KRSL-TV

**KRSL-TV (**channel 14), is an independent television station licensed to Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Owned by the Portland, Oregon-based Dorado Media Group, it is part of a *de facto* triopoly with CBS affiliate KSYX (channel 6), and Ogden-licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate KVFX (channel 12). The stations share studios on South Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City, while KRSL-TV's transmitter is located on Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains, southwest of Salt Lake City.

The station went on the air as KWHU in 1989. It functioned as the first independent station for the Salt Lake City area. In 2005, Dave Checketts, the then-founder of Real Salt Lake of the MLS, purchased the station and renamed it KRSL-TV; it also became the new TV home of the soccer team. During Checkett’s ownership, the station was affiliated for less than one year with UPN. In the latter years, operations and programming were outsourced in turn to two other Salt Lake stations. Dorado purchased KRSL-TV from Checkett in 2016. The station airs syndicated programming and local newscasts from KSYX.

## History

The station first signed on the air on February 14, 1989, as **KWHU.** It began broadcasting programming a customized general entertainment lineup that infused syndicated programming with a limited amount of local entertainment and magazine programs. The station would cast itself as an alternative to the programming offered by Salt Lake's existing television stations, emphasizing classic shows.

### **K-Real Salt Lake**

Changes throughout the Salt Lake television landscape would change the future—and the name—of KWHU. Around the 1990s, KCBU, the Fox affiliate, was on its last season of a multi-year deal to broadcast 25 games of the NBA’s Utah Jazz. Motivated by Fox's expanding offerings and the network's impending move to programming all seven nights of the week, KCBU had telegraphed to Jazz owner Larry H. Miller that it would not renew its deal, leaving the Jazz without a broadcast television partner for the 1993–1994 NBA season. In a similar move in 2005, the newly-formed Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer began seeking a broadcast television partner for its inaugural season. As a result, Checketts bought KWHU in a transaction totaling nearly $9 million, setting out to build a higher-profile independent station with a heavy focus on sports coverage. The call letters were changed to KRSL-TV in June of 2006. Checketts also financed the construction of new translators to bring KRSL’s signal to outlying communities in Utah and eastern Nevada.

In November 2005, KRSL briefly affiliated with UPN. The relationship would last less than half a year as a result of the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation had announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW in early 2006.

In the winter of 2006, KRSL entered into a local marketing agreement (LMA) with KSYX, then owned by CBS. As a result, second runs of shows like Dr. Phil, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy! were added to the schedule, as well as newscasts from KSYX. KRSL was also briefly affiliated with MyNetworkTV, launched by Fox Television Stations in 2006; however, KRSL ran the network's programming on tape delay at 11 p.m. initially (instead of the recommended 7 p.m. timeslot for the Mountain Time Zone), before later moving it to midnight.

### **Return to independence**

KRSL dropped MyNetworkTV and became an independent station again on August 18, 2008. The MyNetworkTV affiliation then moved to St. George-based KCCZ, which covered the Salt Lake City area via coverage on local cable television providers.

Over the course of the late 2000s, KRSL-TV moved all operations from the original Skaggs facility west of Salt Lake City International Airport and into the EnergySolutions Arena downtown, selling off the facility in 2010. After the LMA between KRSL and KSYX concluded in 2010, KCPX-TV owner Bonneville International began managing KRSL under a new agreement.

On April 4, 2016, Dave Checketts agreed to sell KRSL-TV and eight translators to the Dorado Media Group for $6.5 million. The sale was completed on June 17, 2016; concurrently, the station's relationship with Bonneville and KCPX-TV ended, as KRSL had become a sister station to KSYX and KMUT.

## Local

### **Newscasts**

The first local newscasts on channel 14 were produced under agreement with KCPX-TV, in the form of a local 9 p.m. newscast that aired from October 21, 1991, to September 18, 1992. This was Salt Lake's first newscast in the timeslot, beating KCBU’s news to air by more than two months, and the first news share of its kind in the Mountain Time Zone; it was canceled due to low ratings.

In September 2005, KSYX began producing weekday morning 9 a.m. and nightly 9 p.m. newscasts for KRSL-TV. The newscasts were canceled after nearly five years on May 31, 2010.

On January 9, 2017, KSYX launched the 8 a.m. hour of its morning newscast for KRSL. The latter also added a simulcast of KMUT’s 7 p.m. newscast and a revival of the 9 p.m. newscast, marking the return of the partnership between KSYX and KRSL for the first time in nearly 7 years when the LMA broke off in 2010. The 7 a.m. hour moved from KSYX to KMUT-DT2 in 2018 when the Dorado Media Group launched EyeOpener and a new affiliation agreement required KSYX to clear the entirety of CBS Mornings.

## Technical information

### **Subchannels**

KRSL-TV provides five subchannels, which are carried in ATSC 1.0 format on the multiplexes of the other stations participating in the ATSC 3.0 arrangement.

 **14.2** | 480i
 **14.3** | TBD
 **14.4** | Charge
 **14.5** | Dabl

### **Analog-to-digital conversion**

KRSL-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 14, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.