KATN

KATN (channel 2) is a television station in Fairbanks, Alaska, United States, affiliated with ABC, Fox, and The CW Plus. Owned by Vision Alaska LLC, the station is operated through a time brokerage agreement (TBA) by Coastal Television Broadcasting Company, LLC.[3][4][5] KATN's studios are located in the Lathrop Building on 2nd Avenue in downtown Fairbanks, and its transmitter is located on Cranberry Ridge northeast of the city.

Not to be confused with WATN.
KATN

Channels
Branding
  • ABC Alaska (general)
  • Your Alaska Link News (News Hub-produced news simulcasts)
  • Fox Alaska (on DT2)
  • The CW Alaska (on DT3)
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
  • Vision Alaska LLC
  • (KATN and KJUD License, LLC)
OperatorCoastal Television Broadcasting Company, LLC (via TBA)
History
First air date
March 1, 1955 (1955-03-01)
Former call signs
  • KFAR-TV (1955–1981)[1]
  • KTTU-TV (1981–1984)
Former channel number(s)
Analog: 2 (VHF, 1955–2009)
  • NBC (primary 1955–1985, secondary 1985–1996)
  • The WB 100+ (DT2, 1998–2006)
  • The CW+ (DT2, 2006–2017; now on DT3)
Call sign meaning
Alaska Television Network
Technical information[2]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID13813
ERP16 kW
HAAT230 m (755 ft)
Transmitter coordinates64°55′17.4″N 147°42′57.7″W
Translator(s)K13KU-D 13 (UHF) Delta Junction
Links
Public license information
Websitewww.youralaskalink.com

History
KATN's studios are located in the Lathrop Building in downtown Fairbanks.

KATN debuted on March 1, 1955, as KFAR-TV, and was Fairbanks' second television station after KTVF. It became KTTU-TV (no relation to the present-day station in Tucson, Arizona) on June 18, 1981, and KATN on August 18, 1984. It is now a part of the ABC Alaska Superstation and was the first TV station in Fairbanks to broadcast in color in 1967 (while KTVF was temporarily off the air due to a flood).

KFAR/KTTU was primarily an NBC station with ABC as the secondary network until 1985, when the owners of KIMO (now KYUR) in Anchorage bought the station, changed the call letters (the ATN in KATN stood for "Alaska Television Network", a consortium of KATN, KIMO, and KJUD in Juneau), and made KATN the primary ABC affiliate. The station continued carrying NBC programs as a secondary affiliate until KTVF switched from CBS to NBC in 1996, in response to KATN's new ownership. Until the launch of KFXF in 1992, they were Fairbanks' only two commercial network stations.

In September 2006, KATN began to show programming from The CW (via The CW Plus) on its digital subchannel. The subchannel is called "Fairbanks CW" and uses the fictional call letters KWFA (the actual call letters of the subchannel are still KATN-DT3).

Smith Media sold KATN and the remainder of the "ABC Alaska's Superstation" system to Vision Alaska LLC in 2010.[6] When the sale was completed, on May 13, 2010,[7] Coastal Television Broadcasting Company, LLC entered into a time brokerage agreement with Vision Alaska to operate KATN and sister station KJUD.[3][4][5]

On October 30, 2017, Fox announced that it would move its Fairbanks affiliation from KFXF-LD (channel 22) to a subchannel of KATN on November 4.[8]

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of KATN[9]
Channel Video Aspect Short name Programming
2.1 720p16:9ABCABC
2.2 FOXFox
2.3 480i4:3CWThe CW Plus
2.4 IONIon Television
2.5 DABLDabl

Conversion to digital signal

KATN shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, 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 18,[10] using virtual channel 2.

References
  1. Mitchell, Elaine B., ed. (1973). Alaska Blue Book (First ed.). Juneau, AK: Alaska Department of Education, Division of State Libraries. p. 136.
  2. "Facility Technical Data for KATN". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  3. Time Brokerage Agreement (Part 1 of 3) - Federal Communications Commission
  4. Time Brokerage Agreement (Part 2 of 3) - Federal Communications Commission
  5. Time Brokerage Agreement (Part 3 of 3) - Federal Communications Commission
  6. "Alaska TV group sold". Television Business Report. January 15, 2010. Retrieved October 4, 2015.
  7. Consummation Notice - Federal Communications Commission
  8. Miller, Mark K. (October 30, 2017). "KATN Picks Up Fox Affiliation In Fairbanks". TVNewsCheck. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
  9. "RabbitEars.Info".
  10. "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.