Early years (1952–1953) Tijuana was the first city outside of Mexico City to receive a television license. A license to broadcast on channel 6 was granted to Jorge I. Rivera for XEAC-TV in 1950. Broadcasts were initially scheduled to start in November 1952, becoming the second cross-border television station, after
XELD-TV. XETV came into existence because of a technical quirk affecting stations in San Diego and
Los Angeles. Even after the
Federal Communications Commission's
Sixth Report and Order lifted a four-year-long freeze on awarding television
construction permits in 1952, signing on a third television station in the San Diego
market proved difficult. While San Diego and Los Angeles are not close enough that one city's stations can be seen clearly over the air in the other, the unique geography of
Southern California results in
tropospheric propagation. This phenomenon makes
co-channel interference a significant enough problem that the two cities must share the
VHF band. By 1952, San Diego (assigned channels 8 and 10) and Los Angeles (assigned channels
2,
4,
5,
7,
9,
11 and
13) already had all but three channels on the VHF band covered. Channel 3 initially had been deemed unusable as a signal because
KEYT-TV in
Santa Barbara would travel in a straight line across the Pacific Ocean (it would ultimately be allocated to Tijuana
Canal Once outlet
XHCPDE-TDT). San Diego's first two television stations, KFMB-TV (channel 8) and KFSD-TV (channel 10, now
KGTV), which were respectively affiliated with
CBS and
NBC, were among the last construction permits issued before the FCC's freeze on new television station licenses went into effect. The
UHF band, introduced by the FCC after the freeze, was not seen as a viable option; television set makers were not required to include UHF tuners until 1964 as a result of the passage of the
All-Channel Receiver Act. Additionally, several portions of
San Diego County are very mountainous, and UHF signals do not carry very well across rugged terrain. Complicating matters, the Mexican authorities had allocated two VHF channels to neighboring Tijuana—channels 6 and 12. Since these were the last two VHF channels left in the area, the FCC did not accept any new construction permits from San Diego as a courtesy to Mexican authorities. One of the frequencies, channel 6, had originally been assigned to San Diego before the freeze; it was reassigned to Mexico as a result of the
Sixth Report and Order. By the end of 1952, the call sign changed to XETV. Although San Diego was large enough to support three television stations, it soon became obvious that the only way to get a third VHF station on the air would be to use one of Tijuana's allocations. The
Azcárraga family and
Rómulo O'Farrill, owners of
Telesistema Mexicano (the forerunner of Televisa), quickly snapped up the concession for channel 6, hired Alexander Nervo as its general manager It is the San Diego area's second-oldest television station after KFMB-TV, which began operations on May 16, 1949. At its launch, XETV was an
independent station, broadcasting programs in both English and
Spanish from its studio facilities in Tijuana. Channel 6 also established a business office on Park Boulevard in the
University Heights section of San Diego, which handled sales accounts from north of the border. The Azcárragas chose to focus XETV toward San Diego and its English-speaking audience because there were more households in that side of the market that had television sets at the time than there were in Tijuana, which did not get its own all-Spanish station until 1960 when the Azcárragas signed on sister station
XEWT-TV (channel 12).
Joining ABC (1953–1973) Section 325(b) of the
Communications Act of 1934, sometimes known as the
Brinkley Act, prohibits any transmissions by any means to a foreign station that can be received in the United States without approval from the FCC. This provision closes a potential
loophole to circumvent the Communications Act and other regulations of broadcast stations. In January 1953, former
ABC programming executive Alvin George Flanagan, who had become general manager of XETV, applied for a Section 325 permit to supply 30 percent of XETV's programming via microwave relay from San Diego. This permit was granted soon afterwards. Both this permit and further requests from
NBC and
DuMont to transmit their programming to XETV were then opposed by TBC Television, Inc. and
KFSD radio, the applicants for San Diego's remaining channel 10 allocation. By late 1953, the FCC had failed to take further action on the matter, but it was rendered partially moot as KFSD-TV took the NBC affiliation when it signed on that September. XETV was finally granted
special temporary authority to carry live coverage of an air show from
Naval Air Station Miramar on November 22, which station management hoped was a good omen; two previous requests to carry one-off coverage of special events that year were denied. However, Flanagan moved on to manage
KCOP-TV in Los Angeles in January 1954, and the request for a full-time Section 325 permit was dismissed for good on April 26. ABC, in the meantime, was still relegated to part-time clearances on KFMB-TV and KFSD-TV. It intended to add XETV as an affiliate and applied for its own Section 325 permit to relay its programming, which was approved in November 1955. Pending the outcome of an appeal by KFMB-TV and KFSD-TV, ABC signed a stopgap affiliation deal with XETV which allowed it to carry network programming via a method known in the television industry as "bicycling". Programs were received at the station's San Diego offices, recorded on physical media (at this time, film or
kinescope) and then physically transported over the border to the transmitter. This delivery method does not require FCC permission. The deal became effective April 5, 1956. The original decision was stayed by the
United States Court of Appeals due to the decision having been made in the absence of hearings by the FCC; after hearings were held, the FCC upheld the grant in October 1956. KFMB-TV again appealed the grant and the Appeals Court remanded the decision to the FCC. The Commission again upheld the grant on April 22, 1958; in November of that year, KFMB-TV again asked for revocation, based on an ad in
Broadcasting which XETV identified itself as a San Diego station. In 1959, KFMB-TV once again complained about educational programming that it alleged was being transmitted to XETV from
California Western University without a permit; the FCC explained that while the university had an expired permit to transmit the programs directly, it found the programs were being bicycled and took no action. ABC was required to apply for its Section 325 permit annually, with the FCC reserving the right to determine whether the continued affiliation was in the public interest.
Transition In 1968, as it had every year since 1956, the FCC renewed its permit allowing ABC to transmit its programming to XETV. Only this time, Western Telecasters, which owned the fledgling independent UHF station KCST (channel 39, now
KNSD) at the time, contested it and began a lengthy battle to take San Diego's ABC affiliation from XETV. KCST claimed that it was no longer appropriate for a Mexican-licensed station to be affiliated with an American television network when there now was a viable American station available, and also asserted that XETV had lacked local programming that effectively served the San Diego audience. In May 1972, the FCC, siding with KCST, revoked ABC's permit to transmit its programming to XETV. The commission concluded that the primary factor in the 1956 decision—that allowing XETV to carry ABC served the public interest since there were no other available U.S.-based television stations—no longer applied with KCST being "ready, willing and desirous" to affiliate with the network. The commission could not go as far as to force ABC to affiliate with KCST, but acknowledged that the network was unlikely to dislodge the existing affiliations of KFMB-TV or KFSD-TV. XETV and ABC then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals, who upheld the FCC ruling; the station later sought relief at the
U.S. Supreme Court, and was also denied. XETV surrendered the ABC affiliation to KCST in two stages: daytime programming moved to KCST in June 1973, followed by prime time programs and all other shows (including
children's programming and sports) by July 1, 1973. In spite of seeing ratings gains both nationally and locally, ABC was dissatisfied with having been forced onto a UHF station and stayed with KCST for only four years before moving to KGTV in 1977; KCST subsequently signed up with NBC at that time. XETV once again became an independent station, with a standard program schedule composed of syndicated offerings, off-network programs,
movies, and children's shows. In addition, because Mexican broadcast regulations did not limit commercial time (as FCC regulations did at the time), every Sunday, the station—in a forerunner to future changes in the U.S.—in effect, became the first station in
North America to carry an
infomercial, which consisted of a one-hour advertisement of listings of local houses for sale. As FCC regulations at that time limited television stations to 18 minutes of commercials in an hour, such a program could not have been run on U.S. television at that time. In 1976, XETV moved its business operations to an office facility on Ronson Road in the
Kearny Mesa neighborhood of San Diego; the station's broadcast operations, meanwhile, remained in Tijuana. Channel 6's Tijuana-based production and technical operations eventually moved from Mexico into an expanded wing of this facility. In the early 1980s, XETV produced a popular comedy program,
Disasterpiece Theatre, which parodied campy
low-budget horror and
science fiction films by making fun of them as they aired, similar to the format of
Mystery Science Theater 3000 a decade later.
As a Fox affiliate (1986–2008) On October 9, 1986, XETV became one of the first stations outside of the original group of six television stations formerly owned by
Metromedia (which had been purchased by Fox's parent company affiliate,
News Corporation, earlier that year) to sign deals to join the newly launched
Fox Broadcasting Company, becoming a charter affiliate of the network when it launched on October 6. Fox had little in the way of live programming at the time, so channel 6 recorded Fox programs in San Diego and then "bicycled" the recordings across the U.S.–Mexico border to Tijuana. From 1993 to 1997, XETV also aired programming from the
Prime Time Entertainment Network (most notably
Babylon 5) on weekend afternoons, instead of the weeknight prime time slots that were recommended by the programming service due to the Fox programs that aired during the evening hours on the station. When Fox acquired its first substantial live programming in the form of
broadcast rights to the
NFL's
National Football Conference starting with the
1994 season, the network applied for a Section 325 permit as ABC had done to transmit its programming via microwave across the border. In the spring of 1994,
McKinnon Broadcasting, then-owner of
KUSI-TV (channel 51), filed a complaint with the FCC to block the permit. McKinnon cited the same arguments about inadequate local programming as KCST had. However, the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which had entered into force at the beginning of the year, contained language that prohibited the FCC from favoring U.S. stations over foreign stations in Section 325 proceedings, as it had with KCST. The commission also changed its stance on XETV's local programming, ruling that serving the American public interest was irrelevant for a foreign station. In any case, San Diego did not miss any of the inaugural season of the
NFL on Fox, as Fox received
special temporary authority to transmit the games to XETV live until the end of the season or when the FCC made its ruling. The FCC granted the Section 325 permit outright on October 28, 1994; NAFTA also extended the term for these permits from one to five years. McKinnon appealed to the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In the court case,
Channel 51 of San Diego, Inc. vs. FCC and Fox Television Stations, Inc. (
79 F.3d 1187), the permit was vacated and the decision remanded to the FCC, with the court ruling the commission had wrongly decided the issue of local programming was irrelevant. On November 1, 1996, the permit grant was definitively upheld. The commission ruled there was no evidence that XETV's local and public-affairs programming was inadequate. It also acknowledged the aforementioned provision of NAFTA which now prohibited it from considering whether requiring Fox to affiliate with a U.S.-based station was "possible or desirable". That same year, the station became a
Grupo Televisa-owned property outright after the Azcárragas transferred the ownership of XETV to their family-run,
Mexico City-based multimedia company. In 1999, the station constructed a new , three-story facility at the Ronson Road studio grounds to house a newsroom and production studios for a planned news operation that launched in December of that year. The one-story building that was located adjacent to the new facility, where the station's offices were based (which continued to house sales and management offices after the new facility was completed) was not large enough to house a fully staffed news department; the offices for XETV's production, promotions, and engineering departments were also relocated to the new building. The agreement expired in 2006; by 2007, Televisa, through Bay City Television, had retaken full control of XETV's operations.
As a CW affiliate (2008–2017) During a seminar by
Sam Zell on March 25, 2008, it was announced that
Tribune Broadcasting (which Zell had acquired the previous year as part of his takeover of corporate parent
Tribune Company) had signed an affiliation agreement with Fox for its San Diego
CW affiliate
KSWB-TV (channel 69). Fox cited concerns with having its programming airing on a Mexican-licensed station, even though XETV had been with the network since Fox's inception and had broadcast its programming almost entirely in English for over half a century. This caught XETV station management off guard as officials were unaware about the pending affiliation switch until the announcement was made public. This affiliation switch came six years after its sister stations in the
McAllen and
Laredo areas of
Texas were stripped of their Fox affiliations due to similar concerns. The fate of both XETV and the CW affiliation for the San Diego market remained unclear, with Bay City Television/Grupo Televisa even reportedly considering filing a lawsuit to prevent the switch on the grounds that it would violate XETV's affiliation contract with Fox, which was not set to expire until 2010. This uncertainty was resolved on July 2, 2008, when channel 6 announced that it had signed an affiliation agreement with The CW. The station began dropping on-air references to Fox just over two weeks later on July 19, 2008, rebranding itself as
San Diego 6. The affiliation swap officially took place two weeks afterward on August 1, ending XETV's 22-year association with Fox – with channel 6 joining The CW, while the Fox affiliation moved over to KSWB. XETV, upon switching networks, replaced KSWB-TV on
DirecTV as a default affiliate in the few areas of the
western United States where a CW-affiliated station is not receivable
over-the-air or through
cable television. The CW branding was minimized to a small CW logo in the San Diego 6 logo for news programs and displayed full size otherwise; additionally, it was rendered a bright blue (matching the station logo's color scheme) instead of its customary green. On April 29, 2013, XETV celebrated its 60th anniversary of broadcasting. The station's morning newscast provided special coverage of the festivities, including separate proclamations of "XETV Channel 6 Day" by the San Diego City Council and San Diego County Board of Supervisors (the latter made on April 30 to
general manager Chuck Dunning and
chief financial officer Rodrigo Salazar). A special segment of the newscast that was dedicated to the anniversary was broadcast in
black-and-white (the standard for broadcast television in 1953) with news anchors dressed in clothing and hairstyles from that period reporting on the major news and entertainment stories of 1953 and giving a contemporary weather forecast with paper graphics pasted on a hand-drawn weather map. On January 1, 2016, XETV changed its branding to fit The CW's station branding standardizations, identifying itself as "CW 6". XETV general manager Chuck Dunning would later admit to the
San Diego Union-Tribune that the reason for The CW's departure from his station was a failure of the two sides to reach a new affiliation agreement to replace the deal that was to expire that September; that lack of resolution prompted The CW to explore other options in the San Diego market. The announcement of The CW's move to KFMB left XETV's future in question, with a station spokesperson stating on the day of the announcement that the station was evaluating its options. The station would reveal its plans on January 26; on that date, it announced that news programming on XETV would be discontinued following the conclusion of the 10 p.m. newscast on March 31, 2017. Then, at midnight on May 31 and at the network's request, the CW affiliation moved to KFMB-TV's 8.2 subchannel. KFMB-TV also purchased substantially all of XETV's syndicated program inventory, with the exception of
Weekend Marketplace (which is no longer seen at all in San Diego), to run on the new subchannel, which it branded as
The CW San Diego. XETV then moved Canal 5 programming (which moved from
XHBJ-TDT (channel 45) in 2012) from its 6.2 subchannel to its main 6.1 subchannel, making the station a full-time Spanish-language outlet for the first time in its history. XETV had initially indicated it would transmit the
Gala TV network, already seen in the Tijuana/San Diego area on XHBJ, but later retracted that statement. Bay City Television, the Televisa subsidiary which operated XETV from San Diego, concurrently ceased operations on May 31; unusually, the same repeat episode of
The King of Queens that ended XETV's run as an English-language station near midnight local time, launched KFMB-DT2's run as a CW affiliate three minutes later. By Dunning's estimate, about 150 full-time, part-time, and freelance staffers were
laid off between the closure of the news department on March 31 and the corporate shutdown. ==Special broadcast authority==