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| City | Riverside, California |
| Channels | |
| Branding | Estrella TV KRCA 62 |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
First air date | March 20, 1989 (36 years ago) (1989-03-20) |
Former call signs | KSLD (1989–1990) |
Former channel number(s) |
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Call sign meaning | Riverside, California (no relation to theRadio Corporation of America) |
| Technical information[4] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 22161 |
| ERP | |
| HAAT | 978 m (3,209 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 34°13′37″N118°4′1″W / 34.22694°N 118.06694°W /34.22694; -118.06694 |
| Translator(s) | K30QC-DRidgecrest |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
KRCA (channel 62) is atelevision station licensed toRiverside, California, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-languageEstrella TV network to theLos Angeles area. It is theflagship television property ofBurbank-basedEstrella Media. The station's studios are located on North Victory Drive (nearInterstate 5) in Burbank. Through achannel sharing agreement withKABC-TV (channel 7), KRCA transmits using KABC-TV's spectrum from an antenna atopMount Wilson. Despite Riverside being KRCA's city of license, the station maintains no physical presence there.
The station signed on March 20, 1989, as KSLD onUHF channel 62, displacing alow-powertranslator ofSan Bernardino–basedPBS member stationKVCR-TV (channel 24). The station was owned by Sunland Broadcasting; it was the first new Southern California TV station sincechannel 46 had returned in 1984.[5] Channel 62 was intended to be the third Spanish-language TV outlet in the Southland,[5] but an inability to secure enough programming prompted the station to emerge instead with home shopping programming fromHome Shopping Network.[6] The reason that KSLD-TV could not secure the programming was the collapse of Transvision, a proposed network of which channel 62 would have been the Los Angeles affiliate; the network opted to delay its launch.[7]
In 1990, Sunland sold KSLD to Fouce Amusement Enterprises, for $3.575 million.[8] Fouce changed the call letters to KRCA and began broadcasting Asian-language programming,[9] as well as fare in Armenian and Persian.[10]In 1997, KRCA was sold for $60 million[11] to Liberman Broadcasting (which was renamedEstrella Media in February 2020, following a corporate reorganization of the company underprivate equity firmHPS Investment Partners, LLC). Liberman, which owned several Spanish-language radio stations in southern California, converted KRCA into aSpanish-languageindependent station.
In May 2005, KRCA was the subject of controversy due to billboards advertising its local newscasts, in which the place name "Los Angeles, CA" had the "CA"postal abbreviation crossed out, replaced with the word "MEXICO" in bold red and a picture of theEl Ángel victory column on thePaseo de la Reforma superimposed onto a picture of the Los Angeles skyline. The billboard was deemed provocative by some, and protests erupted outside Liberman Broadcasting studios.California GovernorArnold Schwarzenegger spoke on the popularJohn and Ken radio talk show onKFI requesting that the Libermans remove the signs. After negotiations between the station andClear Channel Outdoor (a company that shared common ownership with KFI at the time), the owner of the billboards, the messages were replaced with a more generic advertisement.
KRCA presently broadcasts7+1⁄2 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with1+1⁄2 hours each weekday) and no newscasts on weekends. On March 1, 2022, Estrella TV laid of most of its staff for KRCA's news operation outside a few remainingmultimedia journalists, and all of its newscasts are produced and anchored byCanal 6 andMilenio TV personnel fromMonterrey, Mexico; Canal 6/Milenio also began producingKWHY-TV's newscasts in 2017.[12]
| License | Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KABC-TV | 7.1 | 720p | 16:9 | KABC-DT | ABC |
| 7.2 | 480i | LOCLish | Localish | ||
| 7.3 | CHARGE! | Charge! | |||
| 7.4 | QVC2 | QVC2 | |||
| KRCA | 62.1 | 720p | KRCA DT | Estrella TV | |
| 62.2 | 480i | KRCA-2 | Estrella News | ||
| 62.3 | CONFESS | Confess |
Both the analog and pre-transition allocations for KRCA were outside the core spectrum (channels 2–51) permitted for broadcasting use after the transition; as a result, the station was required to find an in-core channel from which to operate its digital signal post-transition. It originally elected to operate on UHF channel 45 after 2009, but, anticipating difficulty getting coordination from Mexico to use that channel, it instead requested and was granted the use of UHF channel 35.[14][15]
KRCA shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 62, on June 12, 2009, as part of thefederally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[16] The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 68 to channel 35 (formerly the pre-transition digital signal ofKMEX-DT), usingvirtual channel 62.