KZSD-LD


KZSD-LD, UHF digital channel 20, is a low-power television station licensed to San Diego, California, United States. It is a translator of ABC affiliate KGTV which is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company. KZSD-LD's transmitter is located on San Miguel Mountain southeast of Spring Valley; its parent station maintains studios on Air Way in the Riverview-Webster section of San Diego.
As a stand-alone analog station affiliated with Azteca América and later MeTV, KZSD's broadcasting radius only covered northern and eastern parts of the city of San Diego and some adjacent suburbs. Therefore, the station was simulcast in widescreen standard definition over KGTV's second digital subchannel in order to reach the entire market.
The unusual numbering for the mapped subchannel in the past as channel 10.15 was in order to align it with KZSD's former cable placement on Cox Communications channel 15. Once XHDTV-TDT2 assumed the Azteca América affiliation, the station lost the channel 15 cable slot, but regained its spot on May 1, 2017 on Cox channel 808, when it assumed the MeTV affiliation in San Diego.
KZSD-LP was converted to digital in 2018 as a KGTV translator, allowing homes with issues receiving KGTV's VHF signal or only a UHF antenna to receive KGTV in some form.

History

The station was initially granted a construction permit by the Federal Communications Commission on September 25, 1997, and its license was issued on September 13, 2000. In 2003, the station changed its call letters to KZDF-LP and became an Azteca América affiliate. San Diego is one of four markets to receive programming from both the U.S.-based Azteca América network and Mexico-based TV Azteca channels that preceded the American network's launch. Much of KZSD's Azteca programming can also be seen on TV Azteca-owned XHTIT-TDT or XHJK-TDT, sometimes simultaneously with the U.S. network's broadcasts. McGraw-Hill Broadcasting purchased KZDF-LP from Laurie Mintz in 2005 and changed its call letters to KZSD-LP.
On October 3, 2011, McGraw-Hill announced that it would sell KZSD, along with its other television stations, to the E. W. Scripps Company as part of its exit from broadcasting. The deal was completed on December 30, 2011.
On March 6, 2017, Azteca América announced that it would move its San Diego affiliation from KZSD-LP to a subchannel of XHDTV-TDT on March 15, 2017, and to XHAS-TDT on July 1. A channel map shuffle that day saw Laff moved onto the re-numbered 10.3 from channel 10.2, which was converted to a loop of the latest KGTV newscast to air.
On May 1, 2017, Scripps took control of the MeTV affiliation on 10.2, along with its already-existing cable channel positions in the market, replacing KFMB-DT2 ; MeTV also replaced Laff on KZSD-LP. The affiliation was sold by KFMB owner Midwest Television to Scripps in order to facilitate the change.

Digital channels

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
ChannelVideoAspectPSIP Short NameProgramming
10.1720p16:9KGTV-DTSimulcast of KGTV / ABC
10.2480i16:9MeTVSimulcast of KGTV-DT2 / MeTV
10.3480i16:9LAFFSimulcast of KGTV-DT3 / Laff
10.4480i16:9ESCAPESimulcast of KGTV-DT4 / Court TV Mystery