KMYU


KMYU, virtual channel 12, is a MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station licensed to St. George, Utah, United States. The station is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, as part of a de facto triopoly with Salt Lake City-based CBS affiliate KUTV and independent station KJZZ-TV. The three stations share studios on South Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City; KMYU's transmitter is located atop Webb Hill, south of downtown St. George. For official Federal Communications Commission purposes regarding a studio location in its city of license, KMYU has its studios in the J. C. Snow Building on East St. George Boulevard in downtown St. George, which also serves as KUTV's southern Utah news bureau.
As the broadcasting radius of KMYU's signal from St. George does not reach Salt Lake City due to its transmitter being located in the southern portion of the state, the station is simulcast in high definition over KUTV's second digital subchannel in order to reach that portion of the market, airing on UHF channel 34.2 from KUTV's transmitter at Farnsworth Peak in the Oquirrh Mountains, southwest of Salt Lake City; similarly, because of the location of KUTV's transmitter, KMYU relays that station's signal in high definition on its second digital subchannel to provide over-the-air coverage of KUTV's CBS service to St. George. Many of KUTV's statewide digital translator stations also distribute both KUTV and the KMYU 2.2 simulcast to the northern and eastern portions of the state.

History

The original construction permit for channel 12 was granted on May 23, 1988, and the station was assigned the call letters KUSG on September 11, 1989, however a license was not granted by the Federal Communications Commission until January 24, 2000. When KUSG first signed on the air on August 21, 1999, it was operated as a satellite station of KUTV, at that time a CBS owned-and-operated station. CBS sold KUTV and KUSG to Four Points Media Group, a broadcast holding company operated by private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, on January 10, 2008.
On March 17, 2008, KUSG became a separately programmed station from KUTV, operating as a Retro Television Network affiliate; the station estimated this switch left a small number of viewers without KUTV programming.
Initially, KUSG's RTN programming was relayed on KUBX-LP and KCBU, both owned by original RTN owner Equity Media Holdings, which brought the station's programming into Salt Lake City. However, on January 4, 2009, a contract conflict between Equity and Luken Communications interrupted the programming on many RTN affiliates. As a result, Luken moved RTN operations to its headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and dropped all Equity-owned affiliates, including KUBX and KCBU, immediately. KUBX and KCBU were later sold to the Daystar Television Network; KUBX is currently silent while KCBU never completed its digital transition and went off the air for good. KUSG itself was not affected, as it is not an Equity station, but its satellite and Salt Lake City-area Comcast coverage was lost, as they received the station's programming via KUBX/KCBU.
By June 2009, KUSG had dropped RTN for This TV; RTV has since moved to KCSG. The station again changed affiliations on September 20, 2010, adding programming from MyNetworkTV. KUSG retained This TV programming as a secondary affiliation. This switch briefly made it one of two MyNetworkTV affiliates serving the geographically large Utah media market, along with KCSG. The call letters were changed to KMYU on November 16, 2010.
In September and early October 2011, the station aired NBC's new period drama The Playboy Club in lieu of KSL-TV, which refused to air it due to management concerns about content and the program's promotion of Playboy magazine. The program aired at NBC's original Monday night 9 p.m. timeslot for the series on KMYU. Like Coupling in 2003 however, which KSL also declined to air and aired on the then-KUWB, it only aired three episodes before the network made it the first canceled new series of the new television season.
On September 8, 2011, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced its intent to purchase Four Points from Cerberus Capital Management for $200 million; Sinclair began managing the stations, including KMYU, under local marketing agreements following antitrust approval. The deal was completed on January 3, 2012.
On January 1, 2015, This TV programming moved over to KSL-TV's third subchannel, with Sinclair replacing the hours programmed by This TV with traditional syndicated programming, resembling most of Sinclair's other MyNetworkTV affiliates.
On May 8, 2017, Sinclair entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media—owner of Fox affiliate KSTU —for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune, pending regulatory approval by the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division. While KJZZ-TV and KMYU are not in conflict with existing FCC in-market ownership rules and would be acquired by Sinclair in any event, the group is precluded from acquiring KSTU directly as broadcasters are not currently allowed to legally own more than two full-power television stations in a single market and both KUTV and KSTU rank among the four highest-rated stations in the Salt Lake City market in total day viewership. As such, the companies may be required to sell either KUTV or KSTU to another station group in order to comply with FCC ownership rules and alleviate potential antitrust issues preceding approval of the acquisition; however, a sale of either duopoly to an independent buyer is dependent on later decisions by the FCC regarding local ownership of broadcast television stations and future acts by Congress. On April 24, 2018, Sinclair disclosed that it would sell KMYU to Howard Stirk Holdings, while continuing to provide services to the station; KSTU will concurrently be sold to an undisclosed third party. In a revision to the acquisition proposal submitted on July 18, 2018, Sinclair disclosed it would instead acquire WGN-TV directly in order to address concerns expressed by FCC chairman Ajit Pai two days before concerning the partner licensees Sinclair proposed using to allow it to operate certain Tribune stations while materially reducing Sinclair's national ownership cap space short of the 39% limit. Despite this, that same day, the FCC Commissioners' Board voted unanimously, 4-0, to send the Sinclair-Tribune acquisition proposal to an evidentiary review hearing before an administrative law judge, a move largely seen among media analysts as a potential downfall for the deal. However, on August 9, 2018, Tribune canceled the Sinclair deal.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
2.11080iKUTV-HDSimulcast of KUTV / CBS
12.11080iKMYU-HDMain KMYU programming / MyNetworkTV

Analog-to-digital conversion

KMYU shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 12, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 9, using PSIP to display KMYU's virtual channel as 12 on digital television receivers.

Programming

In addition to the MyNetworkTV schedule, Syndicated programming on KMYU includes Are We There Yet?, The Cleveland Show, and Divorce Court, among others. The station also broadcast Real Salt Lake games and Southern Utah University sports. As part of Sinclair's local programming commitments, it also carries live Utah High School Activities Association high school football games as part of Sinclair's Friday Night Rivals high school sports coverage.
In 2015, KMYU became the main regional broadcaster of Major League Soccer's Real Salt Lake. Sinclair renewed its contract in 2018. KMYU has also aired matches from RSL's reserve team Real Monarchs, and its women's team Utah Royals FC.

Translators

As mentioned above, the KMYU signal is translated throughout the state of Utah through KUTV's translator network via KUTV-DT2, though several translators are still analog-only and are unable to carry KUTV-DT2.

Newscasts

After KUSG adopted its own separate schedule in 2008, KUTV began producing a 7 p.m. newscast for the station, titled My News at 7; the newscast delays MyNetworkTV programming on the station by one hour. In addition, KMYU also simulcasts KUTV's 10 p.m. newscast and rebroadcasts the station's 8 a.m. morning newscast for sister station KJZZ, daily at 10 a.m. after the second hour of CBS This Morning and rebroadcasts KUTV's hour-long noon news at 1 p.m. Plus, it also airs KUTV's own sports highlight show called Talkin' Sports, every night at 10:35 p.m. after the news. Periodic southern Utah-oriented news updates are also aired on the station.

On-air staff

Current on-air promotional staffhttp://www.kutv.com/station/news-team/teams/ Our 2News Team

;Station Host
;Anchors
;Weather team
;Sports team
;Reporters
;Sinclair Broadcast Group Washington, D.C. Bureau