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Programming | |
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History | |
First air date | March 28, 1954 |
Former channel number(s) | Analog: 2 (VHF, 1954–2009) |
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Call sign meaning | Named after former sister station WKAQ (AM) |
Technical information [1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
Facility ID | 64983 |
ERP |
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HAAT | 825.9 m (2,710 ft) |
Transmitter coordinates | 18°6′47.5″N66°3′9.3″W / 18.113194°N 66.052583°W |
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Links | |
Public license information | |
Website | www |
WKAQ-TV (channel 2) is a television station in San Juan, Puerto Rico, serving as the U.S. territory's dual Telemundo and NBC outlet. It is owned and operated by the Telemundo Station Group subsidiary of NBCUniversal. WKAQ-TV's studios are located on Franklin Roosevelt Avenue in San Juan near Hiram Bithorn Stadium, and its transmitter is located on Cerro la Santa in Cayey near the Carite State Forest.
WTIN-TV (channel 2.11) in Ponce and WNJX-TV (channel 2.12) in Mayagüez, branded on-air as Telemundo West, operate as full-time satellites of WKAQ-TV, which rebroadcast the station's programming to the southern and western regions of Puerto Rico under an affiliation agreement with Hemisphere Media Group (owner of parent station WAPA-TV, channel 4). WKAQ-TV formerly operated WOLE-TV (channel 12) in Aguadilla and WORA-TV (channel 5) in Mayagüez as satellite stations. WKAQ-TV also has three low-power translator facilities: W09AT-D in Fajardo, W28EH-D in Adjuntas and W28EQ-D in Utuado. WKAQ-TV also simulcasts the signal of New York City sister station WNBC with the branding of NBC Puerto Rico.
WKAQ-TV, the first television station in Puerto Rico, was founded by Ángel Ramos on March 28, 1954. [2] Ramos was also the owner of the newspaper El Mundo and Puerto Rico's first licensed radio station, WKAQ (580 AM). [3] Initially affiliated with CBS until 1967, WKAQ-TV battled fiercely with WAPA-TV to become the highest-rated station in Puerto Rico. [4] During the 1970s and 1980s, WKAQ-TV was a major producer of Puerto Rican Spanish soap operas and was known for its "fingers" logo. Since its spin-off in 1987, the station has branded itself as "Telemundo Puerto Rico", becoming one of Telemundo's flagship stations. Despite criticism that the station traded locally produced programming for foreign Spanish programming, it aired the first Puerto Rican written and produced telenovela in 15 years in 2006. In 2005, WKAQ-TV became a superstation when NBC Universal reformatted Telemundo Internacional into Telemundo Puerto Rico. WKAQ-TV began airing its programming in high definition on April 23, 2009. The station entered into an agreement with Hemisphere Media Group to broadcast Telemundo Puerto Rico's programming on WAPA-TV on June 28, 2019. [5]
Since the beginning of the Telemundo network, WKAQ had been operated semi-independently from the network since its inception. This allowed the station to focus on local programming, with network programming used as filler. However, declining ratings and local cancellations have led to rumors that WKAQ may become a standard Telemundo station, dropping all local programming except for Telenoticias . WKAQ's ratings declined significantly in the early 2000s due to the entrance of Univision into the Puerto Rican market. Since then, many local shows produced by WKAQ have been canceled, and the station has laid off staff. WKAQ now has very few non-news local programming remaining. Recently, the station has become the leading station on the island in terms of viewership against WLII and WAPA, with its telenovela block dominating in the 7 to 10 p.m. time period. Additionally, since January 2009, WKAQ has aired Lost on weeknights at 10 p.m. leading that time slot. Día a Día has seen an increase in viewership in its 11 a.m. time slot, and a local teen drama Zona Y has been successful in the teen market in Puerto Rico. WKAQ regained the rights to the local Miss Universe pageant and began airing a new gossip show called Dando Candela in January 2010. [6] The program helped WKAQ compete with WAPA-TV's gossip show SuperXclusivo but was canceled in March 2020 due to production issues brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. [7]
After years of struggling to compete with rival WAPA and the possibility of undergoing a full integration with the mainland feed of Telemundo, WKAQ-TV has managed to return to producing local programming. As of March 2021, WKAQ-TV produces 10+1⁄2 hours of local programming on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; while on Tuesdays, the station produces 12+1⁄2 hours of local programming. Some of the current shows include Hoy Día Puerto Rico, Día a Día, Raymond y Sus Amigos and local newscasts Telenoticias which expanded to two hours in January 2020 and positioned itself as the leading newscast in Puerto Rico beating WAPA's NotiCentro in the same timeslot. [8]
WKAQ-TV has been producing local news shows under the brand name Telenoticias since 1954. The first edition of Telenoticias was created by Evelio Otero, who proposed the name to Ángel Ramos and was approved immediately. In the 1960s, a renewed edition of Telenoticias began with different anchors.
For more than twenty years, Telenoticias had only two editions: an early evening newscast at 5 p.m. and a late evening newscast at 11 p.m. In 2002, a weekend edition was introduced, which aired at 5 and 11 p.m. like its weekday counterparts. In 2003, the station launched a weekday morning newscast called Telemundo por la Mañana with Charito Fraticelli, Silverio Pérez, Lourdes Collazo, Miguel Ramos, and panel experts.
Telenoticias used "Telemundo 1992 News Theme" in the 1990s as the main theme music for its newscasts. This was replaced later by "Telemundo News Theme". In 2005, the newscasts began to use the production theme "Raw Power" from Network Music.
In 2006, the station laid off 60 to 80 staffers, including some Telenoticias anchors and reporters, as part of the "NBC Universal 2.0" restructuring. As a result, the morning, midday, and weekend editions of Telenoticias were canceled. However, on January 8, 2007, Telenoticias debuted a new set, new graphics, and new music.
In 2011, NBCUniversal announced that it would relaunch the 11 a.m. and weekend evening editions of Telenoticias in early 2012, as a condition by the FCC to approve the sale of a controlling stake in the company to Philadelphia-based cable provider and telecommunications company Comcast, requiring NBCUniversal's NBC and Telemundo owned-and-operated stations to increase the amount of locally produced programming. In 2014, WKAQ-TV brought back the weekend newscast, which premiered on May 31 under the name Telenoticias Fin de semana. [9]
On January 31, 2023, WKAQ-TV announced that the station would be shortening the 5 p.m. edition of Telenoticias from one hour to a half-hour to accommodate their new show Primera Pregunta con Rafael Lenín Lopez (First Question with Rafael Lenín Lopez). Hosted by Rafael Lenín Lopez, the show features political analysis, special interviews, and discussions of topics relevant to Puerto Ricans' daily lives. Special contributors to the show include PNP Senator Thomas Rivera Schatz, former Puerto Rican governor Alejandro García Padilla, Carlos Díaz Olivo, Luis Pabón Roca, and Anabelle Torres Colberg. Although produced by WKAQ's news department, the new show is considered a separate program from Telenoticias and airs from 5:30 p.m. onwards. The show aims to bring fresh perspectives and insightful discussions to viewers, and it is expected to be a welcome addition to WKAQ's news programming lineup. [10] [11] [12]
In December 2020, WKAQ announced that it would be relaunching its morning news operation with the launching of a new morning program set to debut in February 2021. [13] The morning show, named Hoy Día Puerto Rico, would have a magazine-style format and air from 8 to 10 a.m. on weekdays. Ivonne Orsini and Ramón "Gato" Sylvia Gómez, who previously worked with rival station WAPA, were announced as the hosts on January 5, 2021, while former Senator Zoe Laboy joined the show for a political analysis segment. Grenda Rivera and Elizabeth Robaina were also announced to host a news segment and a weather/traffic segment, respectively. [14]
The first broadcast of Hoy Día Puerto Rico was on February 15, 2021, live from the Sandra Zaiter Studio at WKAQ-TV. It featured a special interview with Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Pierluisi and the introduction of special contributors Desiree Lowry and Suzette Baco. On February 3, 2023, Ramón "Gato" Gómez announced he would be leaving the show to cover the 2023 Baloncesto Superior Nacional basketball tournament as an analyst. Radio personality Jacky Fontánez was then announced as the show's new co-host. [15] [16]
On January 8, 2024, two new talents joined the show as hosts. Carlos McConnie and Jasond Calderón (who is also a cast member on the station's comedy show Raymond y sus Amigos ) would now join Orsini, Fontánez and Noa as hosts of the show moving forward. The show also announced it would expand its run time later in the year adding a new hour of the show from 10 a.m. to 11 am. The extra hour hour will be called Hoy Día Puerto Rico: 10 a.m. and it will have a different set of hosts from the original 8-10 a.m. version of the show. [17] [18] [19] [20] [21]
The station's signal is multiplexed:
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
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2.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | WKAQ-DT | Telemundo |
2.2 | 720p | WKAQ .2 | Punto 2 (Independent) | |
2.3 | NBC PR | NBC (WNBC) [23] [24] | ||
2.4 | 480i | NBC American Crimes |
WKAQ-TV shut down its VHF analog signal 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 28, [25] using virtual channel 2.
WKAQ-TV can be seen across Puerto Rico on the following stations:
City of license | Callsign | Channel |
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Adjuntas | W28EH-D | 28.1 |
Fajardo | W09AT-D | 9.1 |
Mayagüez | WNJX-TV | 2.12 |
Ponce | WTIN-TV | 2.11 |
Utuado | W28EQ-D | 28.1 |
On April 4, 2019, at 6 pm, NBCUniversal became involved in a retransmission consent dispute with Liberty, resulting in the removal of WKAQ-TV and NBCUniversal's cable networks from Liberty's Puerto Rico channel lineup. WKAQ and the NBCU cable networks were restored on April 7, after the two sides reached a new agreement. [26]
WAPA-TV is a Spanish-language independent television station in San Juan, Puerto Rico, owned by WAPA Media Group. The station's studios are located on Luis Vigoreaux Avenue in Guaynabo, and its transmitter is on the WKAQ-TV transmission tower at Cerro La Santa in Cayey near the Carite State Forest. WAPA-TV is the most watched television station in Puerto Rico.
WLII-DT, branded on-air as TeleOnce, is a television station licensed to Caguas, Puerto Rico, serving the U.S. territory as an affiliate of Univision and UniMás. Owned by Liberman Media Group, the station maintains studio facilities on Calle Carazo in Guaynabo, with additional studios at The Mall of San Juan. Its transmitter is located near the Bosque Estatal de Carite mountain reserve.
El Show de las 12 was a Puerto Rican midday variety television series airing on WKAQ-TV, and later on the nationwide Telemundo network, and hosted by Eddie Miro for most of its run. It aired every week-day for 40 years until its cancellation on February 25, 2005.
Las Noticias TeleOnce is the flagship news program for Puerto Rican television network TeleOnce it is currently anchored by Celimar Adames Casalduc during its evening editions, Maricarmen Ortiz and Manuel Crespo Feliciano during the day editions and by Shirlyan Odette during its night edition.
Telenoticias Puerto Rico, more commonly known as just Telenoticias, is the flagship newscast for Telemundo owned-and-operated station WKAQ-TV in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It currently airs four editions on weekdays, a morning one anchored by Grenda Rivera, an 11 a.m. one anchored by Ivonne Solla Cabrera and Walter Soto León, a 4 p.m. edition anchored by Zugey Lamela, a 5 p.m. edition anchored by Jorge Rivera Nieves and Ivonne Solla Cabrera and a Nighttime newscast anchored by Jorge Rivera Nieves which airs either at 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. depending on the day of the week. Additionally, Telenoticias airs two editions on weekends with the 5 p.m. newscast anchored by Jeremy Ortiz and Soraida Asad Sanchez, Ortiz also anchors the weekend nighttime broadcast.
WORA-TV is a television station in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, affiliated with ABC and owned by Telecinco Media Holdings. WORA-TV's studios are located on Ponce de León Avenue in Santurce, with additional studios at the Guanajibo Building in Mayagüez. The station's transmitter is located at Monte del Estado in Maricao.
WOLE-DT is a television station licensed to Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, serving Mayagüez and the western part of the island as an affiliate of Univision and UniMás. It is a full-time satellite of San Juan–based WLII-DT, owned by Liberman Media Group. WOLE-DT's sales office is located in the Westernbank Building in downtown Mayagüez, and its transmitter is located at Monte del Estado in Maricao. Its parent station maintains studios on Calle Carazo in Guaynabo and has additional studios in Barrio Palmar in Aguadilla.
WKAQ is a commercial AM radio station in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Currently owned by WAPA Media Group, the station airs a Spanish language talk radio format. Its programming is repeated on WUKQ, which broadcasts on 1420 kHz in Ponce, and WYEL which broadcasts on 600 kHz in Mayagüez. The station was the first radio station to broadcast in Puerto Rico. According to Ernesto Vigoreaux, in the early days of music in Puerto Rico, the musicians would record music at the WKAQ radio station. WKAQ is the Puerto Rico primary entry point station for the Emergency Alert System.
Día a Día con Raymond y Dagmar is a variety program on WKAQ-TV Telemundo Puerto Rico hosted by Raymond Arrieta, Dagmar and Gil Marie Lopez that airs weekdays from 1pm to 4pm AST on Telemundo Puerto Rico. The show premiered on January 15, 2007, and marked the return of Arrieta to television after having his long running show cancelled on rival station WAPA-TV.
WKAQ-FM along with its satellite WUKQ-FM are a pair of radio stations in Puerto Rico broadcasting a bilingual contemporary hit radio format. Licensed to San Juan, Puerto Rico, WKAQ-FM serves the eastern half of the island while WUKQ-FM, licensed to Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, serves the western half. The stations are currently owned by WAPA Media Group.
Ivonne Marie Orsini López is a Puerto Rican actress, model, tv host and beauty pageant titleholder. Her career began in the pageantry industry, but she has moved into other media. Orsini was one of the hosts of WAPA-TV show ¡Viva la tarde!. Currently, she is now the co-host of the Puerto Rican version of Hoy Día on Telemundo station WKAQ-TV.
En La Mañana is a Puerto Rican breakfast television show that airs on TeleOnce. The show is a revival of the original breakfast show called Tu Mañana that aired on TeleOnce from 1991 to 2002 and in Univision Puerto Rico television network from 2002 to 2014. The original version of the show debuted on March 11, 1991, and was aired on weekday mornings. On October 14, 2014, the show was cancelled as part of a restructuring of Univision Puerto Rico's operations that included the closure of its news department. With the sale of WLII-DT from Univision to Liberman Media Group the new owners have announced they intend to revive Tu Mañana in 2023. The show's revival was officially announced on October 17, 2023, with a premiere date set for October 30, 2023. For the revival, the show's name was slightly tweaked from Your Morning to In The Morning
Hoy Día (Today) is an American Spanish-language morning television show broadcast by Telemundo. The show is broadcast from Telemundo Center in Miami, and is hosted by Penélope Menchaca, Andrea Meza, Lisette Eduardo, Danilo Carrera, Carlos Calderon, and Gabriel Coronel.
Mass media are the means through which information is transmitted to a large audience. This includes newspapers, television, radio, and more recently the Internet. Organizations that provide news through mass media in the Puerto Rico are collectively known as the news media in Puerto Rico.
WAPA Media Group is an American mass media and entertainment corporation that is a division of Hemisphere Media Group with headquarters in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico.
Alexandra a las 12 is a Puerto Rican midday variety television series airing on WKAQ-TV and hosted by Alexandra Fuentes. Upon its debut in 2014 the show was known as Alexandra de noche and aired as a late-night talk show before the station decided to move the show to the midday time-slot in 2017.
Raymond y sus Amigos is a Puerto Rican live television sketch comedy, political satire, and variety show created by Raymond Arrieta and developed by Tony Mojena that airs on Telemundo Puerto Rico. The show's recurring sketches often parody Puerto Rican culture and politics and are performed by the show's recurring cast, most of which have remained the same since the show's inception in 2014.
Puerto Rico ¡Gana! is a Puerto Rican game show that airs on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and, Sundays at 6:00 p.m. on Telemundo Puerto Rico. The show is hosted by Alexis Colón who is known as Alex DJ and by Jeananthony Medina.
Rayos X (X-Rays), formerly known as "Jay y sus Rayos X", is an investigative journalism program that airs on Telemundo Puerto Rico every Tuesday at 10:00 p.m.
NotiCentro (NewsCenter) is the flagship news broadcast of Puerto Rican network WAPA which airs four times a day on weekdays and twice a day on weekends. Its main edition is anchored by Normando Valentín and Katiria Soto while Pedro Rosa Nales anchors the nighttime edition. Weekend anchoring duties belong to Felipe Gómez and Luisa Benítez, while weekday mornings are anchored by Jorge Gelpí Pagán and Mónika Candelaria.