KFSO-TV

**KFSO-TV** (channel 44) is a television station licensed to Sanger, California, United States, serving the Fresno area as an affiliate of The CW. Alongside Visalia-licensed Fox affiliate KFRO-TV (channel 16), it is owned by the Dorado Media Group. The studios for both stations are located on McKinley Avenue in eastern Fresno, while KFSO-TV's transmitter is located on Bear Mountain (near Meadow Lakes).

## History

### Early years

KAWF-TV went on air for the first time on July 17, 1985, under the call letter KAWF. Initially, it primarily broadcast religious independent programming, including The PTL Club, The 700 Club, Richard Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, and others, along with Home Shopping Network programming during the overnight hours. In 1987, the station adopted a Spanish-language format during the afternoon and evening hours and an English-language religious structure in the morning for around eight hours each day. NetSpan, the second Spanish-language television network to begin in the United States (after the Spanish International Network, now Univision) was relaunched as Telemundo in 1987.

By 1989, the station had eliminated all of its English-language religious programs and affiliated completely with Telemundo.

### WB affiliation

On January 1, 2001, an LMA with KFRO-TV was moved to KAWF, resulting in the WB affiliation relocating from KNSO to KAWF (becoming the network's third affiliate in the area); channel 44 changed its call letters to KFSO-TV. With the affiliation shift, the station's on-air branding was altered to "WB 44."

In 2002, Pappas Telecasting acquired KFSO entirely, forming the first television duopoly in the market alongside KFRO. KFSO acquired the rights to Fox's FoxBox (later 4Kids TV) children's program block from KFRO in 2003, airing the block typically aired on Saturdays on tape delay on Sunday mornings (this resulted in KFSO carrying children's blocks from two major networks, as it already had The WB's Kids' WB block). KFSO-TV airs Fox's Saturday morning infomercial block Weekend Marketplace in 4Kids TV's former Sunday morning schedule.

### CW affiliation

Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner, and CBS Corporation announced on January 24, 2006, that they would shut down The WB and UPN and combine their different content to form a new "fifth" network called The CW. KFSO became the market's CW affiliate on September 18, 2006, when the network debuted.

Thirteen Pappas stations, including KFSO, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on May 10, 2008. The bankruptcy gave Pappas Telecasting Companies until February 15, 2009, to sell these stations to new owners. Pappas announced on January 16, 2009, that most stations, including KFSO, would be acquired by New World TV Group, pending permission by the United States bankruptcy court; the stations would eventually operate under the Titan TV Broadcast Group brand. On June 3, 2013, Titan announced the sale of KFRO-TV, KFSO-TV, and most of the company's other stations to Dorado Media Group. The Federal Communications Commission approved the sale on September 19, and it was finalized on October 3.

## Programming

KFSO was the local television broadcaster of Fresno State Bulldogs sporting events until 2008, when the rights were transferred to MyNetworkTV member KFSN (channel 37). Until the 2007 season, the station also held the local television rights to San Francisco Giants baseball games; in 2008, the Giants broadcasts relocated to KFSN. In 2008, the station had the local rights to telecasts of Oakland Athletics baseball games produced by regional sports network Comcast SportsNet Bay Area; in 2009, those rights were transferred solely to Comcast SportsNet California. Since 2014, KFSO has broadcast San Francisco 49ers preseason football games.

## Technical information

### Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

 **44.2** | 480i
 **44.3** | TBD

### Analog-to-digital conversion

As part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television, KFSO deactivated its analog signal over UHF channel 44 on June 12, 2009. The station's digital signal was shifted from its pre-transition UHF channel 59, which was among the high band UHF channels (52–69) that were deactivated due to the transition, to its analog-era UHF channel 44.