KTFN is a Spanish-language television station in El Paso, Texas, broadcasting locally on digital channel 51 (virtual channel 65) as a TeleFutura affiliate. KTFN is owned by Entravision, and is a sister-station to KINT-TV. The station is also aired on Time Warner Cable channel 5.

History[link]

KTFN signed on in 1991 as KJLF-TV, an English-language Christian based independent station. KJLF was started by the late Pete E. Meryl Warren III, also the founder of KCIK channel 14 (which is now KFOX-TV, and was El Paso's first UHF TV station) and was run by the Warren family, with John Warren serving as the station manager, until the station's first sale to Telemundo in 1999. Initially, KJLF-TV ran mostly Christian programs with several hours of secular shows such as sporting and hunting shows, westerns, some old sitcoms, public domain movies, and low budget barter cartoons. Gradually the Christian program decreased and was replaced with more classic sitcoms and cartoons and the station evolved into a more traditional independent station. KJLF became an affiliate of The WB when the WB network came on the air in 1995, and changed its call letters to KKWB (to reflect the station's nework affiliation) in 1998.

When the local UPN affiliate KTYO (now KTDO) was sold to ZGS Communications in 2004^[1], KTFN picked up UPN as a secondary affiliation. It also picked up many of KTYO's syndicated shows. Still, the station was put up for sale in 2000, Entravision bought in 2001, and it converted into a TeleFutura affiliate. On January 29, 2002, the station adopted the KTFN callsign to reflect the new affiliation.

After the affiliation change, The WB had been available in El Paso by way of the local cable company's offering of KTLA from Los Angeles, California, but was never seen on a local station in the market again. The WB merged with UPN in September 2006 to form The CW.

Digital television[link]

On June 12, 2009 at 12:00 P.M. MDT, KTFN ceased analog programming, due to the mandated analog television shutdown and digital conversion. After that, the station, along with its sister station KINT-TV, broadcasted a repeated crawl in Spanish informing viewers about the analog shut-down and advising viewers of their options. This graphic repeated constantly until 11:59 P.M., when KTFN ceased analog operations while remaining on-air on its current digital channel, UHF 51.

External links[link]

• Query the FCC's TV station database for KTFN
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KTFN-TV

References[link]

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