KUAN-LD


KUAN-LD, virtual channel 48, is a Telemundo owned-and-operated television station serving San Diego, California, United States that is licensed to Poway. Owned by the Telemundo Station Group subsidiary of NBCUniversal, it is sister to San Diego-licensed NBC owned-and-operated station KNSD. The two stations share studios on Granite Ridge Drive in the Serra Mesa section of San Diego and transmitter facilities southeast of Spring Valley. Despite KUAN-LD legally holding a low-power license, it transmits using KNSD's full-power spectrum. This ensures complete reception across the San Diego television market.
KUAN is known on-air as Telemundo 20; as with KNSD's main branding, it is derived from its channel 20 cable position on Spectrum, Cox Communications and AT&T U-verse.

History

The station signed on in 1980 as K48AL, originally operating as a translator of Los Angeles-based multicultural independent KSCI for the San Diego market, airing on low-power analog channel 48. It flash-cut to digital channel 36 on June 20, 2016.
In January 2017, NBC announced that it was hiring people for KNSD with the intention of launching a new Telemundo O&O station in San Diego, replacing Tijuana, Mexico-based station XHAS-TDT. The new Telemundo affiliate, branded as "Telemundo 20", launched on July 1 on KNSD's digital 39.20 subchannel. As with KGTV's former Azteca América affiliation using their 10.15 subchannel, the unusual numbering was to connect to Telemundo's channel 20 cable position on Cox Communications and other pay TV providers in the area, which was transferred from XHAS. Additionally, KNSD launched TeleXitos, a Spanish equivalent to Cozi TV, on channel 39.21 the same day.
On September 12, 2017, NBCUniversal acquired KUAN from NRJ TV, LLC, the owner of KSCI, for $650,000; the sale was completed on December 21, 2017. Concurrently, KUAN entered into a channel-sharing agreement with KNSD. This was done with the separate KUAN-LD transmitter ending service, and 39.20 and 39.21 becoming identified with KUAN-LD instead and re-numbered to KUAN's channel 48.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgrammingData rate
48.11080iKUAN-LDMain KUAN-LD programming / Telemundo6.7 Mbit/s
48.2480iTELX-LDTeleXitos1.6 Mbit/s

News operation

KUAN broadcasts 10 hours of locally produced newscasts each week. Newscasts were launched on July 3, 2017. KUAN is one of the 11 Telemundo owned and operated stations that do not produce midday newscasts.