KUCO-LD


KUCO-LD is a low-power television station licensed to Chico, California, United States, affiliated with the Spanish-language network Univision. Owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, it is sister to Redding-licensed ABC/Fox affiliate KRCR-TV and four other low-power stations: Chico-licensed Antenna TV affiliate KXVU-LD ; MyNetworkTV affiliates Redding-licensed KRVU-LD and Chico-licensed KZVU-LD, and Chico-licensed UniMás affiliate KKTF-LD. Sinclair also operates Paradise-licensed KCVU through a local marketing agreement with owner Cunningham Broadcasting. However, Sinclair effectively owns KCVU as the majority of Cunningham's stock is owned by the family of deceased group founder Julian Smith.
The stations share studios on Auditorium Drive east of downtown Redding and maintain a news bureau and sales office at the former Sainte Television Group facilities on Main Street in downtown Chico. For FCC and other legal purposes, the Chico/Paradise-licensed stations still use the Chico address and Redding-licensed stations use the Redding address. KUCO-LD's transmitter is located along Cohasset Road northeast of Chico.
KEUV-LD in Eureka operates as a semi-satellite of KUCO-LD. As such, it simulcasts all Univision programming as provided through KUCO but airs separate local commercials and legal station identifications. Although KEUV-LD maintains its own studios on Sixth Street in downtown Eureka, master control and some internal operations are based at KUCO's facilities.

History

KUCO-LP was founded by country-western singer Chester Smith's broadcast company Sainte Partners II, L.P. and first hit the air in 2002 to help bring Spanish-language television to the growing Spanish-speaking population in Northern California. It was the first Spanish-language station to air in the Chico/Redding market. It would soon be joined by Telemundo affiliate KXVU-LP and UniMás affiliate KKTF-LD, both also founded by Smith's company.
In 2014, six years after Smith's death, his company sold KUCO-LP and the remaining stations to Bonten Media Group, owners of ABC affiliate KRCR-TV in Redding.
In 2016, KUCO-LP conducted an unauthorized test of the Emergency Alert System. However, the message read that the activation was for an Emergency Action Notification. It is unknown if any panic from residents followed.
On April 21, 2017, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced its intent to purchase the Bonten stations for $240 million. The sale was completed September 1, 2017.
The station changed its call sign to KUCO-LD on April 5, 2019, coincident with receiving its license for digital operations.

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:
ChannelRes.AspectShort nameProgramming
27.11080i16:9KUCO-LDUnivision
27.2480i4:3UnimasUniMás
27.3480i16:9TBDRoar
27.4480i16:9RewindRewind TV

On October 13, 2021, KUCO-LD gained two additional subchannels: TBD moved over from KXVU-LD; and Rewind TV was added.