Chester Smith ownership
On March 3, 1964, Corbett Pierce and country and western performer Chester Smith, owner of KLOC (920 AM) in Ceres, applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to build a new television station on channel 17 in Modesto, one of two channels allocated to the city.[1][2] The FCC approved the application on November 12, 1964; after a national overhaul of ultra high frequency (UHF) channel allocations finalized in early 1966 shifted Modesto's channel allocation to channel 19,[3] the station began broadcasting as independent station KLOC-TV on August 26, 1966.[4]
Initially, KLOC maintained a general-entertainment format and was one of the stations that carried programming from the United Network during its one month of operation in May 1967.[5][6] About a year after its sign-on, the syndicators providing KLOC's programming raised their prices to the levels closer to a Sacramento-licensed station (the station's owners had been acquired programming at lower rates closer to that of an unrated television market); KLOC-TV alleged that Stockton's KOVR had pressured syndicators not to do business with the Modesto station.[7] Smith resorted to simulcasting KLOC radio's programming during the daytime hours, including a camera in the radio station's studios showing the disc jockeys live,[8] and ran Spanish-language telenovelas in the evening, when the radio station signed off. Advertising revenue from the radio station helped keep channel 19 afloat. In 1972, the station joined the Spanish International Network (SIN), predecessor to Univision;[9] soon after came an affiliation with the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) to air religious programs.[10] SIN and CBN provided steady income and turned the struggling station's fortunes around.
In 1975, the station increased its power and finally began broadcasting in color; the technical improvements also resulted in Sacramento being able to receive the station for the first time.[11] Smith sought to expand the reach of his station's programming. In 1976, he proposed to build a satellite station on channel 42 in Concord, which had lay fallow for a decade following the short-lived existence of KCFT-TV a decade prior, with a transmitter to be built atop Mount Diablo.[12] The move was roundly opposed by citizens' groups that felt that Concord's channel 42 would be better used by a station that proposed more local programming. Two television stations that broadcast Spanish-language programming, KEMO-TV (channel 20) in San Francisco and KMUV-TV (channel 31) in Sacramento, also objected.[13][14] As a result, KLOC abandoned the Concord proposal in December 1976.[15] In 1979, KLOC won the rights to build channel 35 in Salinas, to repeat much of its Modesto programming to the
KCSO's primary local program was its 6 p.m. local newscast, which was produced on a "dental floss budget", in the words of Xóchitl Arellano, who worked at the station when it was still located in Modesto. However, the number of news personnel slowly increased throughout the 1990s.[21]
Univision ownership
In late 1996, Smith announced the sale of KCSO to Univision for $40 million (equivalent to $ in dollars); once the sale closed, the station's morning Christian programs would be discontinued to make way for broadcasting all of Univision's Spanish-language output.[22] (The KCSO call letters were retained by Smith, who started KCSO-LP, a Telemundo affiliate, in 1999.[23]) Smith was paid in Univision stock, which quadrupled in value between 1997 and 1999.[24]
Univision changed the call letters to KUVS, relocated operations from Modesto to Sacramento, and added an 11 p.m. local newscast to the station's longstanding 6 p.m. local news,[25] which also began to cover news in Sacramento. It was the first time a network had placed an owned-and-operated TV station in Sacramento.[26]
