KRWG TV: Телевидение Лас-Крусеса и южного Нью-Мексико

PBS member station in Las Cruces, New Mexico

KRWG TV (channel 22) is a PBS member television station in Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States. The station is owned by the Regents of New Mexico State University. KRWG TV's studios are located at Milton Hall on the NMSU campus in Las Cruces, and its transmitter is located atop Tortugas Mountain in central Doña Ana County (east of the Las Cruces city limits). KRWG TV's signal is relayed on low power translator stations across southern New Mexico. KRWG TV began broadcasting in 1973 as an adjunct to KRWG radio and as a public broadcaster serving southern New Mexico. It also complements the NMSU journalism program; students produce a newscast that airs three times a week during the school year, and its other local programming also focuses on regional issues.

As early as 1964, the same year that KRWG (90.7 FM) began broadcasting, New Mexico State University (NMSU) considered establishing a public television station using the channel 12 allotment at Hatch. Channel 12 had been put there two years prior when the University of New Mexico was considering establishing a statewide educational network. However, NMSU soon found Hatch to be an unviable allocation for serving Las Cruces; the transmitter would have to be north of Las Cruces, to protect KELP TV in El Paso, Texas; this was the opposite direction. Channel 22 in the ultra high frequency (UHF) band was then assigned to Las Cruces. NMSU applied for a station on November 2, 1970, and received a construction permit on April 4, 1972. The United States Office of Education provided a $467,513 grant to support the construction of the new station. The federal grant primarily went to the facility. By that time, NMSU was programming an hour and a half a day on the local cable system in Las Cruces, an exapnsion of the university closed circuit TV system which had been in place since 1965. In addition, equipment was donated by KOB TV in Albuquerque and the ABC network. While construction on the transmitter facility was completed by December 1972, a shortage of engineers and delays in equipment installation kept the station from debuting for several months. KRWG TV began broadcasting on June 29, 1973; the first weekend on air featured a local talent marathon to dedicate the new station. It was the first UHF station on the air between Tucson, Arizona, and Lubbock, Texas, and it was the closest public television station to El Paso until KCOS began in 1978; the cable system in El Paso continued to carry KRWG TV but dropped KNME TV from Albuquerque when KCOS debuted.

In 2022, KRWG TV generated $3.3 million in revenue. The station received $1.07 million in revenue from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as well as $976,000 in grants from the state and more than $824,000 in equipment restricted grants. Memberships represented $235,847 in income.

Harvey Jacobs, head of the NMSU Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, envisioned KRWG TV as a source of New Mexico centric news and information for Las Cruces. To that end, the station began with a bilingual, student produced local newscast, originally titled Panavista. For 20 years, the station aired Qué Pasa with Dolores, a bilingual weekly and previously biweekly talk show hosted by Dolores Lenko. Most of KRWG TV's local programming continues to concern southern New Mexico issues. During the fall and spring semesters, students produce News22, which airs three times a week and covers regional issues. When the newscast was threatened by budget cuts in 1997, students and professors expressed a willingness to donate time and money to keep the program on the air. Once a week, the station airs Noticias22, a Spanish language newscast. Throughout the year, the weekly magazine Newsmakers airs in depth features. Alumni of the NMSU journalism program that worked on News22 while students at the university include Gadi Schwartz, correspondent for NBC News.

KRWG TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 22, on June 10, 2009 (two days before most full power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate on June 12). The station's digital signal remained on its pre transition UHF channel 23, using virtual channel 22.