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KREZ-TV
CityDurango, Colorado
Channels
BrandingKREZ News 6
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
History
First air date
September 15, 1963
(60 years ago) (1963-09-15)
Former call signs
  • KFJT-TV (CP, 1962–1963)[1]
  • KJFL-TV (1963–1964)
Former channel number(s)
Analog: 6 (VHF, 1963–2009)
Technical information[2]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID48589
ERP46 kW
HAAT90.4 m (297 ft)
Transmitter coordinates37°15′46″N 107°54′0.2″W / 37.26278°N 107.900056°W / 37.26278; -107.900056 (KREZ-TV)
Translator(s)see § Translators
Links
Public license information
Websitewww.krqe.com

KREZ-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Durango, Colorado, United States, affiliated with CBS and Fox. It is a satellite of Albuquerque, New Mexico–based KRQE (channel 13), which is owned by Nexstar Media Group. KREZ-TV's offices are located on Turner Drive in Durango, and its transmitter is located atop Smelter Mountain; its parent station maintains studios on Broadcast Plaza in Albuquerque.

KBIM-TV (channel 10) in Roswell, New Mexico, also serves as a satellite of KRQE. These satellite operations provide additional news bureaus for KRQE and sell advertising time to local sponsors.

History

The station began operations on September 15, 1963, as KJFL-TV, a free-standing local independent station owned by Jeter Telecasting;[3] it went off the air after its facilities were destroyed in a February 1964 fire,[4] and the station was sold, rebuilt and returned to the air on September 9, 1965, as KREZ-TV, a satellite of CBS affiliate KREX-TV (channel 5) in Grand Junction, Colorado.[5] KREZ operated as such for nearly 30 years (with many attempts at regional news along the way) before being sold to Davenport, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises and becoming a KRQE satellite in 1995.[6]

In 1998, Lee Enterprises rebranded the combination of KRQE, KREZ-TV, and KBIM-TV as "CBS Southwest" and revamped the Durango and Roswell stations' news services to produce inserts into KRQE's early evening newscasts.[7] Two years later, Lee would exit broadcasting and sell KRQE, KREZ-TV, KBIM-TV, and most of its other television properties to Emmis Communications; in 2005, Emmis, in its own exit from television, sold its New Mexico outlets to LIN TV Corporation.

A deal to sell KREZ to Native American Broadcasting, LLC was reached in April 2011;[8] upon the sale's completion, KREZ was to become a full-scale independent station (with plans for extensive local programming), and change its call letters to KSWZ-TV.[9] However, the sale was never finalized, and KREZ remains a KRQE satellite.

On March 21, 2014, it was announced that Media General would acquire LIN.[10] The merger was completed on December 19.[11] Just over a year later, on January 27, 2016, it was announced that the Nexstar Broadcasting Group would buy Media General for $4.6 billion. After selling then-Fox affiliate KASA-TV to Ramar Communications, KRQE and its satellites became part of "Nexstar Media Group."[12] The sale was completed on January 17, 2017, reuniting KREZ with former parent station KREX.[13]

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of KREZ-TV[14]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
6.1 1080i 16:9 KREZ-HD CBS
6.2 720p FoxNM Fox

Analog-to-digital conversion

KREZ-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 6, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 15,[15] using virtual channel 6.

Translators

References

  1. ^ "FCC History Cards for KREZ-TV".
  2. ^ "Facility Technical Data for KREZ-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  3. ^ Broadcasting Yearbook 1964 (PDF). 1964. p. A-10. Retrieved May 15, 2011.[permanent dead link]
  4. ^ "And the West is History". February 18, 2014. Retrieved September 2, 2020.
  5. ^ "New TV stations" (PDF). Broadcasting. September 20, 1965. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
  6. ^ "Application Search Details". CDBS Public Access. Federal Communications Commission. December 9, 2021. Retrieved December 9, 2021.
  7. ^ "CBS Southwest". Albuquerque Journal. Albuquerque, New Mexico. August 9, 1998. p. 52. Retrieved December 7, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ^ "LIN sends an Albuquerque TV satellite out of its orbit". Television Business Report. April 22, 2011. Retrieved April 23, 2011.
  9. ^ "Local company agrees to buy KREZ-TV". The Durango Herald. May 8, 2011. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
  10. ^ Ramakrishnan, Sruthi (March 21, 2014). "Media General to buy LIN Media for $1.6 billion". Reuters. Retrieved March 21, 2014.
  11. ^ Media General Completes Merger With LIN Media Archived December 19, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Press Release, Media General, Retrieved December 19, 2014
  12. ^ "Nexstar Broadcasting Group Enters into Definitive Agreement to Acquire Media General for $4.6 Billion in Accretive Cash and Stock Transaction". Archived from the original on January 30, 2016. Retrieved January 28, 2016.
  13. ^ Nexstar Broadcasting Group Completes Acquisition of Media General Creating Nexstar Media Group, The Nation’s Second Largest Television Broadcaster Nexstar Media Group, January 17, 2017. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
  14. ^ "RabbitEars TV Query for KREZ". Retrieved December 5, 2021.
  15. ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
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