KSTS

Former KSTS logo from 1984.

The station first signed on the air on May 31, 1981 as an independent station. It was owned by National Group Television, which was headed by N. J. Douglas. The station initially offered programming weekdays from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. from the Financial News Network. From 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and from noon to 4 p.m. weekends, the station ran off network shows from the 1950s and early 1960s such as Fury, Gentle Ben, Flipper, Batman starring Adam West, The Danny Thomas Show, The Jackie Gleason Show and old low-budget movies. Weekdays after 7 p.m. and weekends throughout much of the day, the station offered various types of brokered programming including foreign language shows, religious programs, and some programming pertaining to technology. The station branded under the slogan "Your Computer Connection". KSTS was also the only station to broadcast the introduction of Apple's Macintosh personal computer at the company's 1984 Annual Shareholders Meeting.[1][2] Beginning in the fall of 1981, KSTS carried the subscription television service Star TV, featuring recent movies, after 7 p.m. daily. By 1983, they were carrying subscription TV after 12 noon on weekends. By 1983, the off network shows were dropped for more brokered programming. That year, the station ran various brokered programming weekends from 5 a.m. to noon and from 3 to 6 p.m. weekdays. Financial news remained weekdays until 3 p.m.

NightMusic, premiering in August 1984, was a three-hour weekly live show that featured music videos and comedy. Hosted by John Ward with co-host Brian Leonard, NightMusic aired from 9 p.m. to midnight every Saturday for a year and a half and became a cult favorite. Chris Isaak was a frequent guest and Translator once served as the house band. Jay Peterson was a staff announcer.

In 1984, Star TV began winding down operations due to the fact cable penetration eliminated the need for Subscription TV over the air. In January 1985, the station partnered with two other Spanish-language independent stations, WNJU in New York City and WSCV in Miami to carry about eight hours a day of Spanish programming (which replaced Star TV programming locally) on weekday evenings, forming a network known as NetSpan; later in the year, other stations such as KVEA in Los Angeles and WCIU in Chicago (which lost its affiliation with the Spanish International Network) joined the network. Spanish programming gradually increased, on weekends especially and brokered shows gradually were dropped. By 1986, KSTS was running Spanish programming for about half of its broadcast day on weekdays but the entire day weekends. Later that year the Financial News Network programming ended and the station became the entire broadcast day. NetSpan was relaunched as Telemundo in mid-1987. By then, the station was running the network's programming about 16 hours a day. Telemundo bought the station outright in August 1987. On November 1, 1987, KSTS began carrying Telemundo programming full-time. Initially, KSTS was targeted at the San Jose/Silicon Valley region, but after converting to the Spanish language format, it changed its focus towards the entire San Francisco Bay Area.

In April 2002, as a result of its corporate takeover of Telemundo, NBC became the owner of KSTS; it then became a sister station to KNTV (channel 11), which also originally targeted San Jose, after NBC bought that station from Granite Broadcasting Corporation weeks later. The station moved into an all-digital broadcast center housed alongside KNTV in 2004.

KSTS presently broadcasts 12 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with two hours each weekday and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). In 1988, KSTS launched its news department with the debut of a half-hour 6 p.m. newscast, which was originally co-anchored by Celina Rodriguez and Dante Betteo. The program proved successful, which resulted in the station later adding a half-hour 11 p.m. newscast.

In 2001, KSTS launched a morning newscast, Noticiero 48 Esta Mañana, and a mid-morning newscast, Noticiero 48 Al Mediodía anchored by Blanca Garza and Santiago Aburto. These were canceled in 2004. At this time, Cesar Bayona and Mariate Ramos anchored the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. newscasts. 2006 saw the dismantling of the local news operation and the creation of a regional news operation to serve the western United States as part of the NBCUni 2.0 cost-cutting initiative. This was later reversed and local news production was restored at KSTS. On February 27, 2012, KSTS became the first Spanish language television station in the Bay Area to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition.[7]

2014 saw a series of news expansions at Telemundo, KSTS included. A second attempt at a two-hour morning newscast, titled Noticiero Telemundo 48 Primera Edición, began in June, and in November, KSTS launched a 5:30 p.m. newscast as part of a national news expansion; a 10am newscast also was added to the schedule at this time. Additionally, KSTS received a new set, began producing its own weather segments locally, launched a local Telemundo Responde consumer investigative franchise, added 20 additional staffers to its news department and began a deeper sharing of resources including the public affairs program Comunidad del Valle) with KNTV.[8] In 2015, the morning newscast was cut back to one hour, airing from 6-7am.

Effective June 27, 2016, the morning and 10 a.m. newscasts will be axed in order to begin the production of weekend editions of the 5:30 and 11 p.m. newscasts beginning July 2.[9]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to KSTS-TV.

• Telemundo 48 official website
• Telemundo
• The Introduction of Macintosh on KSTS in 1984
• KSTS in the FCC's TV station database
  • K47LC-D in the FCC's TV station database
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KSTS-TV