Спокан қаласының KAYU телеарнасы тарихы

Fox/MyNetworkTV affiliate in Spokane, Washington

KAYU TV (channel 28) is a television station in Spokane, Washington, United States, affiliated with Fox and MyNetworkTV. Owned by Imagicomm Communications, the station has studios on South Regal Street in Spokane, and its transmitter is on Krell Hill southeast of the city.

After beating out Springfield Television for the construction permit in 1981, Spokane native Robert Hamacher, a former employee of KREM TV and later an executive at KSTW in Tacoma, put KAYU on the air on October 31, 1982. The first program to air was an episode of Rawhide. It was Spokane's first independent station and the first new commercial station to sign on in the area since KREM TV began broadcasting 28 years earlier. It is also the oldest non Big Three station in the eastern part of the state. It joined Fox as a charter affiliate on October 9, 1986. On October 1, 1989, KAYU TV launched two low power semi satellites: K53CY in Yakima (known on air as "KCY") and K66BW in the Tri Cities (branded as "KBW"). Both stations aired most of KAYU's programming (with the exception of select programs that KAYU did not have the rights to show in those markets), though with local commercials. K53CY was replaced in 1993 by K68EB, though it continued to go by "KCY" outside of station identifications. Hamacher's company, Salmon River Communications sold KAYU TV, along with K68EB (which was soon renamed KCYU LP), KBWU LP (the former K66BW), and KMVU in Medford, Oregon, to Northwest Broadcasting, a company controlled by Brian Brady, in 1995. KCYU and KBWU remained semi satellites of KAYU until 1999, when full power sister station KFFX TV signed on from Pendleton, Oregon, and became their program source. KAYU also carried UPN as a secondary affiliation from the network's launch on January 16, 1995, to 1997 when KSKN (channel 22) became the network's new affiliate. On March 29, 2022, Cox Media Group announced it would sell KAYU TV and 17 other stations to Imagicomm Communications, an affiliate of the parent company of the INSP cable channel, for $488 million; the sale was completed on August 1.

KAYU TV's 28.2 subchannel broadcasts MyNetworkTV in early prime time; the remainder of the subchannel's schedule consists of Antenna TV programming. Comcast Xfinity carries the subchannel on digital channel 115. It originally carried This TV until March 2015, when it switched to MyNetworkTV, which was previously carried on KXLY DT2 until October 2012 when it became an exclusive MeTV affiliate. In November 2017, the 28.2 subchannel was upgraded to 720p HD; it had previously been offered in 480i 4:3 standard definition. KAYU DT2 became an alternate affiliate of The CW on February 25, 2023, when it began carrying the network's coverage of LIV Golf due to KSKN owner Tegna's refusal to air the controversial Saudi owned tour on its stations.

KAYU TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 28, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre transition UHF channel 30 to channel 28.

KAYU TV is carried on cable systems in Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, both of which are double the size of the station's American coverage area. KAYU TV is one of five local Spokane area television stations seen in Canada on the Shaw Direct satellite service. It can also be seen on local cable systems in eastern British Columbia. KAYU TV is one of two Spokane based stations that can be viewed in The Bahamas via cable, alongside KXLY TV.