KPXG-TV

KPXG-TV (channel 22) is a television station licensed to Salem, Oregon, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to the Portland area. Owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company, the station has offices on Southwest Naito Parkway in downtown Portland, and its transmitter is located in the Sylvan-Highlands section of the city. Despite Salem being KPXG-TV's city of license, the station maintains no physical presence there.

KPXG-TV
SalemPortland, Oregon
Vancouver, Washington
United States
CitySalem, Oregon
ChannelsDigital: 22 (UHF)
Virtual: 22
BrandingIon
Programming
Affiliations22.1: Ion Television
22.2: Bounce TV
22.3: Court TV
22.4: Laff
22.5: Defy TV
22.6: TrueReal
22.7: Newsy
Ownership
OwnerIon Media
(E. W. Scripps Company)
(Ion Media License Company, LLC)
History
First air date
November 21, 1981 (1981-11-21)
Former call signs
KECH (1981–1986)
KWVT (1986–1987)
KHSP (1987–1988)
KBSP-TV (1988–1998)
Former channel number(s)
Analog:
22 (UHF, 1981–2008)
Digital:
4 (VHF, 2004–2008)
Analog/DT1:
Independent (1981–1987)
HSN (1987–1998)
ONTV (secondary, 1982–1984)
FNN (secondary, 1982–1985)
DT2:
Qubo (until 2021)
DT3:
Ion Plus (until 2021)
DT4:
Ion Shop (until 2021)
Call sign meaning
Pax TV Oregon
Technical information
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID5801
ERP1,000 kW
HAAT510 m (1,673 ft)
Transmitter coordinates45°31′20.5″N 122°44′49.5″W
Translator(s)K14LP-D Cottage Grove
Links
Public license information
Profile
LMS
Websiteiontelevision.com

KPXG-TV's signal is relayed on translator station K14LP-D in Cottage Grove, in the Eugene television market. KPXG-TV also reaches some portions of the Eugene market over-the-air and on cable.

History

The station first signed on the air on November 21, 1981 as KECH. It was founded by general partners Chris Desmond and Arnold Brustin; both were formerly associated with CBS.[1] KECH originally operated as a general entertainment independent station, broadcasting vintage movies, television series and cartoons; it was branded as "Catch 22". By mid-1982, the station began carrying the ONTV subscription television service in the evenings; customers would be supplied with a small yagi antenna, an amplifier if needed and a set-top box in order to receive ONTV programming.

ONTV found few local customers and eventually went bankrupt; KECH reverted to a full-time general entertainment format in 1984, and changed its call sign to KWVT on October 1, 1986. Soon afterward, in 1987, the station affiliated with the Home Shopping Network; initially carried only in the overnight hours, HSN programming expanded to the midday hours later that year, and began to air full-time by 1987. At that point, the station was sold to Blackstar Broadcasting, and changed its call sign first to KHSP on September 17, 1987, and then KBSP-TV on April 21, 1988. During that year, the station carried the Oregon Megabucks drawings; the program was produced in conjunction with the Oregon Lottery, which discontinued the program by 1990.

Blackstar sold the station to Paxson Communications on January 19, 1996, and the station began to air religious programming in the morning, infomercials in the afternoon and evening, and Worship Network programming during the overnight hours. On July 1, 1998, the station changed its call letters to KPXG, and upon the launch of Pax TV on August 31, the station began airing the network's programming from noon to midnight (reduced to 4 to 11 p.m. by 2003, when the network reduced its programming schedule). It remains an affiliate of the restructured Ion Television network, following the network's rebrandings from Pax TV and i: Independent Television.

Former Portland translator

KPXG-TV was formerly relayed on a fill-in translator in Portland, KPXG-LD (UHF digital channel 42). It was initially a separately operated station, signing on in the spring of 1994 as K43EK, operating on UHF channel 43. The station was formerly licensed to VVILPTV Inc., which aired home shopping programming from ValueVision for four years. In 1998, K43EK was bought by Paxson Communications, which transitioned the station into a translator of KPXG to cover areas of the Portland market that receive a rimshot signal of KPXG, and soon changed the calls to KPXG-LP. The station later moved to channel 54, and then to channel 42 upon transitioning to digital television in August 2009. Other call letters assigned to the station in the past was K60DW. On December 15, 2014, Ion reached a deal to donate KPXG-LD to Word of God Fellowship, parent company of the Daystar network.[2]

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel Video Aspect Short name Programming[3]
22.1720p16:9IONIon Television
22.2480iBounceBounce TV
22.3CourtTVCourt TV
22.4LaffLaff
22.5Defy TVDefy TV
22.6TruRealTrueReal
22.7NewsyNewsy

Analog-to-digital conversion

KPXG-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 22, on December 3, 2008. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition VHF channel 4 to UHF channel 22.[4]

References

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