KTDO


KTDO, virtual channel 48, is a Telemundo owned-and-operated television station serving El Paso, Texas, United States that is licensed to Las Cruces, New Mexico. The station is owned by the Telemundo Station Group subsidiary of NBCUniversal. KTDO's studios are located on Carnegie Avenue in El Paso, and its transmitter is located atop the Franklin Mountains on the El Paso city limits.

History

KASK-TV

The station first signed on the air November 18, 1984 as KASK-TV; it originally operated as an English-language independent station. The TV station was an outgrowth of KASK-FM 103.1.

KZIA

KASK-TV went off the air in October 1987 when it was bought by Bayport Communications. Bayport was approved to relocate the tower to a new site near Anthony, New Mexico, and increase power from 74,000 watts to the maximum 5 million. Channel 48 was sold to Robert Muñoz and reemerged on June 13, 1990 as KZIA. The station was added to the El Paso cable system in 1991. Lee Enterprises bought the station in 1993 for $440,000, after a separate $900,000 sale fell through the year prior. "Z48" became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network upon the network's launch on January 16, 1995.

Change to Telemundo

In 1997, the station's calls were changed to KMAZ ahead of a January 16, 1998 change to Telemundo and Spanish-language programming. The change was made to improve the station's financial position and because management felt the market was ready for a second Spanish-language station on the United States side of the border.
In 2001, the station's call letters were changed to KTYO. In 2004, the station was purchased by the Arlington, Virginia-based ZGS Group for $11.8 million; ZGS subsequently converted the station into a Spanish-language outlet as the market's Telemundo affiliate and changed its call letters to KTDO. As a result of the switch, UPN did not have a full-time affiliate in the El Paso market for the remainder of the network's run, with its programming being relegated to a secondary affiliation on KKWB until it switched to TeleFutura in January 2002.
On December 4, 2017, NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group announced its purchase of ZGS' television stations, including KTDO. The sale was completed on February 1, 2018.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
48.11080iKTDO-HDMain KTDO programming / Telemundo
48.2480iTELEXITTeleXitos
48.3480iLXTVLx

Analog-to-digital conversion

KTDO shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 48, on June 12, 2009, the official date in 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 47. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 48.

Former translator

KTDO's main channel was also seen in analog in El Paso proper via low-power translator KTDO-LP on channel 48, mainly to allow viewers in El Paso and on the Mexican side of the market to continue to watch the station over-the-air. With the sale to NBCUniversal and Mexico's digital transition having been completed, the license for KTDO-LP was returned to the Federal Communications Commission on November 30, 2018, and was formally canceled on December 21.

News operation

KTDO presently broadcasts 12 hours of locally produced newscasts each week.
On November 16, 2010, KTDO launched a news department, with half-hour Spanish-language newscasts airing at 5:00 and 10:00 p.m., under the title Telenoticias El Paso; with the launch, it became the first Spanish-language television station in the El Paso market to broadcast its local newscasts in high definition.
On June 11, 2018, the station launched newscasts at 4 and 4:30 p.m., adding to the already established 5 p.m. newscast. With this expansion, KTDO has more hours of local news than any other Spanish-language station in El Paso.

Previous local newscasts

KASK-TV had launched with a local news operation, airing a 5-minute news brief at 7 p.m. and a main news at 10 p.m.
As KZIA-TV, the station carried a 9 p.m. local newscast, "Newswatch 48", hosted by former KDBC-TV anchor Bill Mitchell, and a replay of KDBC's 6 p.m. newscast at 9:30 p.m. In 1991, channel 48 began carrying by microwave link all of KOB-TV's local newscasts live from Albuquerque in a first-of-its-kind arrangement. When Lee Enterprises—owner of KRQE-TV—bought the station in 1993, the station shifted to carrying that station's news, though Lee planned to begin local newscasts in Las Cruces.