KAXT-CD


KAXT-CD, virtual channel 1.2, is a low-powered, Class A Decades owned-and-operated television station licensed to both San Francisco and San Jose, California, United States and serving the San Francisco Bay Area. Owned by Weigel Broadcasting, it is sister to Palo Alto-licensed Heroes & Icons owned-and-operated station KTLN-TV. The two stations share studios on Pelican Way in San Rafael, and transmitter facilities on Mount Allison.

History

Founded May 31, 1989, the station previously broadcast in analog on UHF channel 22 as KAXT-CA, an affiliate of Spanish-language religious network Tiempos Finales TV, formerly being an affiliate of TBN from 1990 to 2003, and of Almavision from 2003 to 2006.
On July 31, 2009, KAXT began ATSC digital TV transmissions on UHF channel 42, which had been vacated by KTNC-TV. KAXT's digital transmissions used the call sign KAXT-LD, later KAXT-CD. The station was the first digital television station to broadcast 12 video streams on a standard 6 MHz 19.39 Mbit/s ATSC stream. Using statistical multiplexing technology in the encoders and multiplexer, the system provides variable bit rate compression needed to provide full quality standard definition video across all of the channels with enough bandwidth for radio services.
Broadcast Engineering nominated KAXT as Station of the Year for 2009, the first low power television station to receive such a distinction.
The DTV virtual channels between KAXT-LD's channel 22 and KRCB's channel 22 in Cotati had significant overlap that caused a PSIP conflict, allowing KAXT-CD to move to a new virtual channel, Channel 1. KAXT operates with a PSIP of Channel 1, at one point with 12 different video program streams and one audio-only channel for a total of 13 virtual channels.
Weigel Broadcasting agreed to acquire KAXT-CD and KTLN-TV, along with KVOS-TV and KFFV in Seattle, from OTA Broadcasting in a $23.2 million deal on October 18, 2017. The sale was completed on April 15, 2019. By 2018, most of KAXT's Vietnamese-language subchannels had moved to KSCZ-LD.

Programming

Until 2019, KAXT broadcast an electronic program guide, shopping channels, and several channels of ethnic news, entertainment, and religious programming. Several subchannels were produced locally, while the remainder were simulcasts. KAXT is one of two television stations in the United States that broadcast on virtual channel 1.

Digital channel

Former affiliations

Since its transition to digital broadcasting, KAXT has broadcast a wide variety of programming, both local and syndicated: