KTMD

KTMD
Galveston/Houston, Texas; United States
City	Galveston, Texas
Channels	Digital: 22 (UHF); Virtual: 47 (PSIP)
Branding	Telemundo Houston (general); Noticiero Telemundo Houston (newscasts)
Programming
Affiliations	47.1: Telemundo (O&O); 47.2: TeleXitos; 47.3: Lx; 47.4: Cozi TV;
Ownership
Owner	Telemundo Station Group; (a subsidiary of NBCUniversal) ; (NBC Telemundo License LLC)
History
Founded	December 7, 1987
First air date	February 1, 1988 (33 years ago)
Former channel number(s)	Analog:; 48 (UHF, 1987–2002); 47 (UHF, 2002–2009); Digital:; 48 (UHF, until 2019);
Former affiliations	DT3:; Cozi TV (2015–2018);
Call sign meaning	TeleMunDo
Technical information
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	64984
ERP	1,000 kW
HAAT	597 m (1,959 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	29°34′16″N 95°30′38″W / 29.57111°N 95.51056°WCoordinates: 29°34′16″N 95°30′38″W / 29.57111°N 95.51056°W
Links
Public license information	Profile; LMS
Website	www.telemundohouston.com

KTMD, virtual channel 47 (UHF digital channel 22), is a Telemundo owned-and-operated television station serving Houston, Texas, United States that is licensed to Galveston. The station is owned by the Telemundo Station Group subsidiary of NBCUniversal (which itself is a subsidiary of Comcast). KTMD's studios are located on I-610 and Bevis Street on Houston's northwest side, and its transmitter is located near Missouri City, in unincorporated northeastern Fort Bend County.

History[]

KTMD's offices in Houston.

The station first signed on the air on February 1, 1988 full-time (although it was founded in early December 1987 when it was airing a few hours daily in the late night hours), broadcasting on UHF channel 48 from a transmitter located east of Farm to Market Road 528 south of Friendswood. It has been aligned with Telemundo since its sign-on, as the network began acquiring and affiliating with television stations in several key Spanish-language markets.

Previous logo from 2013 until 2018.

In 2002, KTMD was granted permission to move its analog signal to channel 47 in order to operate its digital signal on channel 48, which would operate from a transmitter located in Missouri City rather than Friendswood.^[1] The station also cited interference from a station in Bryan for its reasoning to change its channel allocation. KTMD officially moved to channel 47 on November 9, 2002.^[2]

Digital television[]

Digital channels[]

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel	Video	Aspect	PSIP Short Name	Programming^[3]
47.1	1080i	16:9	KTMD-HD	Main KTMD programming / Telemundo
47.2	480i		EXITOS	TeleXitos
47.3			NBCLX	Lx
47.4			COZI	Cozi TV

Analog-to-digital conversion[]

KTMD discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 47, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.^[4] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 48,^[5]^[6] using PSIP to display KTMD's virtual channel as 47 on digital television receivers.

News operation[]

Telemundo Houston has served the local community for more than 25 years, broadcasting the market's first-ever Spanish-language television newscast. As of November 3, 2014, the station produces and airs nine and half hours per week of local news and information programming, offering viewers the most up-to-date local news, weather, sports and entertainment headlines through a variety of platforms, including online at TelemundoHouston.com and via mobile and social media channels.

The station's news department was founded upon the station's 1987 sign-on, with newscasts branded under the title Noticiero 48. KTMD's newscasts were retitled as Noticentro 48 (using the Spanish titling of the NewsCenter brand popular with U.S. television stations during the 1970s and 1980s) the following year, only to revert to the original Noticiero title in 1991, with a slight alteration to Noticiero 47 in 2002 to reflect its new channel position on UHF 47. In 2001 The station debuted a morning newscast from 6 am to 7 am. It was the area's only morning newscast, and the station also hired a meteorologist for both the morning and evening newscasts Maria Fonseca and Daniel Morales respectively. The station later hired Roberto Repreza and changed its news department.^[7] After Tropical Storm Allison hit the area, KTMD and other stations lost revenue.^[8] After the September 11 attacks, the station cancelled the morning newscasts and as a result, the station laid off 14 staffers and the anchors Atala Sarimiento and Miguel Amante respectively was moved to the evening newscasts as reporters. The reason for these layoffs was because of low ad revenue.^[9]

Telemundo's parent company NBCUniversal moved the locally produced newscast operations to a new regional production center in Fort Worth, Texas in 2006. However, by February 2010, production of KTMD's local newscasts returned to Houston in the station's northwest Houston studios. Then in 2011, KTMD debuted a local morning newscast, 5am-6am, and also aired morning updates during Un Nuevo Día. However, the station later cancelled the morning newscast in late 2012, electing to instead launch weekend editions resulting in afternoon and late night newscasts seven days a week. Furthermore, on November 3, 2014, KTMD added more local newscasts by launching weekday newscasts at 4:30 p.m.

The station considers Univision owned-and-operated station KXLN-DT and the English news stations to be its competitors in this sector.^[10] The 5 p.m. weekend newscasts were later pushed to 4:30 p.m. following Telemundo selection to air movies in that timeslot. On September 18, 2014, Telemundo announced it was launching new early-evening newscasts on all of its owned-and-operated stations (including KTMD) starting November 3, 2014.