KONG (TV)

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Coordinates: 47°37′54″N 122°21′3″W / 47.63167°N 122.35083°W / 47.63167; -122.35083
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KONG
kW
HAAT232 m (761 ft)
Transmitter coordinates47°37′54″N 122°21′3″W / 47.63167°N 122.35083°W / 47.63167; -122.35083
Links
Public license information
Websitewww.king5.com

KONG (channel 16) is an

SoDo district of Seattle; KONG's transmitter is located in the city's Queen Anne
neighborhood.

History

The KONG-TV call sign was first granted by the

King Broadcasting, then-owner of KING-TV,[3] against Carl Washington's KONG TV, Inc., the first broadcaster to apply for a license for Everett's channel 16.[4] The station had planned to go on the air on June 1 of that year, with studios in Everett and an advertising sales office in Seattle, but kept getting bogged down by years of legal challenges from residents on Cougar Mountain who objected to the electromagnetic radiation from an additional broadcaster.[5]
After the legal challenges to the transmitter, KONG lay dormant until broadcasters came up with innovative ways to program additional stations in their area.

KONG-TV signed on the air on July 8, 1997. It was locally owned, but managed by KING-TV (which had just been acquired by

Gannett Company announced that it would acquire Belo.[6] The sale was completed on December 23.[7]

On June 29, 2015, the Gannett Company split in two, with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media. KING and KONG were retained by the latter company, named Tegna.[8]

Programming

Initially, the station ran a general entertainment format with classic

Pacific Time
, instead of tape-delaying it to 9 a.m. Pacific Time as is custom.

Because of its relationship with KING, KONG can air NBC programming that may get displaced by other programming such as local events or extended breaking news coverage. An example of this is when in

NFL preseasons, Seattle Seahawks preseason football games that were not televised nationally aired on KONG as NBC held the rights to the Summer Olympic Games. KONG also aired Seattle Sounders FC games, and airs the weekly magazine program Sounders FC Weekly on Sunday nights during the Major League Soccer
season.

In 2017, after KIRO-TV discontinued its 31-year-old tradition of full-day coverage of the H1 Unlimited Seafair Cup, full-day coverage of the races moved to KONG the next year in association with SWX Right Now.[9]

Newscasts

Further information: KING-TV § News operation

KING-TV produces 26 hours of news programming (with five hours each weekday and 30 minutes each on Saturdays and Sundays) for KONG. KONG broadcasts a 10 p.m. newscast which competes with an in-house hour-long newscast on Fox owned-and-operated station KCPQ; the program airs for one hour on Monday through Friday evenings and a half-hour on weekend evenings. KONG also broadcasts a two-hour extension of KING's weekday morning newscast starting at 7 a.m., which also competes with KCPQ's morning newscast. KONG also broadcasts an hour-delayed rebroadcast of KING's noon newscast at 1 p.m. weekdays. It's the only newscast shown on KONG that comes from the main sister channel, KING. On September 9, 2013, KONG added a weeknight 9 p.m. newscast from KING, becoming the second newscast to air at that timeslot in the Seattle market (after KCPQ added a weeknight 9 p.m. newscast in 2011 on KZJO while keeping the 10 p.m. newscast on KCPQ), resulting in Seattle's first two-hour continuous prime time news block.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's ATSC 1.0 channels are carried on the

multiplexed
signals of other Seattle television stations:

Subchannels provided by KONG (ATSC 1.0)[10][11][12]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming ATSC 1.0 host
16.1 720p
16:9
 KONG-HD Independent KING-TV
16.2 480i TCN True Crime Network KZJO
16.3 Quest Quest KCPQ

Analog-to-digital conversion

KONG 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.[13][14] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 31, using virtual channel
16.

In 2009, KONG became one of the first four television stations in the country to begin broadcasting

ATSC
standard.

ATSC 3.0

Subchannels of KONG (ATSC 3.0)[15]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
5.1 1080p
16:9
 KING-TV NBC (KING-TV) DRM
13.1 720p KCPQ Fox (KCPQ)
16.1 1080p KONG Independent (KONG) DRM
22.1 720p KZJO MyNetworkTV (KZJO)
  Subchannel broadcast with digital rights management

See also

References

  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for KONG". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ "Call Sign History, KONG" Federal Communications Commission
  3. ^ "Distinguishing KING from KONG" Seattle Times, March 9, 1984.
  4. ^ "Residents Protest Another TV Transmitter" Seattle Times, June 27, 1984.
  5. ^ "Judge Upholds Decision to Build TV Tower" Seattle Times, July 16, 1986
  6. ^ Ortutay, Barbara; Fowler, Bree (June 13, 2013). "Gannett to buy TV station owner Belo for $1.5B". The Seattle Times. Associated Press. Retrieved June 13, 2013.
  7. ^ Gannett Completes Its Acquisition of Belo, TVNewsCheck, Retrieved December 23, 2013
  8. ^ "Separation of Gannett into two public companies completed | TEGNA". Tegna. June 29, 2015. Retrieved June 29, 2015.
  9. ^ Joyce, Nathan (July 12, 2018). "Seafair hydroplane races return to familiar schedule and to TV". The Seattle Times. Retrieved August 10, 2018.
  10. ^ RabbitEars TV Query for KING
  11. ^ RabbitEars TV Query for KZJO
  12. ^ RabbitEars TV Query for KCPQ
  13. ^ Congress postpones DTV transition, Seattle may not Archived February 6, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, KING/AP, February 5, 2009
  14. ^ List of Digital Full-Power Stations Archived August 29, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ "RabbitEars TV Query for KONG (ATSC 3.0)". www.rabbitears.info.

External links

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