KASA-TV

[3] Both the New Mexico Media application and the other channel 11 bid, which became KCHF, were contested by the Albuquerque television stations for specifying the use of Sandia Crest as the transmitter site, which they contended would have meant an insufficient signal over the city of license.Based in a new studio building at the corner of St. Francis and St. Michael's Drive in Santa Fe, channel 2 promised a strong signal for Santa Fe and Albuquerque, as well as the first live newscast for New Mexico's capital city;[10] the 9 p.m. newscast was scrapped just three months after launch, with the general manager calling it a "drain" on the station's resources as a startup operation.[13] The new ownership upgraded the programming by acquiring 600 films from a financially troubled KNAT-TV; in order to avoid confusion with radio station KAFE and "KSFE-TV", a former cable channel in Santa Fe, the call letters were changed to KNMZ-TV (stylized as "KNM2") on March 1, 1985.[17] Founding investor Pollon bought back the studio building, and KNMZ-TV moved its Santa Fe offices to smaller quarters on Calle Nava while shifting the bulk of operations to Albuquerque.[21] That July, the Providence Journal Company (ProJo)—owners of KGSW-TV (channel 14), New Mexico's Fox affiliate—reached a deal to purchase KKTO from Coronado.On July 27, 2006, Raycom announced that LIN TV, owner of CBS affiliate KRQE, would purchase KASA for $55 million and take over operations at the end of August.[33] On June 30, 2016, it agreed to sell KASA-TV and associated translators to Ramar Communications, owner of Telemundo affiliate KTEL-CD (channel 15), Movies!As part of the sale, NBC entered into a transitional services agreement with Gray Television, which had purchased KJTV-TV and other Ramar television assets in Lubbock earlier in 2021, to continue news production in the short term;[39] in announcing the purchase, NBC declared its intention to start its own local news service for KASA.