KOAT-TV
KOAT-TV, virtual and VHF digital channel 7, is an ABC-affiliated television station licensed to Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States and also serving the state capital of Santa Fe. The station is owned by the Hearst Television subsidiary of Hearst Communications. KOAT-TV's studios are located on Carlisle Boulevard in Northeast Albuquerque, and its transmitter is located on Sandia Crest, northeast of Albuquerque.
KOAT serves nearly the entire state of New Mexico with the exception of the Clovis–Portales area, which receives ABC programming from KVIH-TV in Clovis, and Las Cruces–Deming, which is in the El Paso television market and is served by KVIA-TV, the El Paso ABC affiliate.
History
Television
KOAT signed on the air on September 28, 1953, less than a week before KGGM-TV. It was locally owned by Albert M. Cadwell & Walter Stiles. It first operated from studios located on Tulane Drive, just off Central Avenue in Southeast Albuquerque. The local owners sold the station to Alvarado Television in 1957, Upon sign on, the station acquired the ABC affiliation from KOB, channel 4. It also carried programming from the DuMont Television Network, which went off the air in 1955. In 1962, Alvarado sold both stations to Steinman Stations, who owned WGAL-TV in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and later acquired WTEV in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The station moved its studios in the early 1960s to a new facility located on University Boulevard in Northeast Albuquerque. In 1982, KOAT opened a new state of the art facility on the intersection of Carlisle and Comanche in Northeast Albuquerque.Steinman sold both KOAT and KVOA to Pulitzer, the then-owner of KSD-TV in St. Louis, in 1969. This made KOAT Pulitzer's second television station acquisition outside of its home city of St. Louis; the KOAT acquisition was consummated a year after Pulitzer closed on its purchase of KVOA. A decade later, the other two Steinman stations were sold to Pulitzer as well, reuniting them with KOAT.
In 1998, Pulitzer sold its entire broadcasting division, including KOAT and WGAL, to Hearst-Argyle. In mid-2009 the Hearst Corporation, already majority owner of what was Hearst-Argyle Television, bought out all of the then-publicly traded shares and changed the broadcasting group's name to Hearst Television.
KOAT uses a version of the Circle 7 logo used by many other ABC stations, both owned-and-operated stations and affiliates. The "Circle 7" logo has been used at KOAT since 1971 and the Action News title since 1974. The original Circle 7 logo was inside a square, much like the variation used for many years by sister station KATV in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, KOAT uses a regular Circle 7 logo for its news broadcasts, and a variation with the ABC logo for all other station promotions and identification.
Radio
KOAT-TV had a radio counterpart on 1450 kHz, KOAT, which launched in 1946 and affiliated with ABC Radio, portending KOAT-TV's continuous ABC affiliation. A KOAT radio remote appears frequently in the 1951 Billy Wilder film, Ace in the Hole. Pulitzer sold the radio station sometime in the early 1970s, and 1450 kHz in Albuquerque is now KRZY.Digital television
Digital channels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:| Channel | Video | Aspect | PSIP Short Name | Programming |
| 7.1 | 1080i | KOAT-DT | Main KOAT-TV programming / ABC | |
| 7.2 | 480i | Estrell | Estrella TV | |
| 7.3 | 480i | Justice | Justice Network |
KOAT has carried the Spanish-language network Estrella TV on its second digital subchannel since it launched on September 14, 2009. On July 11, 2016, KOAT added the Justice Network featuring true crime and investigation programming and also providing alerts of local criminals who are wanted by police.
Analog-to-digital conversion
KOAT-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, 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 relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 21 to VHF channel 7.Satellite stations
KOAT-TV formerly operated three satellite stations, which rebroadcast its signal and added local content for other parts of the broadcast market:| Station | City of license | Channels ' | Channels ' | First air date | Last air date | Former callsigns | ERP ' | HAAT ' | Facility ID | Transmitter Coordinates |
| KOCT1 | Carlsbad | 19 | 6 | KAVE-TV KVIO-TV | 15 kW | 53908 | ||||
| KOFT2 | Farmington | 8 | 3 | 40 kW | 53904 | |||||
| KOVT | Silver City | 10 | 10 | 3 | KWNM-TV | 3.2 kW | 53911 |
Notes:
- 1. Prior to the digital transition, KOCT's audio signal could be heard on 87.75 MHz on the FM band in Carlsbad and the surrounding areas; television stations broadcasting on VHF channel 6 were audible over this frequency during the analog television era, although this is no longer possible due to the transition, even for stations that broadcast their digital signals on channel 6.
- 2. KOFT never operated its analog signal; its digital station was operated via Special Temporary Authorization.
- 3. The Broadcasting and Cable Yearbook says KOVT signed on September 9, while the Television and Cable Factbook says it signed on September 10.
Hearst-Argyle surrendered the license of KOFT to the FCC on November 13, 2007, though its license was not canceled until May 5, 2010. Hearst then informed the FCC on July 18, 2012, that it would discontinue the operations of KOCT and KOVT; their licenses were canceled on August 1. The move was made to eliminate the need to maintain the KOCT and KOVT public files in their respective cities due to FCC regulations which went into effect on that date; both stations were promptly replaced with KOAT translator stations on the same channels to continue providing service to both cities.
In addition, there are several low-powered repeaters that carry KOAT's programming throughout New Mexico, northeastern Arizona and southern Colorado, including the following:
- Romeo, Colorado, channel 17
- Durango, Colorado, channel 24
Programming
KOAT airs the entire ABC schedule in pattern, with the exception of the weekend editions of Good Morning America, which air two hours earlier than its recommended time for Mountain Time Zone affiliates.
News operation
KOAT produces 34 hours of news programming each week, with just over five hours each weekday, and 4½ hours each on Saturdays and Sundays. The station's newscasts, branded as Action 7 News, have consistently won the ratings battles with competitors KOB and KRQE for over 40 years, although KRQE has narrowed the margin in the last 10 years. Much of the success is due to KOAT's news anchors, many who have stayed at the station for many years. Weather forecaster Howard Morgan worked at KOAT for 28 years before retiring in 1999. Current weather forecaster Joe Diaz has been with the station for over 30 years, with the exception of five years spent in El Paso.KOAT was one of six ABC affiliates and one of two Hearst-owned ABC stations to have an hour-long 10 p.m. newscast, along with WISN in Milwaukee; as well as KRGV in Weslaco, Texas, KSTP in Minneapolis–Saint Paul, KIFI in Idaho Falls, Idaho, WEAR in Pensacola, Florida, and former sister station KITV in Honolulu, Hawaii. KOAT announced that with the 10 p.m. newscast on January 14, 2019, it would return to 35 minutes.
Upon its current ownership by Hearst in 1999, KOAT rolled out a new set and began using the then-current Hearst-Argyle mandated graphics and "Image News" theme music package around December of that year. Then in 2004, "Image News" was dropped in favor of Jerome Gilmer's "Hearst-Argyle TV News Music Package". Another new set was introduced in September 2008. Currently, KOAT doesn't produce its newscasts in high definition. However, on June 13, 2010, the station began airing its newscasts in widescreen standard definition. And around late August 2013, KOAT switched to Hearst TV's "diagrid" standardized graphics along with the "Strive" news music package.
On August 21, 2017, KOAT added a one-hour 4 p.m. weekday newscast, and on October 25 of the same year, a new set was introduced. On April 5, 2018, KOAT began using an updated version of Hearst's standardized graphics, which were first rolled out by sister station WESH in Orlando, Florida in January.
As of August 1, 2019, KOAT is now one of three remaining Hearst Television stations to have yet to produce newscasts in HD.
On August 26, 2019, KOAT began broadcasting "Action 7 News Live At Nine" on the 7.3 Justice Network digital channel. It is also available, as all newscasts are, on KOAT's website.