History
In 1985, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted an application by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno—which learned of the channel a week before the deadline to file [3] —to build a new non-commercial educational television station on the channel 49 allocation in Visalia, beating out a bid from the Trinity Broadcasting Network and the Tulare County board of education. Construction of the transmitter on Blue Ridge proved to be a test of sensitivity; the tower required environmental approval because the site is a roosting area for the California condor, and the county approved the tower over protests by Native American groups, who argued that the ridge was sacred ground and had been used for centuries as a communication point for smoke signals between tribes on different sides of the Sierra. The station signed on November 2, 1986. [4] (The call letters had previously had a long history in California on the CBS owned-and-operated station on channel 2 in Los Angeles, which became KCBS-TV in 1984.)
It did not take long for the diocese's new television station to be a financial drain, in part because it was approved far faster than had been anticipated, [5] as TBN had unexpectedly withdrawn its application. [3] In 1988, less than two years after signing on, priests called for a probe of the diocese's finances, alleging that monies donated by parishioners and entrusted to the diocese were donated for building improvements but instead diverted to diocesan operations including KNXT. [6] That same year, on the occasion of Bishop Joseph J. Madera's quinquennial visit ad limina, the station reported a $263,000 deficit, even though the bishop noted that financial contributions were growing. [7] A group explored a potential sale of channel 49 in 1990 [8] and even recommended its sale to Community Educational Television, the noncommercial stations arm of TBN, for $1 million; [9] two years later, negotiations were held with Joseph Desmond, a buyer who owned 30 KFC restaurants in the state and planned to keep Catholic programming on KNXT. [10] Bids, however, were so low that the diocese opted to retain and upgrade the station instead. [11] By 1996, KNXT was producing 14 in-house programs in English, Spanish and Portuguese, alongside its weekly Mass from St. Anne's Chapel and EWTN and Classic Arts Showcase programming. [12]
Attempted sales, closure and resumption of operations
In 2016, the Diocese of Fresno attempted to sell the station, but it could not find a non-profit organization willing to buy the non-commercial educational station. It then operated in a partnership with the Massachusetts-based CatholicTV network. The diocese then revealed that it was in negotiations with a party again in early 2019, warning that if talks fell apart, the station would sign off the air. [13] That party was revealed to be Ventura TV Video and Appliance Center, Inc., owner of KBID-LP and KVHF-LD in Fresno, when the two parties petitioned the FCC in August 2019 to remove the non-commercial reservation from KNXT's channel allocation. [14]
On June 18, 2020, in a letter from Bishop Joseph Vincent Brennan, the diocese announced it could no longer sustain KNXT's high cost of operation and was taking it silent on June 30, after 33 years of broadcasting. [15]
On May 3, 2021, it was announced that KNXT would be sold to fellow non-profit Vita Broadcasting for $50,000; it would remain a non-commercial educational station. [1] The sale was completed on June 21; [16] the station returned to the air on June 29 with Classic Arts Showcase programming. [17] The call letters were changed to KIFR on November 8, 2021.
