KUNP

KUNP

La Grande–Portland, Oregon United States
City	La Grande, Oregon
Channels	Digital: 16 (UHF) Virtual: 16
Branding	Univision Portland
Programming
Affiliations	16.1: Univision 16.2: The Nest 16.3: Charge!
Ownership
Owner	Sinclair Broadcast Group (Sinclair LaGrande Licensee, LLC)
Sister stations	KATU
History
Founded	August 6, 1999
First air date	December 3, 2001(22 years ago) (2001-12-03)
Former call signs	KBPD (2001–2002) KPOU (2002–2006)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 16 (UHF, 2001–2009)
Former affiliations	MundoFox/MundoMax (2012–2016)
Call sign meaning	"Univision Portland"
Technical information [1]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	81447
ERP	18.95 kW
HAAT	760 m (2,493 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	45°18′32.4″N117°43′57.7″W / 45.309000°N 117.732694°W / 45.309000; -117.732694
Translator(s)	KUNP-LD 47 (34 UHF) Portland
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	kunptv.com

KUNP (channel 16) is a television station licensed to La Grande, Oregon, United States, affiliated with the Spanish-language network Univision. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Portland-based ABC affiliate KATU (channel 2). The two stations share studios on NE Sandy Boulevard in Portland; KUNP's transmitter is located east of Cove atop Mount Fanny, within eastern Oregon's Wallowa–Whitman National Forest.

Because of the location of its transmitter facilities 240 miles (390 km) from Downtown Portland, KUNP's over-the-air signal is unable to reach Portland proper. To overcome this, its signal is relayed on a low-power translator station, KUNP-LD (channel 47), which serves the immediate Portland area from a transmitter on NW Willamette Stone Park Road (near NW Skyline Boulevard) in the Sylvan-Highlands section of Portland, along with cable and satellite coverage folded into KATU's retransmission consent agreements to cover the market, along with some outlying areas. It also previously relayed its signal via analog translator KABH-LP (channel 15) in Bend. KABH was owned by WatchTV, Inc., alongside its crosstown Portland HSN affiliate KORK-CA, but was operated by Sinclair under a local marketing agreement (LMA). KABH's license was canceled by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on March 19, 2015, for failure to file a license renewal application.

History

KUNP's logo prior to January 1, 2013

The station was founded on August 6, 1999, and formally signed on the air on December 3, 2001, as KBPD; it changed its call letters to KPOU on May 14, 2002. The call letters changed again to the current KUNP on December 5, 2006. KABH-LP was founded on June 1, 1992, as K15DO, but did not take to the air until November 3, 1993.

KUNP was originally owned by Equity Broadcasting Corporation; it was acquired by Fisher Communications on November 3, 2006, along with KUNS-TV in Seattle. Fisher would associate the two stations with the ABC affiliates it already owned in those markets, KATU and KOMO-TV. At one point, KUNP also had KKEI-CA as another translator prior to the Fisher acquisition. That station now serves Portland as a Telemundo affiliate. That station is also owned by WatchTV, Inc., owner of the now-defunct KABH-LP.

On August 21, 2012, Fisher Communications signed an affiliation agreement with MundoFox, a Spanish-language competitor to Univision that was owned as a joint venture between Fox International Channels and Colombian broadcaster RCN TV, for KUNP and Seattle sister station KUNS to be carried on both stations as digital subchannels starting in late September. ^[2] MundoFox would eventually rebrand as MundoMax in 2015 before ending all operations on December 1, 2016.

KUNP's online logo as of 2007

On April 10, 2013, KUNP, KATU, and Fisher Communications's other holdings were acquired by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. ^{[3] [4]} The Federal Communications Commission granted its approval of the deal on August 7, ^[5] and the sale was completed the following day. ^[6]

On May 8, 2017, Sinclair Broadcast Group entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media—owner of CW affiliate KRCW-TV (channel 32)—for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune. Sinclair would have been required to sell one of KUNP or KRCW-TV if the deal were to be approved. ^[7] However, in 2018, the FCC designated the deal for hearing by an administrative law judge; ^[8] the deal was then terminated by Tribune. ^[9]

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of KUNP ^{[10] [11]}

Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
16.1	1080i	16:9	KUNP	Main KUNP programming / Univision
16.2	480i		TheNest	The Nest
16.3			Charge!	Charge!

Analog-to-digital conversion

Since KUNP did not sign on-the-air before the April 21, 1997, deadline for the FCC's digital television allotment plan, the station was not granted a companion digital signal. Therefore, on or before June 12, 2009, the station was required to turn off its analog signal and turn on a new digital signal (a method known as a "flash cut") on UHF channel 16. KUNP-LP, as a low-power station, continued to broadcast in analog until April 13, 2012, when it made its flash-cut to digital transmission on UHF channel 47 and changing its callsign suffix from "-LP" to "-LD".

Translator

City of license	Callsign	Channel	ERP	HAAT	Facility ID	Transmitter coordinates
Portland	KUNP-LD	34	15 kW	455 m (1,493 ft)	34882	45°31′13″N122°44′41″W / 45.52028°N 122.74472°W / 45.52028; -122.74472 (KUNP-LD)

Cable and satellite availability

"Must-carry" regulations imposed by the FCC require most cable television providers across the Portland market to carry KUNP on their lineups. In the past under Equity ownership, the station was not available on all cable systems, as many of these providers were under carriage agreements for the national cable feed for the network, which allowed them control of several minutes throughout the day of local commercial time that would not be available if they instead carried KUNP. Equity traditionally depended completely on must-carry to bring its stations to cable providers, and the same was the case with KUNP before the sale of the station to Fisher. Retransmission consent agreements for providers in the Portland market made after Sinclair's purchase of KATU and KUNP effectively made carriage of KUNP compulsory as part of the compensation for carrying KATU (along with its subchannels), though some smaller systems in communities with a relatively low Hispanic population and limited channel capacity have been given a waiver from KUNP carriage.

On April 17, 2012, DirecTV began carrying KUNP's high definition signal as part of its local broadcast station package for the Portland area (on channel 47). Up until that point, the satellite provider only carried the station's standard definition signal.

References

1. "Facility Technical Data for KUNP". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
2. Fisher Adds MundoFox In Seattle, Portland, TVNewsCheck, August 21, 2012.
3. "Sinclair acquiring Fisher Communications". katu.com. April 11, 2013. Archived from the original on October 4, 2013. Retrieved April 11, 2013.
4. Colman, Price (April 10, 2013). "Sinclair poised to buy Fisher stations". TVNewsCheck. Archived from the original on October 14, 2022. Retrieved April 11, 2013.
5. "Consent to Transfer" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 27, 2016. Retrieved August 7, 2013.
6. "Sinclair Broadcast Group Closes On Fisher Communications Acquisition". All Access. August 8, 2013. Retrieved August 8, 2013.
7. Jessell, Harry A.; Miller, Mark K. (May 8, 2017). "The New Sinclair: 72% Coverage + WGNA". TVNewsCheck. NewsCheck Media. Archived from the original on August 2, 2017. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
8. • Feder, Robert (July 16, 2018). "FCC throws Sinclair/Tribune deal in doubt". RobertFeder.com. Archived from the original on July 17, 2018. Retrieved August 9, 2018.
   • Mirabella, Lorraine (July 18, 2018). "FCC orders hearing even as Sinclair changes plans to sell TV stations to address concerns about Tribune deal". Baltimore Sun. Baltimore, Maryland. Archived from the original on August 11, 2018. Retrieved August 9, 2018.
9. • Lafayette, Jon (August 9, 2018). "Tribune Ends Deal with Sinclair, Files Breach of Contract Suit". Broadcasting & Cable. Archived from the original on August 9, 2018. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
   • Fung, Brian; Romm, Tony (August 9, 2018). "Tribune withdraws from Sinclair merger, saying it will sue for 'breach of contract'". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. Archived from the original on April 28, 2021. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
10. RabbitEars TV Query for KUNP
11. RabbitEars TV Query for KUNP-LD

External links

• Official website