KUPX-TV

KUPX-TV

Provo/Salt Lake City, Utah United States
City	Provo, Utah
Channels	Digital: 29 (UHF) Virtual: 16
Branding	Ion
Programming
Affiliations	16.1: Ion Television for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Ion Media (E. W. Scripps Company) (Ion Media License Company, LLC)
Sister stations	KSTU
History
Founded	April 24, 1985
First air date	April 21, 1998 (1998-04-21)
Former call signs	KZAR-TV (1985 – February 1998) KUWB (February–April 1998)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 16 (UHF, 1998–2009)
Former affiliations	Analog/DT1: inTV (April–August 1998) DT2: Qubo (until 2021) DT3: Ion Plus (until 2021) DT4: Ion Shop (until 2021) DT5: QVC Over the Air (until 2021) DT6:HSN (until 2021)
Call sign meaning	Utah's Pax TV
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	57884
ERP	530 kW
HAAT	1,171 m (3,842 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	40°39′12″N 112°12′9″W
Translator(s)	See below
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	iontelevision.com

KUPX-TV (channel 16) is a television station licensed to Provo, Utah, United States, broadcasting the Ion Television network to Salt Lake City and the state of Utah. It is owned and operated by the Ion Media subsidiary of the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Fox affiliate KSTU (channel 13). KUPX-TV's offices are located on Lawndale Drive in the southern section of Salt Lake City, and its transmitter is located on Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains, southwest of Salt Lake City.

History

There are two methods of accounting the station's history: by license and by "intellectual unit", which is the combination of a station's call letters, programming, network affiliation and staff. As the result of two local marketing agreements (LMAs) that began in 1998, which launched a process that culminated in a station swap in 1999, the KUPX license history differs from the intellectual unit history prior to April 21, 1998.

License history

On April 24, 1985, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted an original construction permit to build a full-power television station on UHF channel 16 to serve Provo and the Salt Lake City television market. The new station, originally owned by Morro Rock Resources, Inc., was given the call letters KZAR-TV, it was then sold to Royal Television of Utah, Inc. in October 1985. Royal Television had considerable difficulty in constructing the station, as evidenced by several applications to change transmitter location and several construction permit extensions, and even replacements of expired construction permits. In 1988, the station's callsign was deleted, then restored four months later. In July 1990, Royal Television applied to replace the construction permit that was to expire the following month. The application was not granted until February 1996, more than five years later. In September 1995, Roberts Broadcasting agreed to buy the station from Royal Broadcasting, and the deal was consummated in May 1996. In February 1996, the same day that the FCC approved the sale of the station from Royal Television to Roberts Broadcasting, Paxson Communications sent a proposal to Roberts to acquire a 50% share in the station. The proposal was unsuccessful.

On August 22, 1997, ACME Communications agreed to acquire a 49% stake in KZAR-TV, with an agreement to purchase the other 51% once the television station was on the air. Jamie Kellner, CEO and co-founder of ACME, was also co-founder and at the time, CEO of The WB, so it was naturally assumed that KZAR-TV would affiliate with that network. In February 1998, KZAR-TV changed its call letters KUWB in anticipation of the upcoming WB affiliation.

The former radio tower for KUPX (analog) atop Lake Mountain. Shared with KUTH (digital).

On April 20, 1998, Paxson entered into an agreement with Roberts Broadcasting and ACME Communications where each station would acquire the other's assets, but WB programming would remain on channel 30. To expedite the process, the parties immediately entered into local marketing agreements, whereby the stations would swap call signs and would begin to operate each other's stations until the FCC could approve the assignments of license. The following day, the stations executed the LMAs. KUPX (channel 30) in Ogden became KUWB and KUWB (channel 16) in Provo adopted the KUPX call letters. Meanwhile, Roberts and ACME continued to own KUPX, but operated KUWB. Two days following the execution of the LMAs, KUPX applied for a license for channel 16 in Provo and the station became operational. The license was approved by the FCC on May 29, 1998. Paxson and Roberts Broadcasting/ACME filed formal assignment of license applications in May 1998 and the FCC approved the swap in March 1999. ACME Communications followed through on its agreement to acquire the remaining 51% of KUPX in November 1998 and the deal was consummated in February 1999. ACME and Paxson consummated the station swap agreement in September 1999 and took full ownership of the stations that they had already been operating under the LMAs.

Originally, KUPX was an outlet for inTV, a shopping and infomercial network owned by Paxson Communications, but on August 31, 1998, Paxson launched a family-oriented network called Pax TV, which KUPX as its owned-and-operated station for the market. Through Pax, KUPX also aired programming from The Worship Network during the overnight hours as well as infomercials and religious programs. On July 1, 2005, Paxson Communications became Ion Media Networks and Pax TV rebranded as i: Independent Television. The network again renamed itself to Ion Television on January 29, 2007.

KUPX intellectual unit history prior to the swap

The KUPX intellectual unit began September 6, 1996, when Paxson Communications agreed to acquire channel 30, then known as KOOG-TV, from Alpha & Omega Communications LLC. The station had previously been the WB affiliate in the Salt Lake City, and Paxson continued that affiliation, but also replaced Home Shopping Network programming with Paxson's infomercial network, inTV, and religious programming. KOOG-TV changed its call letters to KUPX in February 1998, and the intellectual unit moved over to channel 16 in April 1998, when ACME Communications and Roberts Broadcasting, co-owners of channel 16, and Paxson Communications, owners of channel 30, agreed to allow each other to manage their stations leading up to the station swap, which was completed in September 1999.

Sale to Scripps

On September 24, 2020, the Cincinnati-based E. W. Scripps Company announced that it would purchase Ion Media for $2.65 billion, with financing from Berkshire Hathaway. With this purchase, Scripps will divest 23 Ion-owned stations, but no announcement has been made as to which stations that Scripps will divest as part of the move. The proposed divestitures will allow the merged company to fully comply with the FCC local and national ownership regulations. Scripps has agreed to a transaction with an unnamed buyer, who has agreed to maintain Ion affiliations for the stations. Scripps chose to keep KUPX-TV, making it a sister station to Fox affiliate KSTU (channel 13). The sale was completed on January 7, 2021.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel	Video	Aspect	Short name	Programming
16.1	720p	16:9	ION	Ion Television
16.2	480i		Grit	Grit
16.3			Laff	Laff
16.4			Bounce	Bounce TV
16.5			Defy TV	Defy TV
16.6			TruReal	TrueReal
16.7			NEWSY	Newsy

Analog-to-digital conversion

On April 3, 1997, the FCC adopted its Sixth Report and Order [1], establishing digital television service allotments [2]. In the initial allotment, the FCC assigned UHF channel 29 for KOOG-DT, the companion channel to UHF channel 30 in Ogden, later to become KUPX-DT. In the station swap, which was initiated in April 1998, the allocation for KUPX-DT was treated as part of the KUPX intellectual unit, and became the companion channel for Provo UHF channel 16, although channel 29 was still officially assigned to Ogden in the Digital Table of Allotments. Paxson Communications filed an application for KUPX-DT in July 1998. As part of a significant reallocation of DTV stations approved by the FCC in May 2000 [3], the city of license for KUPX-DT officially moved from Ogden to Provo in the DTV Table of Allotments. The FCC granted a construction permit to build KUPX-DT in March 1999 and Paxson Communications applied for a license for the DTV station in May 2002, which the FCC granted on November 7, 2002. The station's digital signal transmits from Farnsworth Peak, while the analog signal's transmissions originated from Lake Mountain until the digital transition in June 2009.

KUPX-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 16, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 29, using PSIP to display KUPX-TV's virtual channel as 16 on digital television receivers.

Translators

City of license	Callsign	Channel	ERP	HAAT	Facility ID	Transmitter coordinates	Owner
Castle Dale	K28PR-D	28	0.02 kW	484 m (1,588 ft)	182893	39°10′57.9″N 110°36′27.5″W	Emery County
Clear Creek	K29IW-D	29	0.006 kW	−75 m (−246 ft)	182423	39°38′45.1″N 111°9′17.5″W	Carbon County
Delta, etc.	K33KW-D	33	0.75 kW	−4 m (−13 ft)	183539	39°21′11.9″N 112°21′11.7″W	Millard County
Duchesne	K28PH-D	28	0.012 kW	−46 m (−151 ft)	167404	40°9′17.7″N 110°23′31.6″W	Duchesne County
East Carbon County	K19MF-D	19	0.34 kW	612 m (2,008 ft)	182268	39°45′21.8″N 110°59′28.5″W	Carbon County
East Price	K26OI-D	26	0.07 kW	−84 m (−276 ft)	182181	39°36′37.8″N 110°48′49.5″W
Ferron	K28KQ-D	28	0.02 kW	−231 m (−758 ft)	182415	39°5′35.4″N 111°8′42.9″W	Emery County
Fillmore, etc.	K35NX-D	35	0.15 kW	111 m (364 ft)	188078	39°2′9.8″N 112°19′33.9″W	Millard County
Fountain Green	K33OU-D	33	0.05 kW	−163 m (−535 ft)	185660	39°32′3.1″N 111°35′12″W	Sanpete County
Fremont	K31LA-D	31	0.01 kW	−274 m (−899 ft)	183124	38°25′57.9″N 111°37′59.5″W	Wayne County
Garrison, etc.	K13AAM-D	13	0.06 kW	−61 m (−200 ft)	167943	39°6′15.4″N 113°57′12.3″W	Millard County
Green River	K23JV-D	23	0.02 kW	−18 m (−59 ft)	182173	38°58′34.9″N 110°10′58.4″W	Emery County
	K28PN-D	28		484 m (1,588 ft)	182141	38°10′57.9″N 110°36′27.5″W
Helper	K25PM-D	25	0.07 kW	−165 m (−541 ft)	182285	39°41′4.8″N 110°50′32.5″W	Carbon County
Huntington	K28KR-D	28	0.02 kW	−135 m (−443 ft)	182488	39°20′7.3″N 110°58′49″W	Emery County
Juab	K18GX-D	18	0.3 kW	582 m (1,909 ft)	125581	39°29′30.4″N 111°49′40.1″W	Millard County
Kanarraville, etc.	K33KF-D	33	0.07 kW	−23 m (−75 ft)	182613	37°29′16.1″N 113°12′19.6″W	Iron County
Leamington	K12QY-D	12	0.079 kW	−96 m (−315 ft)	167935	39°31′55.5″N 112°18′49.4″W	Millard County
Manti Ephraim	K30KJ-D	30	0.14 kW	648 m (2,126 ft)	182628	39°19′23.3″N 111°46′28.5″W	Sanpete County
Mount Pleasant	K18IV-D	18	0.01 kW	−114 m (−374 ft)	182819	39°32′21.5″N 111°23′19.8″W
Nephi	K26PK-D	26	0.05 kW	585 m (1,919 ft)	182177	39°29′30.4″N 111°49′40.1″W	Juab County
Orangeville	K23OH-D	23	0.34 kW	521 m (1,709 ft)	181979	39°12′35.8″N 111°8′32.6″W	Emery County
Parowan Enoch Paragonah	K26OA-D	26	0.25 kW	234 m (768 ft)	130930	37°50′30.1″N 112°58′29.4″W	Iron County
Richfield, etc.	K23NU-D	23	0.165 kW	470 m (1,542 ft)	183540	38°38′4.9″N 112°3′36.8″W	Sevier County
Roosevelt	K25PH-D	25	0.084 kW	150 m (492 ft)	17647	40°19′26.8″N 110°9′21.5″W	Duchesne County
Rural Beaver County	K21KL-D	21	0.025 kW	1,219 m (3,999 ft)	182607	38°31′13.5″N 113°17′14.9″W	Iron County
Salina Redmond	K04RV-D	4	0.06 kW	226 m (741 ft)	182793	38°52′37.2″N 111°52′34.2″W	Sevier County
Scipio	K23OD-D	23	0.05 kW	171 m (561 ft)	167927	39°12′9.1″N 112°8′37.5″W	Millard County
Spring Glen	K33KI-D	33	0.006 kW	528 m (1,732 ft)	182251	39°31′48.8″N 111°3′5.6″W	Carbon County
Teasdale	K22MV-D	22	0.072 kW	124 m (407 ft)	182792	38°16′59.7″N 111°30′38.8″W	Wayne County
Utahn	K15LW-D	15	0.491 kW	692 m (2,270 ft)	189761	40°21′40.6″N 110°47′33.5″W	Duchesne County
Cortez, CO	K16CT-D	16	2 kW	466 m (1,529 ft)	61469	37°21′53.9″N 108°8′51.2″W	Southwest Colorado TV Translator Association
Malad City, ID	K26OY-D	26	1 kW	−78 m (−256 ft)	125037	42°4′49.7″N 112°12′31.8″W	Oneida County Translator District

External links

• Official website