KOAT-TV

KOAT-TV

File:KOAT 7 logo.png
Albuquerque–Santa Fe, New Mexico United States
City	Albuquerque, New Mexico
Channels	Digital: 7 (VHF) Virtual: 7
Branding	KOAT 7; KOAT Action 7 News (call letters are pronounced individually)
Programming
Affiliations	7.1: ABC 7.2: Estrella TV 7.3: True Crime Network 7.5: Story Television 7.6: QVC
Ownership
Owner	Hearst Television (Hearst Properties Inc.)
History
First air date	September 28, 1953 (1953-09-28)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 7 (VHF, 1953–2009) Digital: 21 (UHF, 2002–2009)
Former affiliations	Secondary: DuMont (1953–1955)
Call sign meaning	sounds like the word "coat"
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	53928
ERP	26.5 kW
HAAT	1,292 m (4,239 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	35°12′53″N 106°27′3″W
Translator(s)	See Below
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.koat.com

KOAT-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Hearst Television, the station maintains studios on Carlisle Boulevard in Northeast Albuquerque, and its transmitter is located on Sandia Crest, northeast of Albuquerque.

Through several low-power repeaters, KOAT-TV serves nearly the entire state of New Mexico with the exception of the Clovis–Portales area, which receives ABC programming from KVIH-TV in Clovis (a satellite of KVII-TV in Amarillo, Texas), and Las Cruces–Deming, which is in the El Paso television market and is served by KVIA-TV.

History

Television

KOAT signed on the air on September 28, 1953, less than a week before KGGM-TV (channel 13, now KRQE). It was locally owned by Albert M. Cadwell & Walter Stiles. It first operated from studios located on Tulane Drive, just off Central Avenue in Southeast Albuquerque. The local owners sold the station to Alvarado Television (the owner of KVOA in Tucson, Arizona) in 1957, Upon sign on, the station acquired the ABC affiliation from KOB, channel 4 (which carried it as a secondary affiliation). It also carried programming from the DuMont Television Network, which went off the air in 1955. In 1962, Alvarado sold both stations to Steinman Stations, who owned WGAL-TV in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and later acquired WTEV (now WLNE-TV) in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The station moved its studios in the early 1960s to a new facility located on University Boulevard in Northeast Albuquerque. In 1982, KOAT opened a new state of the art facility on the intersection of Carlisle and Comanche in Northeast Albuquerque.

Steinman sold both KOAT and KVOA to Pulitzer, the then-owner of KSD-TV (now KSDK) in St. Louis, in 1969. This made KOAT Pulitzer's second television station acquisition outside of its home city of St. Louis; the KOAT acquisition was consummated a year after Pulitzer closed on its purchase of KVOA. A decade later, the other two Steinman stations were sold to Pulitzer as well, reuniting them with KOAT (KVOA was spun off in 1972).

In 1998, Pulitzer sold its entire broadcasting division, including KOAT and WGAL, to Hearst-Argyle. In mid-2009 the Hearst Corporation, already majority owner of what was Hearst-Argyle Television, bought out all of the then-publicly traded shares and changed the broadcasting group's name to Hearst Television.

KOAT uses a version of the Circle 7 logo used by many other ABC stations, both owned-and-operated stations and affiliates. The "Circle 7" logo has been used at KOAT since 1971 and the Action News title since 1974. The original Circle 7 logo was inside a square, much like the variation used for many years by sister station KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, KOAT uses a regular Circle 7 logo for its news broadcasts, and a variation with the ABC logo (the same logo used by the ABC owned-and-operated stations which use virtual channel 7) for all other station promotions and identification.

Radio

KOAT-TV had a radio counterpart on 1450 kHz, KOAT, which launched in 1946 and affiliated with ABC Radio, portending KOAT-TV's continuous ABC affiliation. A KOAT radio remote appears frequently in the 1951 Billy Wilder film, Ace in the Hole. Pulitzer sold the radio station sometime in the early 1970s, and 1450 kHz in Albuquerque is now KRZY.

Programming

Syndicated programming on KOAT includes The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Entertainment Tonight, Tamron Hall, The Good Dish, and Live with Kelly and Ryan. As a Hearst owned station, KOAT airs the national political show Matter of Fact, hosted by Soledad O'Brien, on Sunday mornings after ABC's This Week.

KOAT airs the entire ABC schedule in pattern, with the exception of the Saturday edition of Good Morning America, whose first hour airs at 5 a.m., two hours earlier than its recommended time for Mountain Time Zone affiliates, with the second hour at 9 a.m., following a three-hour newscast. The Sunday edition of GMA also airs at 5 a.m.

News operation

KOAT-TV reporter interviewing Deb Haaland at the 2019 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

KOAT produces 39 hours of news programming each week, with six hours each weekday, and 4½ hours each on Saturdays and Sundays. The station's newscasts, branded as Action 7 News, have consistently won the ratings battles with competitors KOB and KRQE for over 40 years, although KRQE has narrowed the margin in the last 10 years. Much of the success is due to KOAT's news anchors, many who have stayed at the station for many years. Weather forecaster Howard Morgan worked at KOAT for 28 years before retiring in 1999. Current weather forecaster Joe Diaz has been with the station for over 30 years, with the exception of several years spent in Texas doing the weather for KTRK-TV in Houston (1989–1991) and KIII in Corpus Christi (1991–1996).

KOAT was one of six ABC affiliates and one of two Hearst-owned ABC stations to have an hour-long 10 p.m. newscast, along with WISN in Milwaukee; as well as KRGV in Weslaco, Texas, KSTP in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, KIFI in Idaho Falls, Idaho, WEAR in Pensacola, Florida, and former sister station KITV in Honolulu, Hawaii. KOAT announced that with the 10 p.m. newscast on January 14, 2019, it would return to 35 minutes.

Upon its current ownership by Hearst (then Hearst-Argyle) in 1999, KOAT rolled out a new set and began using the then-current Hearst-Argyle mandated graphics and "Image News" theme music package around October of that year. Then in 2004, "Image News" was dropped in favor of Newsmusic Central's "Hearst TV News Package". Another new set was introduced in September 2008. Currently, KOAT doesn't produce its newscasts in high definition. However, on June 13, 2010, the station began airing its newscasts in 16:9 widescreen standard definition. And around late August 2013, KOAT switched to Hearst TV's "diagrid" standardized graphics along with the "Strive" news music package.

On August 21, 2017, KOAT added a one-hour 4 p.m. weekday newscast, and on October 25 of the same year, a new set was introduced. On April 5, 2018, KOAT began using an updated version of Hearst's standardized graphics, which were first rolled out by sister station WESH in Orlando, Florida in January.

On August 26, 2019, KOAT began broadcasting "Action 7 News Live At Nine" on the 7.3 True Crime Network digital channel. It is also available, as all newscasts are, on KOAT's website.

Since September 20, 2021, KOAT streams its newscasts, as well as other locally produced content, on Very Local, an over-the-top media service operated by Hearst Television.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel	Video	Aspect	Short name	Programming
7.1	1080i	16:9	KOAT-DT	Main KOAT-TV programming / ABC
7.2	480i		Estrell	Estrella TV
7.3			Crime	True Crime Network
7.5			Story	Story Television
7.6			QVC	QVC

KOAT has carried the Spanish-language network Estrella TV on its second digital subchannel since it launched on September 14, 2009. On July 11, 2016, KOAT added the Justice Network featuring true crime and investigation programming and also providing alerts of local criminals who are wanted by police. On April 30, 2021, KOAT became the first Hearst Television station to have a fourth digital subchannel, Shop LC. KOAT added Weigel Broadcasting's Story Television on digital channel 7.5 on March 28, 2022, the day of that network's launch.

Analog-to-digital conversion

KOAT-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 21 to VHF channel 7.

Translators

City of license	Callsign	Channel	ERP	HAAT	Facility ID	Transmitter coordinates	Owner
Alamagordo, etc.	K34CR-D	34	1.18 kW	500 m (1,640 ft)	53906	32°49′45.3″N 105°53′16.9″W	Hearst Television
Caballo	K16LU-D	16	1 kW	790 m (2,592 ft)	53890	32°58′16.6″N 107°13′26.7″W
Carlsbad	K19JZ-D	19	15 kW	334 m (1,096 ft)	189377	32°47′38″N 104°12′31″W	Hearst Television
Colfax	K23JD-D	23	1 kW	646 m (2,119 ft)	53918	36°33′36.1″N 105°11′42″W
Crownpoint	K30KV-D	30		26 m (85 ft)	53886	35°40′52″N 108°8′55.2″W
Deming	K22ME-D	22		356 m (1,168 ft)	53897	32°12′1.8″N 107°36′37.1″W
Dulce Lumberton	K28ER-D	28	0.2 kW	492 m (1,614 ft)	53937	36°59′0″N 106°58′13.1″W
Farmington	K19CM-D	19	1.21 kW	145 m (476 ft)	53883	36°40′17″N 108°13′55.2″W
	K24IV-D	24	1 kW	254 m (833 ft)	53888	36°25′33″N 107°50′41.2″W
Gallup	K10PW-D	10	0.3 kW	8 m (26 ft)	11464	35°32′8″N 108°44′30″W
Grants, etc.	K11EV-D	11		34 m (112 ft)	53916	37°7′9.1″N 107°54′4.2″W
Hobbs	K12NH-D	12		85 m (279 ft)	53934	32°47′12.5″N 103°7′5″W
Las Vegas	K09AI-D	9		109 m (358 ft)	53882	35°36′16.3″N 105°15′39.4″W
Montoya Newkirk	K28NX-D	28	1 kW	257 m (843 ft)	53910	34°59′6.2″N 104°8′0.8″W
Mount Powell	K15KK-D	15	0.084 kW	398 m (1,306 ft)	183687	35°28′0.7″N 108°14′27″W
Raton	K16CH-D	16	1 kW	435 m (1,427 ft)	53880	36°40′56.1″N 104°24′53.9″W
Red River	K12OC-D	12	0.3 kW	−16 m (−52 ft)	13441	36°41′0.1″N 105°22′23″W
Roswell	K13RK-D	13		85 m (279 ft)	53914	33°24′5.3″N 104°22′46.8″W
Ruidoso	K31MW-D	31	0.1 kW	925 m (3,035 ft)	198239	33°24′14.2″N 105°46′56.9″W
Silver City	K10QY-D	10	0.3 kW	470 m (1,542 ft)	189378	32°51′46.2″N 108°14′30.1″W
Taos	K36LF-D	36	1 kW	−187 m (−614 ft)	185192	36°23′51″N 105°32′36″W
Tierra Amarilla	K36KD-D			67 m (220 ft)	53927	36°53′58″N 106°36′7.1″W
Cortez, CO	K09DM-D	9	0.3 kW	481 m (1,578 ft)	61443	37°21′0.9″N 108°8′3.2″W	Southwest Colorado TV Translator Association
Durango, CO	K24NH-D	24	0.8 kW	369 m (1,211 ft)	53923	37°20′22.5″N 107°49′28.3″W	Hearst Television
Romeo, CO	K17JW-D	17	1 kW	742 m (2,434 ft)	183579	36°51′25″N 106°1′14″W
Vallecito, CO	K13PJ-D	13		204 m (669 ft)	190192	37°15′46″N 107°54′0.24″W	Southwest Colorado TV Translator Association
Many Farms, AZ	K36JX-D	36		645 m (2,116 ft)	53926	36°27′30″N 109°5′39.3″W	Hearst Television

Former satellite stations

KOAT-TV formerly operated three satellite stations, which rebroadcast its signal and added local content for other parts of the broadcast market:

Station	City of license	Channels (Digital)	Channels (Virtual)	First air date	Last air date	Former callsigns	ERP (Digital)	HAAT (Digital)	Facility ID	Transmitter coordinates
KOCT1	Carlsbad	19 (UHF)	6	August 24, 1956 (1956-08-24)	July 18, 2012 (2012-07-18)	KAVE-TV (1956–1987) KVIO-TV (1987–1993)	15 kW	333 m (1,093 ft)	53908	32°47′38″N 104°12′29″W
KOFT2	Farmington	8 (VHF)	3	2002 (2002)	November 2007 (2007-11)		40 kW	165.9 m (544 ft)	53904	36°40′17″N 108°13′52.7″W
KOVT	Silver City	10 (VHF)	10	September 1987 (1987-09)3	July 18, 2012 (2012-07-18)	KWNM-TV (1987–1992)	3.2 kW	485 m (1,591 ft)	53911	32°51′46″N 108°14′28″W

Notes:

• 1. Prior to the digital transition, KOCT's audio signal could be heard on 87.75 MHz on the FM band in Carlsbad and the surrounding areas; television stations broadcasting on VHF channel 6 were audible over this frequency during the analog television era, although this is no longer possible due to the transition, even for stations that broadcast their digital signals on channel 6.
• 2. KOFT never operated its analog signal; its digital station was operated via Special Temporary Authorization.
• 3. The Broadcasting and Cable Yearbook says KOVT signed on September 9, while the Television and Cable Factbook says it signed on September 10.

KOCT, formerly KAVE-TV and KVIO-TV, became part of the KOAT-TV operation in 1993 after previously serving as a satellite of El Paso, Texas, ABC affiliate KVIA-TV. The Carlsbad station began in 1956 as KAVE-TV, a CBS/NTA Film Network affiliate with studio and transmitter facilities on Church Street in Carlsbad. In 1966, when Roswell, New Mexico, station KBIM-TV became the CBS affiliate for southeastern New Mexico, KAVE became a satellite station of then-ABC affiliate KMOM-TV in Monahans, Texas (now NBC affiliate KWES-TV, Midland–Odessa, Texas) and then of KVIA-TV (then-KELP-TV) in El Paso in 1970.

Hearst-Argyle surrendered the license of KOFT to the FCC on November 13, 2007, though its license was not canceled until May 5, 2010. Hearst then informed the FCC on July 18, 2012, that it would discontinue the operations of KOCT and KOVT; their licenses were canceled on August 1. The move was made to eliminate the need to maintain the KOCT and KOVT public files in their respective cities due to FCC regulations which went into effect on that date; the transmitters for both stations were immediately repurposed into lower-powered KOAT translator stations to continue to provide service to both communities.

External links

• Official website