Informatics Educational Institutions & Programs

KHSL-TV

Chico–Redding, California United States
City	Chico, California
Channels	Digital: 36 (UHF) Virtual: 12
Branding	CBS 12 (general) Chico-Redding CW (DT2) Action News Now (newscasts)
Programming
Affiliations	12.1: CBS 12.2: CW+ for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Allen Media Group[1] (California TV License Company, LLC)
Sister stations	KNVN
History
First air date	August 29, 1953 (71 years ago) (1953-08-29)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 12 (VHF, 1953–2009) Digital: 43 (UHF, 1999–2018)
Former affiliations	All secondary: ABC (1953–1978) NBC (1953–1956, 1978–1985) DuMont (1953–1955)
Call sign meaning	Harry Smithson and Sidney Lewis (founders of KHSL-AM)
Technical information[2]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	24508
ERP	170 kW
HAAT	461.9 m (1,515 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	39°57′28.6″N 121°42′52.9″W / 39.957944°N 121.714694°W / 39.957944; -121.714694
Translator(s)	see § Translators
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	www.actionnewsnow.com

KHSL-TV (channel 12) is a television station in Chico, California, United States, serving the Chico–Redding area as an affiliate of CBS and The CW Plus. It is owned by Allen Media Group in common operation with KNVN (channel 24), the market's NBC/Telemundo affiliate owned by Maxair Media, a combination known as Action News Now. The two stations share studios at the McClung Broadcast Center on the corner of Eaton and Silverbell roads on the northwest side of Chico; KHSL is broadcast from Cohasset Ridge in Butte County to the Chico area and South Fork Mountain northwest of Redding.

KHSL-TV was the first television station in the region, signing on in 1953 as the TV extension of Chico radio station KHSL (1290 AM). Its original transmitter site in Paradise, California, failed to adequately cover Redding, prompting it to relocate to Cohasset the next year. Under the ownership of the McClung family's Golden Empire Broadcasting Company, KHSL-TV became the leading station for news in the market. The McClungs owned the KHSL stations until 1994, when the radio stations were split off and United Communications Corporation acquired the TV station.

Catamount Broadcasting acquired KHSL-TV in 1998 and began handling operations of KNVN in 2000. The newscasts of both stations initially retained separate presentation but were slowly amalgamated into a single news service. KHSL-TV went through several owners in the 2010s and early 2020s and has been owned by Allen Media Group since 2020.

On July 5, 1952, the Golden Empire Broadcasting Company applied to build a new television station on channel 12 to serve Chico. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the construction permit on March 11, 1953, enabling work on KHSL-TV to begin.^[3] Just over a month later, the building to house the station's transmitter in Paradise was completed; work was also under way on the station's studio, which was located in a former auto garage at Fourth and Wall streets in Chico.^[4]

KHSL-TV began regular broadcasting on August 29, 1953.^[5] Several days earlier, it had put out its first test patterns, which were a particular disappointment to hopeful viewers in Redding. While Chico and Red Bluff enjoyed good reception from the site, the signal in Redding was weak and heavily affected by multipath ghosting.^[6] A local television dealer pushed to set up an early cable television system to provide good KHSL-TV pictures to Redding viewers from an antenna on South Fork Mountain, but the station made the point moot by instead moving its transmitter.^[7] The station began transmitting from the higher Cohasset Ridge in September 1954, adding an estimated 50,000 homes to its coverage area.^[8] Days later, the station suffered a control panel fire but was able to make repairs in time to air Game 2 of the 1954 World Series.^[9]

When it launched, KHSL-TV was an affiliate of CBS and NBC.^[10] The station joined the Pacific Coast regional network of ABC in October 1953^[11] but was not formally named an ABC affiliate until June 1954.^[12] It was also affiliated with the DuMont Television Network by September 1954;^[8] that network closed in September 1955. KHSL-TV disaffiliated from NBC on July 31, 1956, retaining CBS and ABC; though it cited its heavy load of network programming,^[13] the next day, NBC programs moved to the new channel 7 (originally KVIP, now KRCR-TV) from Redding.^[14] In 1960, KVIP-TV and sister station KVIQ-TV in Eureka switched from primary NBC to primary ABC affiliates,^[15] though KRCR returned to primary NBC then switched back to primary ABC in 1974.^[16]

In its early years, KHSL-TV produced a number of local programs. The Paul Bunyan Show was noteworthy for being the springboard for actor Richard Kiel for a year in 1963; in addition to hosting the children's show, he was channel 12's merchandising director.^[17]

In October 1994, it was sold to United Communications Corporation. On September 14, 1998, KHSL-TV was purchased by Catamount Broadcasting.

From 1956 to 1995, KHSL aired the half-hour music program, The Moriss Taylor Show. The show was hosted by Moriss Taylor and featured several musicians such as Charlie Robinson, Yvonne Haygood, Bill Teague, Mark Alstad, and Rosie Mello. Reruns aired until 1997, two years after Catamount Broadcasting purchased KHSL-TV. The show aired on KRVU-LD on Saturday mornings beginning at 10 a.m. from 1997 until 2015 when that station canceled the show after it was sold to Bonten Media Group, owners of chief rival KRCR-TV.^{[citation needed]}

On August 10, 1998, when KCPM changed its callsign to KNVN, Grapevine Communications sold the station because of its large debt and likely bankruptcy. To avoid possibly putting KNVN off the air, the nearly bankrupt station signed a shared service agreement with KHSL, eventually leading to the controversial consolidation of the news departments. The ratings of the newscasts have always lagged far behind KHSL and KRCR. The takeover led to a slight rise in ratings and KHSL's ratings slightly declined. Soon after, the ratings of both stations plummeted once the newscasts merged. Today's newscasts have slightly increased ratings with six newscasts each weekday and two each day on weekends, but both KHSL and KNVN remain behind KRCR-TV and, to a lesser extent, KCVU, placing fourth and third respectively. The combined operation's ratings are hampered in part because most locations in the southern portion of the viewing area can receive many of the larger stations from Sacramento, including KCRA or KOVR. Both of those stations are also available on Comcast Cable.^{[citation needed]}

On February 6, 2013, it was announced that KHSL would be sold to GOCOM Media, LLC. Concurrently, sister station KNVN was sold by Evans Broadcasting to K4 Media Holdings, LLC.^[18][19] The FCC approved the sale on April 19, 2013;^[20] it was consummated on May 6.^[21] On July 14, 2015, GOCOM announced that it would sell KHSL-TV to Heartland Media (which also owns Oregon television stations KDRV in Medford and KEZI in Eugene), through its USA Television Holdings joint venture with MSouth Equity Partners, for $40 million; concurrently, K4 Media Holdings would sell KNVN to Maxair Media, with KHSL providing services to KNVN and selling up to 15 percent of channel 24's advertising time.^[22] The sale was completed on December 1.^[23]

On July 15, 2015, the announcement was made that Heartland Media, owned by Robert Prather, would be purchasing the station from Gocom and entering a local marketing agreement with Maxair-owned KNVN, which was already operated out of the same facility.^[24]

On October 1, 2019, it was announced that media mogul Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios would be purchasing 11 of Heartland Media's stations across nine markets for $290 million. Former owner Robert Prather agreed to continue management of the stations at least through the duration of the sale's pending. The sale was completed on February 11, 2020.^[25] Allen's other holdings include The Weather Channel and 21 regional sports networks.^[26]

Starting in September 2006, the DT2 subcarrier added programming from The CW Television Network. This coincided with the company's acquisition of KIWB from Bluestone Television in July 2006. It has its own 10 p.m. newscast titled CW Action News at Ten.

One of the station's first newscasts was Valley Headline News, which is 1959 was broadcast on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7 p.m. local time. W. E. Thomas was the news director.

From the 1970s to the late 2000s, the station had a few name changes over the years to Newscope 12, News 12 and Channel 12 News. It also produced a local public affairs program called Agenda 12 (later known as just Agenda) which featured various hosts.

During the 1990s, news anchor Bruce Lang hosted a half-hour news and information program called Sunday Evening, which was similar to CBS News Sunday Morning. The program aired after the Sunday edition of the CBS Evening News and before 60 Minutes.

Your Show Live was a locally produced interview program that aired from 2002 to 2004 as a taped rebroadcast of its live program on KNVN. As of 2018, there are seven newscasts produced throughout the day. Action News Now at 5 and 6 (formerly called "Wake Up!") is the station's morning news programming that airs from 5 to 7 a.m. Action News Now at Noon provides midday coverage, recapping and following up on early morning developments and often uniquely featuring in-studio guests from the surrounding community. Starting in 2017, Action News Now First At 4 was added exclusively to KNVN, beginning the station's evening coverage. The evening news is rounded out with Action News Now at 5, and Action News Now at 6. The late night newscasts include the CW Action News Now at 10 and Action News Now at 11 – the former being the only newscast not broadcast on either KHSL or KNVN. The morning newscasts as well as 4 and 5 p.m. shows are all one-hour productions while all other news programming is thirty minutes. Weekend newscasts are all half-hour shows at 6 and 11 p.m. on Saturdays, as well as 5, 6, and 11 p.m. on Sundays.

A thirty-minute Spanish-language newscast is also produced for Telemundo, called Accíon Noticiero Telemundo at 6 and 11 p.m. Monday through Friday.

• Louisa Hodge (NCN Wake Up! host) (2003–2005, now at KCBS-2/KCAL-9, Los Angeles)
• Stan Statham (news anchor) (1960s-1970s, former California state assemblyman and former president of the California Broadcasters Association, died in 2020)
• Moriss Taylor (host of The Moriss Taylor Show) (1956-1995, retired in 2013, died in 2018)
• Anthony Watts (chief meteorologist) (1987–2002, 2004, now at KPAY radio in Chico and returned as weekend weather anchor in 2015)

The stations' signals are multiplexed:

Subchannels of KHSL-TV^[27]

Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
12.1	1080i	16:9	KHSL-HD	CBS
12.2	720p		CW-10	CW+
12.5	480i		ION NET	Ion
12.7			MeTV	MeTV

Subchannels of K31ND-D

Channel	Programming
24.4	Telemundo
24.3	KNVN SD
12.3	KHSL SD
12.4	CW+
24.6	AccuWeather

KHSL-TV became digital-only on December 22, 2008. The station shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 12, on January 1, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 43,^[28] using virtual channel 12.

KHSL replaced normal programming with digital TV information on analog channel 12, and eventually turned it off on January 1, 2009.^{[citation needed]} KHSL's 235 kW, 500-foot-tall (150 m) digital tower doubled its power to nearly 500 kW on February 17, 2009.

According to KHSL's engineering department, KHSL chose not return to VHF channel 12 as the digital transmission has much poorer results than UHF channels. There was still a substantial loss in over-the-air (OTA) coverage. There has been criticized because a VHF signal better covers the terrain of the rural, mountainous viewing area in local communities and could have actually gained coverage if the digital transmitter used the analog tower. However, results by most stations in the U.S. show a loss of coverage with a VHF signal, but the Chico–Redding area is unique in the fact that the valley is suited better for UHF (VHF is notorious for impulse noise) while the foothills and mountains are better suited for VHF (UHF does not travel the natural curve of the Earth well); but KHSL had to take a loss of approximately 50,000 potential viewers since it cannot satisfy both types of terrain at the same time, less than it would have on VHF 12 but still much worse than the other stations in the area which saw little or no loss in coverage.^[29] However, it covers 537,000 people which is still second to KCVU—which now covers 550,000 people and pulls ahead of KRCR, KIXE, and KNVN, which better cover the core Chico–Redding area, only covering 400,000 people each. Many rural cable systems use Dish Network to feed their systems now since they have now lost OTA coverage. Viewers in northern areas of Sacramento can now occasionally receive a clear KHSL signal, when before they could only get a snowy image at best. To make up for the reception problem in Redding, KHSL has launched a digital fill-in translator from South Fork Mountain on channel 36. In 2018, the translator relocated to channel 18.

• K31PS-D Lakeshore^{[note 1]}
• K16LP-D Paradise
• KHSL-TV (DRT) 18 Redding
• K19GA-D Susanville, etc.^{[note 2]}
• K35JX-D Westwood^{[note 3]}

Notes

• KHSL-FM

• Official website
• CW 10 on YourCWTV.com