would change the future—and the name—of KXIV.KSTU, which had recently been purchased byFox itself, was on its last season of a multi-year deal to broadcast 25 games of the NBA'sUtah Jazz. Motivated by Fox's expanding offerings and the network's impending move to programming all seven nights of the week, KSTU and theFox Television Stations Group had telegraphed to Jazz ownerLarry H. Miller that it would not renew its deal, leaving the Jazz without a broadcast television partner for the1993–94 season.[10] As a result, Miller bought KXIV in a transaction totaling nearly $9 million,[10] with $1.725 million going toward the license.[11] Miller set about making channel 14 a higher-profile station centered on sports coverage, with the Jazz, the high-level minor league hockeySalt Lake Golden Eagles (which Miller also owned and who already had several games a year on channel 14), and syndicated coverage of the expansionColorado Rockies as the nuclei.[12] The call letters changed to KJZZ on June 14,[13] afterthe NPR member station in Phoenix agreed and after the conclusion of the NBA playoffs; Miller financed the construction of new translators to bring KJZZ's signal to outlying communities in Utah and eastern Nevada.[14]
When he said ethnic, I don't think he meant ethnic Albanians.
In November 1993, KJZZ affiliated with the upstartUnited Paramount Network,[16] which began broadcasting in January 1995. The relationship would last more than five years, but changes in UPN's programming mix—which includedBlack-focusedsitcoms on Monday and Tuesday evenings, along withWWF SmackDown on Thursdays in the peak of the boundary-pushingAttitude Era—sat uncomfortably with station management and generated a response that drew national attention. In October 2000, KJZZ opted out of its affiliation agreement, and the network announced it would move its programs toKAZG, then a small home shopping station based inOgden, in January 2001. In explaining its rationale for the change, KJZZ station manager Randy Rigby noted that channel 14 was "uncomfortable with programming content and the lack of performance, financially, in this area" and called some of the network's programming "over the edge of cutting edge".[17] However, while UPN objected to network preemptions for Jazz games and KJZZ sought continued network compensation at a time when it was being phased out, underperformance was not the only evident reason for KJZZ's desire to disaffiliate. The network's chief operations officer, Adam Ware, revealed that KJZZ had sent a letter asking for an opt-out clause "should UPN increase the urban/ethnic programming above the current two hours" per week—evidently referring to UPN's Monday night lineup of programming for a predominantly Black audience, which was allegedly underperforming on its schedule. Rigby also cited the underperformance of the raunchy one-season sitcomShasta McNasty and the single-demographically focusedSmackDown as advertiser-repellent.[17][15] Even before the dispute, KJZZ barely promoted UPN shows and de-emphasized its UPN affiliation in its branding, in violation of terms requiring UPN affiliates to prominently brand with the network.[18]
In the fall of 2005, KJZZ entered into alocal marketing agreement (LMA) with KUTV, then owned by CBS. As a result, second runs of shows likeDr. Phil,Wheel of Fortune andJeopardy! were added to the schedule, as well as newscasts from KUTV.[19] KJZZ also affiliated withMyNetworkTV, launched byNews Corporation in 2006; however, KJZZ ran the network's programming ontape delay from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. initially (instead of the recommended 7–9 p.m. timeslot for theMountain Time Zone), before later moving it to midnight–2 a.m.[20]
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KJZZ dropped MyNetworkTV and became an independent station again on August 18, 2008. The MyNetworkTV affiliation then moved toSt. George-basedKCSG, which reached the Salt Lake City area via coverage on local cable television providers.[21]
Over the course of the late 2000s, KJZZ-TV moved all operations from the original Skaggs facility west ofSalt Lake City International Airport and into theEnergySolutions Arena downtown, selling off the facility in 2010.[22] It also tried its hand at local programs such asThe KJZZ Cafe andHome Team, but those efforts were axed in late 2008 due to poor viewership and revenues.[23]
Larry H. Miller died on February 20, 2009; his son, Greg Miller, had taken over as CEO of the Larry H. Miller Group of Companies several months earlier.[24] FCC records show a transfer of 48% ownership of the station to a trust to which Larry Miller's widow,Gail Miller, was trustee, in April 2009. Thus, Gail Miller directly owned 48% of the station, with Larry Miller's sons holding the remainder.[25] After the LMA between KJZZ and KUTV concluded in 2010, KSL-TV ownerBonneville International began managing KJZZ under a new agreement.[26]
On April 4, 2016, Larry H. Miller Communications Corporation agreed to sell KJZZ-TV and eight translators toSinclair Broadcast Group for $6.5 million.[27][28] The sale was completed on June 17, 2016;[29] concurrently, the station's relationship with Bonneville and KSL-TV ended, as KJZZ had become a sister station to KUTV and KMYU.[30]
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The first local newscasts on channel 14 were produced under agreement withKSL-TV, in the form of a local 9 p.m. newscast that aired from October 21, 1991, to September 18, 1992. This was Salt Lake's first newscast in the timeslot, beating KSTU's news to air by more than two months, and the first news share of its kind in the Mountain Time Zone; it was canceled due to low ratings.[31]
In September 2005, KUTV began producing weekday morning 9 a.m. and nightly 9 p.m. newscasts for KJZZ-TV. The newscasts were canceled after nearly five years on May 31, 2010.[32]
On January 9, 2017, KUTV launched the 8 a.m. hour of its morning newscast for KJZZ. The latter also added a simulcast of KMYU's 7 p.m. newscast and a revival of the 9 p.m. newscast, marking the return of the partnership between KUTV and KJZZ for the first time in nearly 7 years when the LMA broke off in 2010. The 7 a.m. hour moved from KUTV to KJZZ in 2018 when a new affiliation agreement required KUTV to clear the entirety ofCBS This Morning.[33]
From1993 to2009, KJZZ was the over-the-air broadcaster of Utah Jazz regular seasonNBA games. The Utah Jazz signed a new exclusive 12-year agreement with the localregional sports network (RSN), FSN Utah (nowAT&T SportsNet Utah) on October 20, 2009, months after Larry H. Miller's death, ending the team's broadcasts on KJZZ-TV and making the team's telecasts cable-exclusive.[34] At the time, the deal provided substantially more income to the team before the streaming age and newerstreaming television providers unwilling to carry such channels due to high channel costs began to make the RSN funding model untenable. The Jazz continued with AT&T SportsNet on one-year agreements for two years after the 12-year deal expired.[35]
On June 20, 2023, with the announcement that AT&T SportsNet would wind down its operations, the team also announced a return to KJZZ-TV for the2023–24 season, with current team ownerSmith Entertainment Group starting a new in-house production division, SEG Media, to produce the telecasts. Sinclair retains the right to carry select telecasts on KUTV, and KUTV will maintain an "official station" relationship with the team, allowing more coverage of the Jazz and its players. The deal will also include a streaming service created byKiswe called "Jazz+", which does not involve Sinclair or KJZZ-TV.[35][36]
KJZZ-TV began a partnership with theUniversity of Utah athletic department in 1995, broadcasting Utesmen's andwomen's basketball games, as well as fivefootball games a year.[12] While the arrangement ended when theMountainWest Sports Network was formed, KJZZ had Utes football rights in the 2011 season, between the Utes leaving for thePac-12 Conference and the 2012 establishment of thePac-12 Network.[37] Since2023, KJZZ has aired selectfootball games involvingUtah State University not picked up for national television.[38]
In 2025, KJZZ announced an agreement to air games featuring theUtah Warriors ofMajor League Rugby.[39]
KJZZ-TV is Salt Lake City'sATSC 3.0 television station, launching Next Gen TV broadcasts on June 30, 2020, in association with KUTV and theNexstar Media Group stations in the market, KTVX andKUCW; the main feeds of all four stations are carried on the ATSC 3.0 multiplex.[40]
KJZZ-TV provides three subchannels, which are carried in ATSC 1.0 format on the multiplexes of the other stations participating in the ATSC 3.0 arrangement.
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming | ATSC 1.0 host |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | KJZZ-HD | Main KJZZ-TV programming | KUCW |
| 14.3 | 480i | TBD | TBD | KTVX | |
| 14.5 | Dabl | Dabl |
| Channel | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|
| 2.1 | KUTV | CBS (KUTV) |
| 2.10 | T2 | T2 |
| 2.11 | PBTV | Pickleballtv |
| 4.1 | KTVX | ABC (KTVX) |
| 14.1 | KJZZ | Main KJZZ-TV programming |
| 30.1 | KUCW | The CW (KUCW) |
KJZZ-TV shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 14, on June 12, 2009, as part of thefederally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[44] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 46[45] until 2018, when it relocated its signal to channel 19 as a result of the2016 United States wireless spectrum auction.[46]
KJZZ-TV extends its coverage throughout the entire state of Utah, plus parts ofIdaho andNevada, using an extensive network of primarily community-ownedtranslator television stations listed below.[47]
Note: In ATSC 1.0 format, the KJZZ subchannels are carried on translators of the three stations that host them. These translators listed KJZZ-TV or themselves as their program source as of 2022.
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