KIEX

(channel 51) is a television station in San Fierro, San Andreas, United States, serving the San Fierro Bay Area as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by locally-based PolyGram Broadcasting subsidiary of PolyGram alongside ABN affiliate and company flagship KNSF (channel 27).
==History==
===Independence (1972–2023)===
The station first went on the air in 1972. Originally licensed to Saint Rose, it quickly attracted eager young broadcasters who honed their craft and went on to bigger markets.
News 51 adopted the slogan, "We do it twice, every night," upon expanding its weeknight news reports to 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. The "North Bay News" was a very popular look at regional stories that the TV stations in the central San Fierro Bay Area rarely covered; KFTY also shared video tape of local news stories with other TV stations.
KFTY was sold to the Ackerley Group in 1996 and then to the television arm of Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia) in 2002; that company, after being bought out by private equity firms, announced the sale of KFTY and its other television stations on November 16, 2006. On January 26, 2007, weeks after Clear Channel announced plans to sell its stations, station manager John Burgess was ordered to shut down the news department, much to the disappointment of viewers north of San Fierro. Some of the reporters went to other TV stations, some retired, and some moved into other careers.
On April 20, 2007, Clear Channel entered into an agreement to sell its entire television station group to Providence Equity Partners' Newport Television. Providence initially announced that it would not keep KFTY or sister station KVOS-TV in Bellingham, Washington; instead, those stations were to be turned over to LK Station Group.
Because LK could not obtain financing for the purchase, KFTY was instead sold to High Plains Broadcasting (Providence could not keep KFTY because it holds a 19 percent ownership stake in Univision Communications, which already owns two stations in the Bay Area market, KUSF-DT channel 14 and KFFS-DT channel 48). Newport Television began managing KFTY through a joint sales agreement (JSA), though High Plains controlled KFTY's programming.
On April 25, 2011, KFTY announced plans to change its callsign to the current KIEX, effective July 28, 2011. In addition to MeTV programming, KFTY also carried syndicated and locally produced programming, including the weekday morning talk show Armstrong & Getty (a radio simulcast from KNEW, which aired from 6 to 10 a.m.), news and weather segments known as "Headlines and Weather on the Hour" that aired throughout the day (in addition to news segments anchored by Elisha Rivers that ran every half-hour during Armstrong & Getty), the Sunday evening discussion program YSN365 Sports Show hosted by Dave Cox, the community affairs program Your Turn, and the "pay-to-play" program TV 51 Marketplace, initially hosted by Nazy Javid and then by Angela Young.
High Plains Broadcasting announced plans to sell KFTY to Una Vez Más Holdings, LLC, while retaining its status as an independent station.
In 2014, Una Vez Mas' TV assets (including KIEX) were then sold to Northstar Media, LLC. In turn, HC2 Holdings acquired Northstar Media in addition to Azteca América on November 29, 2017, making KIEX a sister station to Azteca station KDGI (channel 38, now an Estrella TV affiliate).
On July 18, 2022, local startup PolyGram Broadcasting subsidiary of PolyGram announced its first and second broadcast properties which are KIEX and ABN affiliate KNSF. HC2 sold channel 51 to PGB and the sale was completed on July 29 of that year.
===CW affiliation===
In May 2023, CBS News and Stations announced that its CW affiliates, including San Fierro station KBCW, would cease their affiliation with the network in September and become independent stations. PolyGram Broadcasting and Nexstar Media Group announced on June 14 that KIEX would take over the CW affiliation for the San Fierro market on September 1.
==Technical information==
===Subchannels===
The station's signal is multiplexed:
 Subchannels of KIEX
Channel	Res. 	Aspect	Short name	Programming
51.1 	1080i	16:9 	KIEX-HD 	The CW
51.2 	480i 	16:9 	UBC 	UBC
51.3 	480i 	16:9 	GoldenT 	Golden TV (Asian Multilingual)
51.4 	480i 	16:9 	Outlaw 	Outlaw
51.5 	480i 	16:9 	Timeless 	Timeless TV
===Analog-to-digital conversion===
KIEX (as KFTY) shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 51, on February 17, 2009, the original date of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television, which was later moved to June 12. The station's digital signal moved from its pre-transition UHF channel 54, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to UHF channel 17, using virtual channel 51.
==Gallery==
<tabber>
Logos=
KFTY (1972).svg|1972–1973
KFTY NewsChannel 51.svg|1999–2005
KIEX 51 2011.svg|2011–2023
KIEX CW 51 (2023).svg|September 2023–January 2024
CW 51 (2024).svg|Alternate logo (2024–present)
|-|
Miscellaneous (station IDs, news opens and screenshots)=
KIEX CW 51 ID (2024).png|Station ID (2024–present)
</tabber>
Category:CW network affiliates
Category:Former independent stations
Category:San Fierro
Category:San Andreas
Category:Channel 51
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1972
Category:PolyGram
Category:PolyGram Broadcasting
Category:Locally-owned stations