KQUP


KQUP is a Daystar affiliate licensed to Pullman, Washington, serving the Spokane, Washington area. KQUP is owned by Daystar. As its full-powered signal doesn't reach the Spokane metro, it uses a low-powered satellite, KQUP-LD, licensed to Spokane, to fill in the areas.

Station history

The station signed on the air in 2003 to fill the UPN void left open by KSKN, who dropped the network in 2002 for The WB Television Network. The station dropped UPN for the Retro Television Network on January 1, 2006.
On January 4, 2009, a contract conflict between KQUP's original owner, Equity Media Holdings Corporation, and RTN interrupted the programming on many RTN affiliates. As a result, Luken Communications, LLC, restored a national RTN feed from its headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with individual customized feeds to non-Equity-owned affiliates to follow on a piecemeal basis. As a result, KQUP lost its RTN affiliation immediately; the network never found a new home in the market.
At auction on 16 April 2009, Daystar bought KQUP. KQUP-LP began airing Daystar programming that August but the full-power KQUP digital signal did not sign on until January 2010.

Digital television

Because it was granted an original construction permit after the FCC finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997, the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. Instead, at the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, KQUP would have been required to turn off its analog signal and turn on its digital signal.
, this station is scheduled to go dark on February 17, 2009. According to the station's DTV status report, "On December 8, 2008, the licensee's parent corporation filed a petition for bankruptcy relief under chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code... This station must obtain post-petition financing and court approval before digital facilities may be constructed. The station will cease analogue broadcasting on February 17, 2009, regardless of whether digital facilities are operational by that date. The station will file authority to remain silent if so required by the FCC."
While the DTV Delay Act extends this deadline to June 12, 2009, Equity has applied for an extension of the digital construction permit in order to retain the broadcast license after the station goes dark.