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| City | El Paso, Texas |
| Channels | |
| Branding | KTSM 9;KTSM 9 News |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
First air date | January 4, 1953 (72 years ago) (1953-01-04) |
Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | Tri-State Music or Tri-State Media |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 67760 |
| ERP | 250kW |
| HAAT | 577 m (1,893 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 | |
| Website | www |
KTSM-TV (channel 9) is atelevision station inEl Paso, Texas, United States, affiliated withNBC and owned byNexstar Media Group. The station's studios are located on Oregon Street (nearEl Paso Community College) in northwest El Paso, and its transmitter is located atop theFranklin Mountains on the El Paso city limits.
The station firstsigned on the air on January 4, 1953. KTSM-TV was the second television station in the El PasoTV market, behind KROD-TV (channel 4, nowKDBC-TV), which debuted in December 1952.[2] KTSM-TV was owned by Tri-State Broadcasting, a nod to theU.S. states of Texas andNew Mexico and theMexican state ofChihuahua.[3] Channel 9 was co-owned withKTSM radio (then on1380 AM, now at 690 AM) and 99.9KTSM-FM. (The two radio stations are both now owned byiHeartMedia.)
Thecall sign stood for the company's original name, "Tri-State Music". The meaning has since changed to Tri-State Media. KTSM-TV claimed itsbroadcast tower at Ranger Peak, located within theFranklin Mountains, was the tallestVHF transmission tower in Texas, standing at 2,000 feet (610 m) above downtown El Paso, and 5,990 feet (1,830 m) above sea level.
Tri-State Broadcasting was controlled by El Paso broadcast pioneer Karl O. Wyler (1906-1990), who signed on KTSM (AM) in 1930. Wyler built the El Paso Aerial Tramway in the early 1960s to allow his staff to maintain the transmitters at Ranger Peak. The tramway was open to the public until the 1980s, when insurance laws in Texas made carrying people who were not employees too costly. Wyler owned the station until his death in 1990, and donated his controlling stake in Tri-State Broadcasting to the El Paso Community Foundation. In 1991, the Foundation hired Richard E. Pearson, who served as station manager atABC affiliateKVIA-TV (channel 7) at the time, to run the operations of the radio and television stations. Under Pearson's leadership, KTSM-TV flourished, and became a dominant force in the market, until the stations were sold toCommunications Corporation of America in 1998.
Among KTSM-TV's most famous personalities was Ted Bender (1925–2013), who hosted numerous shows on the station including the local version of theDialing for Dollars, which aired weekdays at 10:05 a.m., following a five-minute mid-morning newscast at 10 a.m. Bender gave four viewers a chance to win money while watching the station. Halfway through the calls, Bender (who was a city councilman) would interview a key figure in the El Paso community. Bender also served as KTSM-TV's lead weather forecaster, from the station's inception until his retirement in 1991.
On October 19, 2009, Communications Corporation of America entered into ashared services agreement (SSA) with Titan Broadcast Management, owner ofCBS affiliate KDBC-TV. KTSM-TV provided advertising sales and administrative services as well as some news resources for Channel 4. Titan retained KDBC-TV'slicense and both stations employed separate news departments.[4] On April 24, 2013, ComCorp announced that it would sell all of its television stations, including KTSM-TV, to theNexstar Broadcasting Group.[5] The sale was completed on January 1, 2015.[6]
The acquisition, as well as the sale of KDBC-TV to theSinclair Broadcast Group (which originally planned to transfer that station's license to partner companyCunningham Broadcasting), placed some uncertainty on the future status of the SSA between KTSM-TV and KDBC-TV, particularly as Channel 4 is now co-owned withFox affiliateKFOX-TV (channel 14). The SSA was indeed terminated on October 16, 2014, at which point KDBC-TV began producing its newscasts in association with KFOX-TV.
KTSM-TV clears the NBC schedule fully in-pattern, includingNBA Coast 2 Coast Tuesdays, with KTSM often the only NBC station across the network to air both the respective 6 p.m. MT and 9 p.m. MTEastern andWestern games each Tuesday night. KTSM's 10 p.m. newscast on that evening is streamed live on the station's website and app, and is aired on tape delay after the end of the Western game.
For many years, the station delayed the airing of NBC's daytime game shows which later were seen in the afternoon hours. Instead, KTSM-TV showedDialing for Dollars and daytimesoaps. TheNET/PBS showsSesame Street andMister Rogers' Neighborhood were also broadcast due to the lack of a full-marketpublic television station in the area at the time.Las Cruces–basedKRWG-TV (channel 22) was an NET/PBS member, but its reception was spotty in parts of the El Paso TV market due to the Franklin Mountains cutting across western El Paso. NET/PBS arranged for channel 9 to carry select children's programs includingSesame Street.Sesame Street aired on the station from its debut in 1969 until El Paso PBS stationKCOS signed on in August 1978. Before KRWG-TV signed on the air in 1973, KTSM aired a number of additional programs from NET/PBS.[specify]
KTSM-TV presently broadcasts34+1⁄2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with6+1⁄2 hours each weekday and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). On August 3, 2008, starting with its 5 p.m. newscast, KTSM became the first television station in the El Paso market to begin broadcasting its local newscast inhigh definition.
In 2010, ComCorp tapped KTSM-TV to produce 5 and 10 p.m.Central Time (4 p.m. and 9 p.m.Mountain) newscasts forKVEO-TV. The arrangement had reporters locally based in the Rio Grande Valley, with all other aspects of the production to occur from KTSM in the hour before their own 5 and 10 p.m. Mountain Time newscasts. The agreement was phased out in 2020 upon Nexstar's purchase of the non-license assets ofKGBT-TV.
The station serves as the production and reporting base for Nexstar'sBorder Report andNewsNation, originating most of their stories regarding the central portion of theUnited States–Mexico border with others based at Nexstar stations inSan Diego andHarlingen.[7]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | KTSM-DT | NBC |
| 9.2 | 480i | 4:3 | KTSM-D2 | Estrella TV |
| 9.3 | Escape | Ion Mystery | ||
| 9.4 | Laff | Laff | ||
| 14.1 | 720p | 16:9 | FOX | Fox (KFOX-TV) |
KTSM began to carry theSpanish-language networkEstrella TV on its seconddigital subchannel in 2009.[9]
KTSM-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 9, at 12:30 p.m. 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.[10] The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transitionUHF channel 16 to VHF channel 9.[11][12]
Due to reports of reception issues with its signal on digital channel 9, KTSM-TV was granted permission by theFederal Communications Commission to operate a secondary signal on its former UHF digital channel 16 under special temporary authorization on July 23, 2009, mapped to virtual channel 9.1. KTSM had filed a petition to the FCC to permanently operate its digital signal exclusively on UHF channel 16.[13] It was issued a license for that channel on June 5, 2015.
Includes English-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Texas | ||
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Includes English-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of New Mexico | ||
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** Owned by third parties but operated by Nexstar through various agreements. | ||
