KETD (channel 53) is a television station licensed to Castle Rock, Colorado, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language Estrella TV network to the Denver area. Owned and operated by Estrella Media, the station maintains offices on East Jamison Circle in Englewood, and its transmitter is located on Mount Morrison in western Jefferson County.

KETD
CityCastle Rock, Colorado
Channels
BrandingEstrella TV KETD 53
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
History
First air date
July 1, 1990 (34 years ago) (1990-07-01)
Former call signs
KWHD (1990–2010)
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog: 53 (UHF, 1990–2009)
  • Digital: 45 (UHF, until 2020)
LeSEA (1990–2010)
Call sign meaning
Estrella TV Denver
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID37101
ERP200 kW
HAAT314.8 m (1,033 ft)
Transmitter coordinates39°40′17″N 105°13′8″W / 39.67139°N 105.21889°W / 39.67139; -105.21889
Links
Public license information
Websiteestrellatv.com

History

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The station first signed on the air on July 1, 1990, as KWHD. Founded by LeSEA Broadcasting (now Family Broadcasting Corporation), the station carried a mix of Christian-targeted programs, family-oriented syndicated programs and movies. Christian programming aired for much of the broadcast day, with breakaway windows for secular programming (including sitcoms, westerns and public domain movies) each weekday from 2 to 7 p.m. and a scattered amount for a few hours a day on Saturdays, which included a morning children's program block, and a schedule consisting entirely of Christian-oriented religious programs on Sundays. By 2008, KWHD claimed to be "the only full-time, commercial, independent TV station in Colorado." Its schedule by this point was split between family-oriented secular programming and local sports programming 40% of the time and Christian religious programs for the remaining 60% of the broadcast day outside of Sundays.[2]

On January 28, 2010, LeSEA announced that it would sell KWHD to Liberman Broadcasting (which was renamed Estrella Media in February 2020, following a corporate reorganization of the company under private equity firm HPS Investment Partners, LLC). On June 1, 2010, the station became an owned-and-operated station of the Liberman-owned Estrella TV and changed its call letters to KETD.[3] As part of the deal, KETD agreed to lease its second digital subchannel to LeSEA to continue carrying its programming (which was also carried on the station's former semi-translator KWHS-LD in Colorado Springs, which LeSEA owned until 2018).

Technical information

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Subchannels

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The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of KETD[4]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
53.1 720p 16:9 KETD-HD Estrella TV
53.2 E-NEWS Estrella News
53.3 480i JTV JTV
53.4 HSN-2 HSN2
53.5 BUZZR Buzzr

Analog-to-digital conversion

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KETD shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 53, on January 16, 2009. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 46,[5][6] using virtual channel 53.

References

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  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for KETD". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ "KWHD TV-53 Programming". KWHD TV-53. Retrieved April 6, 2008.
  3. ^ Ostrow, Joanne (January 28, 2010). "Denver's TV market to get new Latino station". Denver Post. Retrieved February 2, 2010.
  4. ^ RabbitEars TV Query for KETD
  5. ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
  6. ^ Ostrow, Joanne (January 30, 2009). "Digital deadline debate is producing brain static". Denver Post.
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