This year, KXTX is celebrating its two decades of service to Spanish-speaking audiences in the Dallas-Fort Worth DMA. Since KXTX’s over-the-air launch in 1973, Telemundo 39 has played a significant role in the development and evolution of television in North Texas and has strengthened its operations to become a leading multiplatform news provider for North Texas’ Hispanic community. KXTX is a NBCUniversal-owned TV station that is co-located with NBC 5 / KXAS in a state-of-the-art facility in Fort Worth. Together, the stations are helping to inform local audiences in English and Spanish and their news teams make up the largest bilingual TV newsroom in the Dallas-Fort Worth DMA.
“KXTX has provided quality programming to North Texans for years thanks to a long list of dedicated broadcast professionals,” said Tom Ehlmann, NBC 5 and Telemundo 39 President and General Manager. “As we start this new decade of service, we look forward to continuing to report meaningful stories for our loyal, Spanish-speaking, North Texas audience.”
Telemundo 39’s news, weather, investigative and consumer reporting keeps audiences informed about important issues impacting the community and to help them thrive in their daily lives. Telemundo 39 has covered the most impactful stories in the market to date including Severe Weather and Destruction in DFW, the Pope’s local visit, 2016 Dallas Ambush, Elections and Immigration Crisis. It’s investigative team keeps the powerful accountable and its stories shine a light on important issues such as the Special Report “Los Invisibles” that revealed how Texas-born – U.S. citizens – end up suffering in Mexico, unable to see a doctor or attend school due to a bureaucratic nightmare the State of Texas has the power to eliminate, which resulted in immediate calls for change from more than three dozen Texas lawmakers.
The station’s consumer investigative unit “Telemundo 39 Responde” has become an important source of information for Spanish-speaking consumers when they feel they have been wronged and have nowhere to turn. Since the unit’s launch in 2014, the “Telemundo 39 Responde” team has responded to hundreds of inquiries from consumers who have been affected by an array of problems including fraudulent transactions, scams and non-responsive customer service departments. To date, the “Telemundo 39 Responde” team has returned nearly half a million dollars to local consumers.
The station’s commitment to the North Texas community runs deep through its community service work that focuses on raising awareness about important health, education and civic engagement issues and thanks to the partnership from local community organizations that team up with KXTX to provide important services including food/meals, coat and holiday toys drives, as well as school supplies to families and children. Since 2018, Telemundo 39 and NBC 5, with the backing of Comcast NBCUniveresal Foundation, have dedicated more than $1.3 million dollars in Project Innovation grant funding to local nonprofit organizations that are addressing the community’s most pressing needs.
Telemundo 39 the home of international events including the FIFA World Cup, the Summer Olympics, Premios Billboard, Miss Universe, the first-ever Spanish-language broadcast network to air the Super Bowl that averaged 1.9 million viewers – by far the most-watched NFL game in U.S. Spanish-language history, and Telemundo Network’s popular primetime programming including “Betty en New York” and Super Series’ “El Señor de los Cielos” and “La Reina del Sur” among others. Later in 2022, Telemundo 39 will be part of the most ambitious multimedia coverage of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
History of KXTX
1973: KXTX-TV became a full-time commercial independent station on November 14,1973 when the station was owned by the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). The station maintained a format consisting primarily of religious programs as well as some secular general entertainment programming. Its slate of content consisted of off-network classic sitcoms and dramas such as The Brady Bunch, The Andy Griffith Show and Star Trek, Tom and Jerry, Looney Toons and the animated shorts, The Jetsons and The Flintstones were also part of the programming. Following the 1973 launch, KXTX was known in the Dallas-Fort Worth market for its "Western Weekends" - a weekly lineup of classic westerns from the 1950s through the 1970s that aired during the afternoon and early evening hours on Saturday and Sundays. Programming included The Lone Ranger, Bonanza, Gunsmoke and Little House on the Prairie.
1993-1998: LIN Broadcasting assumed management responsibilities for Channel 39 in the spring of 1993 under a Local Marketing Agreement. Under this agreement, Fort Worth based NBC affiliate KXAS-TV (NBC 5), which LIN owned at the time—began pooling some first-run syndicated programs seen on KXAS for broadcast on KXTX and allowed it to air rebroadcasts of KXAS's 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. newscasts. In addition, KXTX broadcasted Texas Rangers games and aired a clean feed of the O.J. Simpson trial.
June 2000: Southwest Sports Television, a subsidiary of the Southwest Sports Group founded by Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars owner Thomas O. Hicks, announced that it would purchase KXTX from the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN).
January 1, 2002: Southwest Sports Television sold KXTX-TV to the Telemundo Communications Group that included the national Telemundo Network resulting in KXTX Telemundo 39 becoming an owned station for Telemundo. After Telemundo Communications Group acquired KXTX, the company invested in the creation of a news department for Telemundo 39 in preparation of the station’s local news launch that same year.
May 6, 2002: Telemundo 39 premiered half-hour Spanish language newscasts at 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. each weeknight.
Fall 2011: Telemundo 39 increased its local programming production during the fall of 2011, as part of local news expansions across other Telemundo stations.
September 25, 2011: The station premiered Enfoque 39, a half-hour Sunday morning program focusing on political and civic issues affecting the North Texas Hispanic community.
November 5, 2011: Telemundo 39 launched weekend evening editions of its local newscasts at 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday nights.
September 30, 2013: Coinciding with the commencement of local programming production at The Studios at DFW facility, KXTX began broadcasting its newscasts and other local programs in high definition, becoming the second Spanish-language station and the seventh (and last) television station overall in the Dallas-Fort Worth market to begin broadcasting their newscasts in this format.
September 18, 2014: The station was one of several Telemundo stations that launched expanded late-afternoon newscasts during the 2014-15 season, premiering half-hour newscasts at 4:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.
2014: Launch of “Telemundo 39 Responde” investigative units.
Early 2017: Launch of “Noticiero Telemundo 39” at 11:00 a.m.
Telemundo 39 / KXTX
Telemundo 39 / KXTX is Telemundo's local television station, serving the Spanish-speaking community throughout North Texas. Owned by NBCUniversal, Telemundo 39 offers award-winning programming of breaking news, weather, entertainment and sports through a variety of platforms, including live, online on Telemundo39.com and through social and mobile networks.
(This post was taken from an NBCU press release)
