KPLM-TV
On June 1, 1966, Pacific Media Corporation filed an application for a construction permit to build a new television station to operate on channel 27 in Palm Springs.[1] Three months after Pacific filed, the Federal Communications Commission issued a report and order changing the allocation to channel 42, a move necessitated to avoid interference to channel 28 in Los Angeles.[2] Channel 42 received another bid in December, when Palm Springs Communications Corporation, co-owned with local radio station KCMJ, filed for a station.[3] After Palm Springs Communications reached a settlement agreement with Pacific Media, the latter was awarded the permit on October 11, 1967. The new station took the call letters KPLM-TV and immediately began construction and talks with the major networks on affiliation.[4]
Channel 42 set up shop in the Smoke Tree Village shopping center,[5] the station joined the ABC network[6] and secured channel 3 on all the cable systems in the area[7] for its debut on October 5, 1968.[8] KPLM-TV was the only television station in Palm Springs for just three weeks. In parallel with the battle for channel 42, channel 36 was also contested; on the morning of October 26, NBC affiliate KMIR-TV began broadcasting.[9]
Channel 42 was not an immediate financial success. In 1972, Cine-Prime, a company engaged in educational television production and distribution, announced that it had purchased the station, though no transfer of control was ever filed.[10] In 1973, Pacific attempted to sell KPLM-TV to Ralph Andrews Productions, which was scrapped several months later. In February 1974, Smoke Tree Village filed to evict KPLM-TV from its studios for not paying six months of rent.[11] Ultimately, in 1975, Pacific Media Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, and the principals of a Palm Springs law firm were appointed as receivers;[12] the studios were relocated to Cathedral City.
Esquire years
In late 1977, negotiations were concluded to sell KPLM-TV to Esquire, Inc. The $800,000 purchase marked Esquire's return to broadcasting after owning and selling WQXI radio in Atlanta in the 1960s.[13] The call letters were changed to KESQ-TV on September 18, 1978.
Esquire purchased KECC-TV in El Centro in 1981. It attempted to sell both stations to Cimarron Broadcasting, an Oklahoma group headed by Harry Nilsson, in 1983,[14] but Cimarron lacked the capital to make the purchase, and the deal fell apart in March 1984.[15] However, Esquire, which had become wholly owned by Gulf+Western, was anxious to divest itself of the small-market TV station which the large conglomerate did not want and sold it to Gulf Broadcasting of Dallas, an unrelated concern, two months later; the El Centro station was not included.[16]
Expansion under NPG
Fitts reached a deal to sell KESQ-TV to its current owner, the News-Press & Gazette Company of St. Joseph, Missouri, for $19.4 million in late 1995.[19]
Under NPG, KESQ-TV's operation expanded to include additional low-power TV stations. KUNA-LP, a Telemundo affiliate, launched in 1997.[20] In 1998, NPG entered into a local marketing agreement to run KDFX-LP, the low-power Fox affiliate in Palm Springs;[21] it started that station's first local newscast.[22] A local affiliate of The WB followed in 2000.[23]
