KATN


KATN, virtual channel 2, is an ABC/Fox/CW+-affiliated television station licensed to Fairbanks, Alaska, United States. Owned by Vision Alaska, the station is operated through a time brokerage agreement by Coastal Television Broadcasting Company, LLC. KATN's studios are located in the Lathrop Building on 2nd Avenue in downtown Fairbanks, and its transmitter is located on Cranberry Ridge northeast of the city.

History

KATN debuted on March 1, 1955 as KFAR-TV, and was Fairbanks' second television station after KTVF. It became KTTU-TV on June 18, 1981 and KATN on August 18, 1984. It is now a part of the ABC Alaska Superstation and was the first TV station in Fairbanks to broadcast in color in 1967.
KFAR/KTTU was primarily an NBC station with ABC as the secondary network until 1984, when the owners of KIMO in Anchorage bought the station, changed the call letters, and made KATN the primary ABC affiliate. The station continued carrying NBC programs as a secondary affiliate until KTVF switched from CBS to NBC in 1996, in response to KATN's new ownership. Until the launch of KFXF in 1992, they were Fairbanks' only two commercial network stations.
In September 2006, KATN began to show programming from The CW on its digital subchannel. The subchannel is called Fairbanks CW and uses the fictional call letters KWFA.
Smith Media sold KATN and the remainder of the "ABC Alaska's Superstation" system to Vision Alaska LLC in 2010. When the sale was completed, on May 13, 2010, Coastal Television Broadcasting Company, LLC entered into a time brokerage agreement with Vision Alaska to operate KATN and sister station KJUD.
On October 30, 2017, Fox announced that it would move its Fairbanks affiliation from KFXF-LD to a subchannel of KATN on November 4.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
2.1720pABCMain KATN programming / ABC
2.2720pFOXFox Fairbanks
2.3480iCWCW Alaska
2.4480iIONIon Television
2.5480iDABLDABL

Conversion to digital signal

KATN shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 18. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 2.