KSTR-DT

ATSC 3.0 station
Irving–Dallas–Fort Worth, Texas United States
City	Irving, Texas
Channels	Digital: 34 (UHF) Virtual: 49
Branding	UniMás 49
Programming
Affiliations	49.1:UniMás 49.3:Court TV
Ownership
Owner	TelevisaUnivision (UniMas DallasLLC)
Sister stations	TV:KUVN-DT Radio:KQBU-FM,KDXX,KLNO
History
First air date	April 17, 1984 (41 years ago) (1984-04-17)
Former call signs	KLTJ (1984–1987) KHSX (1987–1992) KHSX-TV (1992–1999) KSTR-TV (1999–2009)
Former channel numbers	Analog: 49 (UHF, 1984–2009) Digital: 48 (UHF, 2002–2020)
Former affiliations	TBN (1984–1986) HSN (primary 1986–1999, secondary 1999–2002) Independent (1999–2002)
Call sign meaning	Lone Star State (reference to the official state nickname of Texas) K-Star (station's former branding)
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	60534
ERP	1,000kW
HAAT	517 m (1,696 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	32°32′36″N96°57′33″W / 32.54333°N 96.95917°W /32.54333; -96.95917
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.univision.com/unimas

KSTR-DT (channel 49) is atelevision station licensed toIrving, Texas, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-languageUniMás network to theDallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It isowned and operated byTelevisaUnivision alongsideUnivision outletKUVN-DT (channel 23). The two stations share studios on Bryan Street indowntown Dallas; KSTR-DT's transmitter is located inCedar Hill, Texas.

The station first signed on the air on April 17, 1984, as KLTJ-TV (the call letters stood for "Keep Looking to Jesus"). Founded by Eldred Thomas, owner of radio station KVTT-FM (91.7, nowKKXT), it originally maintained areligious programming format as an affiliate of theTrinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). In early 1986, Thomas sold the station to Silver King Broadcasting, the broadcasting arm of the Home Shopping Network (HSN). As a result of the sale, the station became an affiliate of HSN in September of that year; this left TBN without an outlet in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex for the next five months, until it launched owned-and-operated stationKDTX-TV (channel 58) in February 1987. On June 1, 1987, the station changed its call letters to KHSX (standing for "Home Shopping in Texas").

On November 27, 1995, veteran television executiveBarry Diller announced that he would acquire the Home Shopping Network and Silver King Communications, which owned HSN-affiliated stations in several other largermedia markets. The purchase was finalized on December 19, 1996, ten months after the transaction received approval by theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) on March 11.^[2][3][4][5] Two years later in 1997, HSN purchased theUSA Network, and renamed its broadcast television subsidiary asUSA Broadcasting, as part of a corporate rebranding borrowing from the identity of its new cable channel property. That year, KHSX began carrying a one-hour block of programming from business news channel Bloomberg Information Television (now simplyBloomberg Television) at 6 a.m. daily and added a block of classic children's programs on Sunday mornings.

In June 1998, USA Broadcasting launched a customizedindependent station format, "CityVision", which infused syndicated programming—including a few produced by sister production unitStudios USA that also aired nationally on USA Network—with a limited amount of local entertainment and magazine programs (reminiscent of the format used byCITY-TV inToronto and more prominently, that station's sister broadcast television properties that became charter stations ofCitytv, whenCHUM Limited expanded the format to other Canadian markets as atelevision system in 2002).^[6]

On October 15, 1999, the station changed its call letters to KSTR-TV (which were used as part of the station's branding, phonetically pronounced as "K-Star"). Channel 49 adopted the "CityVision" format first adopted the previous fall byMiami sister stationWAMI-TV on that date, converting into a general entertainment independent station; HSN programming remained part of the schedule, however it was relegated to two separate blocks, running nightly from 2 to 5:30 a.m.

KSTR's initial lineup under the "CityVision" format began to primarily feature a mix ofreality shows (such asAmerica's Funniest Home Videos andReal TV),sitcoms (such asSister, Sister,The Three Stooges,The Andy Griffith Show andNewsRadio) andtalk shows during the daytime and prime time, as well asdrama series (Knight Rider andThe A-Team) on weekend evenings, and movies—under theStar Time Movies banner—during prime time on weekends and on Sunday late afternoons. It also aired USA's original programs (such asTens—rebroadcast from its Miami sister station WAMI-TV—andStrip Poker), along with the regionallysyndicated newscastThe News of Texas. It also carried a decent lineup of children's programming on Saturday mornings, including those sourced from theBKN syndication block (such asHighlander: The Animated Series,Mighty Max,Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog,Sonic Underground,Jumanji,Pocket Dragon Adventures,Beakman's World andExtreme Dinosaurs).

During this period, KSTR served as the official station for theDallas MavericksNBA franchise. KSTR also broadcast selectFort Worth Brahmas games from the defunctWestern Professional Hockey League.^[7] The station also used the "City Vision" ("Your City is Our Studio") bumper cards common with USA-owned stations that had converted to general entertainment independents during this time. The local programming-infused format that was adopted by KSTR-DT and its sister stations inAtlanta and Miami, was originally planned to be expanded to the remainder of USA Broadcasting's stations, with some (such as WHOT-TV (nowWUVG-DT) in Atlanta and WHUB-TV (nowWUTF-DT) inBoston) having either already adopted or eventually switching to the format.

Due to financial problems, in September 2000, USA eliminated half of KSTR's entertainment programming inventory, filling the newly opened time periods with an expanded block ofinfomercials during the morning and an additional block of HSN programming on weekday mornings from 8 a.m. to noon (later reduced to a three-hour block from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. by September 2001). The station also reduced its children's programs inventory to a daily half-hour ofeducational programming (consisting of the reality-documentary seriesAnimal Rescue).

In the summer of 2000, USA Networks announced that it would sell off its television station group, in order to focus on its cable network and television production properties. Among the prospective buyers for the USA Broadcasting unit wasThe Walt Disney Company—the corporate parent ofABC, the network affiliated locally withWFAA (channel 8)—which was the original frontrunner to purchase the thirteen-station group. However, Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications beat out Disney and the competing bidders in a close race, securing a deal to purchase the USA Broadcasting stations for $1.1 billion on December 7, 2000.^[8] When the sale was finalized on May 21, 2001,^[9] KSTR became part of aduopoly withUnivision owned-and-operated stationKUVN (channel 23).

The week prior to the sale's completion, on May 15, 2001, Univision Communications announced during itsupfront presentation that it would launch a secondary television network—later announced to be named TeleFutura (now UniMás) on July 31—that would compete with Univision,Telemundo and the then-recently launchedAzteca América. Univision would utilize the former USA Broadcasting stations to serve as charter outlets of the network, which would cater to bilingual Latinos and young adult males between the ages 18 and 34 that seldom watch Spanish language television other than sporting events.^[10][11]

Univision, however, continued to maintain English language programming formats on the ten HSN affiliates (including WUTF-DT, which reaffiliated with HSN in January 2001) and three independent stations it acquired from USA Networks for fourteen months following the completion of the purchase. Despite this, the station utilized its ties to Univision on September 11, 2001, when KSTR simulcast live coverage of theterror attacks on theWorld Trade Center inNew York City andThe Pentagon inArlington, Virginia, as well as the crash ofUnited Airlines Flight 93 inShanksville, Pennsylvania, from KUVN for several days afterward, before resuming what was left of its regular English language schedule on September 18. On September 2, 2001, Channel 49 began incorporating daily, two-hour-long mini-marathons ofThe Andy Griffith Show and movies to fill part of its schedule for its final months as an English-language station.

KSTR officially converted into a Spanish language station on January 14, 2002, when it became an owned-and-operated station of TeleFutura, which initially launched on that date on 18 Univision-owned stations (including eleven of KSTR's large-market sister stations under USA Broadcasting ownership).^[12][13][14] The meager programming inventory that had occupied KSTR's schedule prior to the switch was subsequently acquired byKFWD (channel 52, now aShopHQ affiliate), which itself converted into an English-language independent station days earlier on January 1, after losing its Telemundo affiliation toKXTX-TV (channel 39) as a result of NBC/Telemundo's acquisition of that station; the local over-the-air television rights to the Mavericks were concurrently transferred to then-UPN affiliateKTXA (channel 21, now an independent station).

In January 2018,Sinclair Broadcast Group,Nexstar Media Group, andUnivision Communications announced that they reached an agreement withAmerican Tower Corporation to construct anATSC 3.0single-frequency network in Dallas.^[15][16] It was decided that Univision-owned KSTR-DT would become the test station, with Univision owned-and-operated sister station KUVN-DT, and Sinclair-operated stationKTXD-TV, providing ATSC 1.0 simulcasts of KSTR-DT's programming during the tests.^[17]

In November 2018, KSTR-DT submitted an experimentalspecial temporary authority (STA) to the FCC, to test ATSC 3.0distributed transmission system (DTS) broadcasting.^[18] The FCC granted the STA in February 2019, with testing beginning in March 2019.^[19] KSTR-DT's ATSC 3.0 DTS test consisted of four transmitters located throughout the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, all broadcasting on UHF channel 48: Cedar Hill (main transmitter),Garland,Fort Worth, andDenton.

In July 2019, KSTR-DT shut down its channel 48 transmitters as part of thebroadcast frequency repacking process following the2016-2017 FCC incentive auction, and began broadcasting from an auxiliary transmitter on its assigned displacement channel 34.^[20] DTS testing resumed after all transmitters were broadcasting on channel 34.^[21]

Due to ATSC 3.0-capable tuners not being widely available, KSTR-DT began simulcasting its programming on KUVN-DT (49.1 UniMás & 49.3 Grit) and KTXD-TV (49.2 getTV) in February 2019.

These subchannels are also rebroadcast on KUVN-CD inFort Worth, which repeats the entire KUVN multiplex, with different minor channel numbers (49.11 and 49.13, respectively).

The station's ATSC 3.0 signal carries the feeds ofKDFW, KUVN-DT, andKDAF instead of its secondary program streams:

KSTR-TV shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 49, on January 12, 2009.^[23] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 48,^[24] usingvirtual channel 49.

• ATSC 3.0 television stations
• Court TV affiliates
• Spanish-language television stations in Texas
• Television channels and stations established in 1984
• Television stations in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex
• UniMás affiliates

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