KHFI

**KHFI** (channel 68) is a television station in Austin, Texas, United States, broadcasting ACME network programming. It is owned and operated by the network's ACME Television Stations Group division, which maintains studios on Jefferson Street in the city's Bryker Woods neighborhood; its transmitter is based at the West Austin Antenna Farm on Mount Larson.

## History

Three groups vied for Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval of a construction permit to construct and license to operate a new television station in Austin for the UHF channel 68 allocations. Capitol City Community Interests Inc. (led by David L. Ferguson and owned by Allandale Baptist Church) submitted the initial application on May 22, 1984, proposing a family-oriented programming lineup featuring American Christian Television System content. Its application sparked a stampede, and nine separate groups vied for the channel when the FCC designated all of the applications for comparative hearings. ATV Associates, Balcones Broadcasting (majority-owned by Houston-based attorney Billy B. "Paz" Goldberg and chaired by local news anchor Ronnell H. "Ron" Oliveira), Capital City Community Interests, Capitol Area Broadcasting, Channel 68, Ltd., DB Broadcasting, Isabel Chávez, Lake Country Telecasters Inc., and Television 68 Corp. were among these companies. According to a request filed with the FCC on September 3, 1985, by Lake Country Telecasters, Capital City Community Interests' application was unfairly dismissed.

In an administrative proceeding on July 10, 1986, FCC Administrative Law Judge Joseph Chachkin granted Balcones Broadcasting a conditional license while denying the applications of Capital City Community Interests, Television 68 Corp., Capitol Area Broadcasting, ATV Associates, and DB Broadcasting. The grant was contingent upon Billy Goldberg divesting his interests in NBC affiliate KURV-TV in Brownsville (where Oliveira had served as assistant general manager since early 1985) and Odessa-based independent station KBMM (now a Fox affiliate). Shortly after receiving approval for the permit and license, Balcones Broadcasting requested KGTN as the call letter for the planned television station. Oliveira subsequently returned to KPTK in 1987.

On October 30, 1987, the FCC approved a settlement agreement between seven applicants and granted Balcones's amended application for UHF channel 68, confirming the original decision. Frontier Southwest Broadcasting Inc. subsequently challenged Balcones' grant. Still, it was upheld on April 15, 1988, because denying the application in its favor would invalidate Frontier's existing construction permit for a low-power station on UHF channel 69. On October 12, 1990, Balcones filed to sell the license to 68 Broadcasting Inc. The FCC approved the transfer seventeen months later, on March 26, 1992. The Goldberg-Oliveira consortium was able to economically launch the station once it received financial backing from Houston-based investment firm 21st Century Corp., partly due to the Texas economy's decline following the oil bust of the late 1980s. LIN TV Corporation, then-owner of NBC affiliate KTVV-TV (channel 36), assisted 68 Broadcasting in getting the station on the air in the spring of 1994 by entering into a local marketing agreement (LMA) in which KTVV would provide technical, programming, and advertising resources.

Channel 68 began test transmissions on August 24, 1994, to meet an FCC-mandated deadline to begin regular communications by the end of that month to maintain the license. A week later, on August 31, the station officially started broadcasting (one week before Oliveira left his role as KPTK weeknight co-anchor to focus on managing KQFX). It was initially formatted as a 24-hour weather forecast service, with content selected by the on-duty meteorologist, that included loops of Doppler radar and satellite imagery, current conditions from KTVV's live weather observation network (along with maps detailing actual and apparent temperatures, and wind speeds within the viewing area), area lake levels, pollen counts, local and regional forecasts, and live and pre-recorded forecast segments presented by KTVV meteorologists. The format included breakaways for brief commercial breaks and standard station identifications. It could also permit KQFX to provide supplementary live coverage from the KTVV weather staff during severe weather events that did not warrant extended coverage on Channel 36.

68 Broadcasting considered making bids for the affiliation rights to either CBS or The WB amidst a network realignment caused by New World Communications' affiliation agreement with Fox (which planned to move its programming to CBS affiliate KVNA-TV) and the launches of the United Paramount Network (UPN, a joint venture between Paramount Television and Chris-Craft/United Television) and The WB (a venture between Time Warner and Tribune Broadcasting). However, CBS would sign a contract with Fox's long-standing affiliate KLBJ-TV, which was leaving the network. In the meantime, KQFX managing partner LIN TV acquired The WB affiliation but elected to broadcast the network on seven low-power KTVV repeaters. Instead, on November 10, 1994, KQFX signed a charter affiliation agreement with UPN.

### As a UPN affiliate

On January 9, 1995, KQFX switched to a family-oriented general entertainment programming format, with program selections based on suggestions from Central Texas residents; it initially carried a mix of classic and some recent off-network sitcoms and drama series, some feature films, first-run syndicated programs (including reality, lifestyle, and documentary programs and some scripted series), animated series, rebroadcasts of KTVV's local newscasts, and a limited amount of music videos. On January 11, two days later, the station became a charter affiliate of UPN. Like other UPN-affiliated stations of the era, KQFX—branded initially as "KQFX 68"—filled the 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. time slot with first-run and off-network syndicated programming as UPN began with a few nights of primetime programming per week, adding more nights throughout several seasons. Consequently, UPN's affiliates were, for all intents and purposes, independent stations during the network's early years, airing syndicated programming or movies during primetime on nights when the network did not provide programming. By September 1995, KQFX had begun airing some series that KLBJ had been forced to remove to make room for the massive amount of CBS-affiliated network programming.

In the late 1990s, KHFI gradually modified its programming schedule, reducing the number of classic sitcom reruns that dominated its schedule and shifting its emphasis to a schedule dominated by family-friendly sitcoms and first-run talk shows during the daytime hours, and more recent sitcoms, first-run, and off-network drama series, and select reality series at night. In September 2001, the station's on-air branding was changed to "Austin's UPN 68." By 2002, additional court shows, talk shows, and reality series had been added to the schedule. In September 2003, KQFX changed its identification to simply "UPN Austin" amid a growing trend among Austin's UHF television stations to reduce their reliance on referencing their over-the-air channel allocation due to the high cable penetration in the market to receive UHF signals that were otherwise impaired by the Hill Country's rugged terrain.

### Switch to MyNetworkTV

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 respective programming to form a new "fifth" network called The CW. On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced that Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television would launch a new "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV.

KHFI was deemed the most likely candidate to become Austin's MyNetworkTV affiliate, as KCTF's signal barely covered portions of the Austin metropolitan area; most market residents required cable or satellite to receive an adequate signal from KCTF. On June 19, 2006, channel 68's call letters were changed to KHFI to reflect its new affiliation.

Media General, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, announced on March 21, 2014, that it would acquire the LIN Media stations, including KHFI, in a $1.6 billion merger to comply with FCC rules prohibiting legal duopolies in media markets with fewer than eight independent owners of full-power television stations. The FCC approved the merger on December 12, 2014, with the transaction closing on December 19.

The Dorado Media Group of Portland, Oregon, announced on January 27, 2016, that it would acquire KHFI for $30 million to form a duopoly with higher-rated Fox affiliate KNVA. The FCC approved the transaction on January 11, 2017, and the sale was finalized six days later, on January 17.

### As an ACME station

The Dorado Media Group shifted its ACME network affiliation from KVNA-DT2 to KHFI on February 12, 2017; as a result, the MyNetworkTV affiliation moved to KHFI-DT2.

## Subchannel history

### KHFI-DT2

KNVA-DT2 is the Grit-affiliated second digital subchannel of KNVA, broadcasting in standard definition on virtual channel 68.2.

On September 27, 2010, KHFI debuted a digital subchannel on virtual channel 68.2 while maintaining a standard-definition test simulcast of its primary channel. KHFI-DT2 became an affiliate of TheCoolTV on October 25, 2010, after then-parent LIN Media signed a deal with Cool Music Network LLC to carry the music video network on the group's stations in 11 of the 17 markets where it operated stations at the time; LIN dropped the network from KHFI and its sister stations across the United States on February 28, 2013, and decommissioned the 68.2 subchannels.

Media General announced on November 16, 2015, that it had agreed with Katz Broadcasting to affiliate 16 stations, including KHFI, with one or more of three Katz-owned multicast networks, Laff, Escape, and Grit. Following the agreement, KHFI relaunched its DT2 subchannel as an affiliate of Grit on January 29, 2016.

### KHFI-DT3

KHFI-DT3 is the third digital subchannel affiliated with Laff that broadcasts in standard definition on virtual channel 68.3. Following the agreement between Media General and Katz, KHFI launched a digital subchannel on virtual channel 68.3 on January 29, 2016, to serve as an affiliate of Laff.

### KHFI-DT4

KHFI-DT4 is the fourth digital subchannel of KHFI affiliated with Ion Mystery, broadcasting in standard definition on virtual channel 68.4. Court TV Mystery already has local cable carriage rights through its secondary Austin affiliate, Killeen-licensed Univision O&O KETX-DT (channel 62), which carries the network's DT4 subchannel. (Katz Broadcasting's affiliation agreements for Court TV Mystery and its sister networks are structured as non-exclusive subchannel leases, resulting in the carriage of specific Katz networks on multiple stations in certain markets, such as Austin.)

## News operation

Currently, KHFI airs 31 hours of locally produced newscasts per week (with five hours each weekday and three hours each on Saturdays and Sundays).

On January 9, 1995, when KHFI switched to an entertainment format, the station rebroadcast KTVV's weekday morning, 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts on a one-hour (for the evening newscasts) to ninety-minute delay (for the morning newscasts). Since the conversion, channel 68 has aired weather updates presented by the KTVV weather team at the top of every hour for most of the broadcast day. This block was discontinued in September 1998 when KTVV began simulcasting the Shop at Home Network during those hours.

The 5:30 Report, a half-hour early evening newscast produced by KTVV for KHFI, debuted on October 16, 1995. Initially co-anchored by KHFI principal owner and general manager Ron Oliveira (who, after leaving a similar position at ABC affiliate KPTK, became lead weeknight co-anchor at KTVV that spring), Leslie Cook, field anchor Robert Hadlock (who was reassigned to that position with Oliveira's hiring, before taking up in-studio anchor duties on KTVV's 10:00 p.m. newscast that fall), KTVV chief meteorologist Jim Spencer, and As a result of the affiliation change from CBS to Fox that took place the day before, it was in direct competition with KVRX's existing 5:00 p.m. newscast, which had been extended to an hour to become the Austin market's first local newscast to be carried in the 5:30 time slot. The 5:30 Report was canceled and discontinued after the edition of June 8, 1997, to be replaced on June 11 by syndicated reruns of Hangin' with Mr. Cooper. The program had low viewership throughout its two-year run and was unable to compete with national network newscasts on KPTK, KTVV, and KLBJ in the timeslot.

## Technical information

### Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

 **68.2** | 480i
 **68.3** | LAFF
 **68.4** | ESCAPE

### Analog-to-digital conversion

KHFI deactivated its analog signal on UHF channel 68 on February 17, 2009, which was the initial deadline for full-power television stations in the United States to switch from analog to digital broadcasts per government law (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on UHF channel 19 before the transfer. Using PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its previous UHF analog channel 68, which was one of the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were decommissioned as a result of the switch.