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| City | El Paso, Texas |
| Channels | |
| Branding | UniMás El Paso - Las Cruces |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
First air date | June 22, 1991 (1991-06-22) |
Former call signs |
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Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | Telefutura Network (former name of UniMás) |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 68753 |
| ERP | 1,000kW |
| HAAT | 524 m (1,719 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 31°48′18.9″N106°29′0.7″W / 31.805250°N 106.483528°W /31.805250; -106.483528 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
KTFN (channel 65) is atelevision station inEl Paso, Texas, United States, affiliated with the Spanish-language networkUniMás. It is owned byEntravision Communications alongsideUnivision affiliateKINT-TV (channel 26). The two stations share studios on North Mesa Street/Highway 20 in northwest El Paso; KTFN's transmitter is located atop theFranklin Mountains on the El Paso city limits.
The station first signed on the air with a livePetra concert on June 22, 1991, as KJLF-TV, which stood for "King Jesus Lives Forever". It originally served as anEnglish-language outlet, formatted asreligiousindependent station. The station was founded by Sara Warren and Pete E. Meryl Warren III—who had signed on KCIK-TV (channel 14, nowKFOX-TV) in August 1979—and was run by the Warren family, with John Warren serving as the station manager. Initially, KJLF-TV ran mostlyChristian-oriented programs mixed with several hours ofsecular programs such as sporting and hunting shows,westerns, some oldersitcoms,public domainmovies and low-budget bartercartoons. The original prime time lineup includedRemington Steele,21 Jump Street andLou Grant. Gradually, the religious programming decreased and was replaced with more classic sitcoms and cartoons, causing the station to evolve into a more traditional independent. One notable original employee, Keith Leitch, began working in June 1991 at the age of 16 years old in master control and went on to start One Ministries, Inc., which purchased a full power TV station in the San Francisco TV market,KQSL.
KJLF became a charter affiliate ofThe WB upon the network's launch on January 11, 1995. The station was sold to White Knight Broadcasting in 1998. After KMAZ (channel 48, nowKTDO) dropped its affiliation withUPN and switched toTelemundo in January 16 of that year, KJLF began carrying UPN programming as a secondary affiliation and acquired many of the syndicated programs that were part of KMAZ's inventory. On March 1, 1998, its call letters were changed to KKWB (in reference to the station's WB affiliation).
The station was sold to theEntravision Communications Corporation in 2001; White Knight had originally agreed to sell KKWB toUnivision Communications, who assigned their right to acquire the station to Entravision that October.[2] The sale was opposed by The WB, who filed alawsuit seeking to block the sale and the concurrent sale ofKilleen sister stationKAKW to Univision, as KKWB's contract with The WB was not slated to expire until January 11, 2005, and the terms of the sales called for both stations to drop their WB affiliations in favor of Spanish-language programming supplied by Univision.[3] On January 29, 2002, the station became an affiliate of TeleFutura (the forerunner of UniMás) and changed its callsign to KTFN in reflection of its new affiliation. After the switch, WB and UPN network programming in El Paso was provided on cable via their networks' flagship stations inLos Angeles; WB network programming was only available viaKTLA, while UPN programming was only available viaKCOP-TV—both of which were carried onTime Warner Cable in the area—for the remainder of their runs. This switch left southern New Mexico without a WB affiliate until February 2003, when KRWB-TV (a satellite ofKWBQ) began broadcasting (albeit only to the southeastern portion of that state). The WB and UPN ceased operations in September 2006 and merged their programming as part of ajoint venture betweenCBS Corporation andTime Warner to formThe CW, whose affiliate isKVIA-TV (channel 7), which carries the network'sCW Plus feed on its second digital subchannel.
The station's digital signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 65.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | Unimas | UniMás |
| 65.2 | 480i | TruCrme | True Crime Network | |
| 65.3 | Quest | Quest | ||
| 65.4 | EEE-TV | EEE Network | ||
| 65.88 | 1080i | AltaVsn | AltaVision |
On July 8, 2012, KTFN announced that it would begin airing newfound TeleFutura competitor MundoFox (laterMundoMax) on digital subchannel 65.2, when the network formally launched on August 13, 2012. However, the station began carrying the network upon MundoFox's soft launch two weeks earlier on August 1.
KTFN shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 65, at noon on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 51,[5] usingvirtual channel 65.
After regular programming was discontinued on its analog signal, the station, as well as sister station KINT-TV, transmitted a repeatedcrawl in Spanish informing viewers about the digital transition and advising viewers of their options to continue receiving programming, which ran until KINT permanently ceased analog transmissions at 11:59 p.m.
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 Spanish-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of New Mexico | ||
| Telemundo | ||
| Univision | ||
| UniMás | ||
| Other | ||
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