KBEH

KBEH, virtual channel 63 (UHF digital channel 24), is a television station that is licensing to Oxnard which runs which runs Infomercials 24 hours a day with FCC children's E/I educational programming every weekend mornings, serving Los Angeles, California, KBEH's studios located on West Century Boulevard in the suburb of Westchester, Its transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.

History

The station first signed on the air on August 17, 1985 as independent station KTIE. It was the first television station to operate in Ventura County, since KKOG-TV (channel 16) shut down in 1969. The original owner, Don Sterling (no relation to the Los Angeles Clippers owner of the same name), fighting ongoing losses, sold the station in 1988 to billionaire Meshulam Riklis, the then-husband of actress Pia Zadora. Riklis changed the call letters to KADY-TV in honor of his and Zadora's daughter Kady, who in turn was named for the character Zadora played in Butterfly, financed by Riklis, a role which won Zadora the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress.^[1] Riklis infused capital to build up the station, but it remained unprofitable.

Riklis achieved his wealth by inventing complicated paper schemes like junk bonds and leveraged buyouts. As Riklis' empire began to unravel, KADY-TV was part of settlements. The subsequent company, E-II Holdings (a group of jilted Riklis investors),^[2][3] discovered this was an unprofitable venture and essentially bailed out on the operation.^[4] The station was then sold to former general manager under Riklis, John Huddy (father of Fox News Channel anchor and former co-host of The Morning Show, Juliet Huddy, who also worked at the station and eventually married news director Dan Green). How Huddy, a former entertainment critic for The Miami Herald and executive producer of Tomorrow, came to own a television station was never clear. While Huddy made some innovative moves, he did not have the financial resources to operate at a loss. One of his improvements to KADY was making it one of the original affiliates of UPN when it launched on January 16, 1995, and another was to duplicate the signal in the Central Coast using leased time on San Luis Obispo's KADE (channel 33; now KTAS). Huddy, in the name of KADY, left bad debts throughout the area business community, including $4 million to Don Sterling,^[5] the original owner and still the building's landlord. After lying in bankruptcy court in July 1996, the property was immediately seized.^[6] Afterwards, Huddy became a successful author of a "True Crime" bestseller.

After a transitional period under court supervision with John Hyde acting as trustee,^[7] a sale to Biltmore Broadcasting was arranged in November 1997.^[8] The UPN affiliation, while serving a portion of the market designated to UPN flagship KCOP-TV (channel 13) came under network criticism. In 2002, KADY dropped its UPN affiliation and became an independent station again. Among the shows seen on the station were rebroadcasts of local newscasts from Santa Barbara ABC affiliate KEYT-TV. KADY was also added to DirecTV's Los Angeles station package.

KBEH logo used while Spanish independent

In 2004, Blitmore sold the station to Bela, LCC, a Florida-based Spanish-language broadcaster. As a result, in May 2004, the call letters of channel 63 were changed to KBEH, and it was reformatted as a Spanish language independent. To expand the station's coverage area, KBEH began identifying as "Oxnard-Los Angeles", and has gained coverage on local cable providers.^[9] One year later, when MTV Tr3s launched, Bela switched KBEH, KMOH, and KEJR to the network. With such a move, KBEH and KMOH became the network's lone full-power affiliates.

Bela Broadcasting sold KBEH to HERO Broadcasting in January 2008.^[10]

On January 28, 2012, KBEH began serving as the pilot station of CNN Latino, a news service targeting U.S. Hispanics focusing on news, lifestyle, documentary, talk and debate program as an alternative to traditional Hispanic networks. The service's initial rollout on the station began with a branded programming block of eight hours of customized content from 3 to 11 p.m.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

Programming

KBEH's programming consists primarily of Infomercials 24 hours a day. In 2013, KBEH joined the ACC Network for broadcasts of selected Atlantic Coast Conference football games syndicated by Raycom Media. It returned such broadcasts to the Los Angeles market after a one-season absence after KCOP-TV had dropped the telecasts. These broadcasts ended in 2014, when they were picked up by KDOC-TV. KDOC previously carried SEC football games, but these broadcasts ended due to the shutdown of SEC TV as a result of the launch of SEC Network.

Repeaters

Because of its original transmitter location on South Mountain (near Santa Paula in Ventura County), KBEH's signal only provided spotty coverage into Los Angeles County, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties. The analog (and later digital) in November 2009 when KBEH commenced using its maximum-power facilities at Mt. Harvard (a peak adjacent to Mount Wilson).^[11] It is also seen in Santa Barbara over-the-air on KSBT-LD channel 32 and on local cable systems like Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications, Cox Communications, AT&T U-Verse, Verizon Fios, DirecTV and Dish Network.

References

TV queries