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| City | Santa Maria, California |
| Channels | |
| Branding |
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| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| Operator | News-Press & Gazette Company |
| KEYT-TV, KKFX-CD | |
| History | |
First air date | March 16, 1964 |
Former channel number(s) | Analog: 12 (VHF, 1964–2009) |
Call sign meaning | Station was the sister station to KCOY radio, named in honor of Frank McCoy, founder of the Santa Maria Inn[1][a] |
| Technical information[3] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 63165 |
| ERP | 130 kW |
| HAAT | 579 m (1,900 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 34°54′37″N 120°11′13″W / 34.91028°N 120.18694°W |
| Translator(s) | KKFX-CD 24 San Luis Obispo |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
KCOY-TV (channel 12) is a television station licensed to Santa Maria, California, United States, serving the Central Coast of California as an affiliate of Telemundo and The CW. It is owned by VistaWest Media, LLC, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with the News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG), owner of Santa Barbara–licensed ABC/CBS affiliate KEYT-TV (channel 3) and Fox affiliate KKFX-CD (channel 24). KCOY-TV and KKFX-CD share studios on West McCoy Lane in Santa Maria; KEYT-TV maintains separate facilities on TV Hill, overlooking downtown Santa Barbara. KCOY-TV's transmitter is located on Tepusquet Peak east of Santa Maria. KKFX-CD broadcasts the same subchannels in the San Luis Obispo area.
Channel 12 was added to Santa Maria as a result of the Federal Communications Commission deciding to deintermix Fresno by forcing that city's lone VHF station, KFRE-TV, to a UHF channel and removing channel 12 from Fresno. Four groups applied, and Central Coast Television—a consortium of local residents—was granted the construction permit to build the station in 1963. KCOY-TV began broadcasting as an NBC affiliate on March 16, 1964. In 1968, half of the company was purchased by Dale Moore of Missoula, Montana; the station switched affiliations to CBS the next year, and the local investors bought back Moore's stake in 1971. Under the ownership of Stauffer Communications from 1980 to 1995, KCOY-TV remained the second-rated local news outlet on the southern Central Coast in the 1980s and 1990s; the present Santa Maria studio building was completed in 1988. When Stauffer was purchased by Morris Communications in 1995, the combined firm immediately spun off its television holdings, mostly to Benedek Broadcasting; the station then changed hands three times in twelve years.
In 2013, the News-Press & Gazette Company assumed some of KCOY-TV's operations and acquired outright most of Cowles's Central Coast media holdings. The two stations' newsrooms were merged. The KCOY-TV license was sold to VistaWest Media, a company controlled by NPG's president and general manager. On January 1, 2021, NPG moved the CBS affiliation to a subchannel of KEYT-TV, still branded as "NewsChannel 12". KCOY-TV then broadcast Dabl, a diginet, until 2023, when the company acquired the Telemundo affiliation from KTAS and moved its main signal to KCOY-TV. The Telemundo channel offers regional newscasts shared with NPG's Telemundo affiliate in the Monterey–Salinas area, KMUV-LD. In 2024, The CW moved to KCOY-TV and KKFX-CD.
- ^ "S.B. Paper Announces Purchase, Plans for Santa Maria Weekly". Santa Maria Times. June 28, 1946. p. 8. Retrieved October 14, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "County Names Oilfield Road For Inn Chief". Santa Maria Times. February 14, 1938. p. 1. Retrieved October 14, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for KCOY-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
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