Телеканал UniMás в Дугласе, Аризона: История и вещание KFTU DT

UniMás TV station in Douglas, Arizona

KFTU DT (channel 3) is a television station licensed to Douglas, Arizona, United States, serving as the Tucson market's outlet for the Spanish language network UniMás. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Green Valley–licensed Univision outlet KUVE DT (channel 46). The two stations share studios on Forbes Boulevard in Tucson; KFTU's transmitter is located on Juniper Flats Road northwest of Bisbee. KFTU CD (channel 34) is a low power, Class A television station licensed to Tucson that rebroadcasts KFTU DT's signal to the city, as KFTU's coverage area falls well short of Tucson proper. KFTU DT is also rebroadcast on KUVE DT's second digital subchannel in order to reach the entire market; this signal can be seen on channel 46.2 from a transmitter atop Mount Bigelow. Likewise, KUVE is rebroadcast on KFTU's second digital subchannel. Master control and most internal operations for KFTU DT and KUVE are based at the facilities of sister station KTVW DT on 30th Street in southern Phoenix. Like its sister station KFPH DT (channel 13) in Flagstaff, KFTU brands itself as italic=no.

The station was granted its original construction permit on April 8, 1998, and took the call letters KBGF in June 1998. Initially owned by Winstar Broadcasting Corp. of New York City, it was sold in December 1999 to Douglas Broadcasting, a subsidiary of Equity Broadcasting of Little Rock, Arkansas. Douglas Broadcasting completed building the station and filed for a license to cover the construction permit in April 2001. At the same time, they took KBGF on the air under Program Test Authority as an independent station. In October 2001, Douglas Broadcasting sold the station to Univision, who changed its call letters to KFTU in January 2002 to coincide with the launch of its new network, Telefutura (now UniMás), and added the " TV" suffix two years later (after the end of analog broadcasting in June 2009, KFTU and all other Univision owned stations switched to the " DT" suffix). The station obtained its license to cover construction on February 4, 2004, after nearly three years operating under Program Test Authority.

Because it was granted an original construction permit after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997, the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. Instead, on June 12, 2009, which was the end of the digital TV conversion period for full service stations, KFTU TV was required to turn off its analog signal and turn on its digital signal (called a "flash cut"). However, since its analog channel position was in the low VHF range (channels 2–6), KFTU DT was allowed to select a different channel to use after the conversion. KFTU DT selected UHF channel 36 and began operations on that channel once the digital transition was complete. KFTU CD did not apply for a companion channel for the digital conversion; as a low power television station, it was exempt from the 2009 analog shutdown. The station was issued a digital license to cover on March 19, 2012.

KFTU DT previously had another repeater station in Tucson, K48GX (analog channel 48), that provided over the air coverage to areas to the northwest of Tucson that are shielded by terrain from the KFTU CD signal. Univision surrendered the license for K48GX to the FCC on June 5, 2015, and it was cancelled on June 8.