KDMD: Anchorage's Ion Affiliate and Alaska's Multichannel Pioneer

KDMD is a television station serving Anchorage, Alaska, affiliated with Ion Television on its main channel and carrying one of the largest lineups of digital subchannels of any station in the state. The station broadcasts on virtual channel 33, maintains studios on East 66th Avenue near the Seward Highway in Anchorage, and transmits from a site in Eagle River. In a market dominated by affiliates of the traditional broadcast networks, KDMD has built a distinct identity as an entertainment-focused, multichannel outlet, mixing national network programming with locally produced Alaskan content and, for nearly two decades, the state's first Spanish-language broadcast service.

The station's history stretches back to October 1, 1989, and its ownership changed most recently in 2024, when it was sold to Bridge Media Networks. Its website is kdmd.tv, and the service it provides reflects both the economics of modern American broadcasting, where a single transmitter can carry many program streams, and the particular needs of Alaska viewers, for whom over-the-air television remains an important source of free programming across long distances and difficult terrain.

Overview

KDMD's main channel, 33.1, carries Ion Television, the national network known for long blocks of procedural drama series and, in recent years, an expanding slate of national sports. Around that main service, the station multiplexes more than a dozen additional streams, including MeTV, Grit, Court TV, Laff, Movies!, Catchy Comedy, Buzzr and the All Women's Sports Network, alongside infomercial services associated with its current owner. Few stations anywhere in the United States offer so many distinct program services from a single facility, and in Alaska the lineup makes KDMD a significant free-to-air entertainment provider for Anchorage households that rely on an antenna.

The station is owned by Bridge Media Networks, alongside low-power sister station KLDY-LD in Anchorage. It does not operate a traditional local news department of the kind maintained by Anchorage's network affiliates, and that distinction shapes its role in the market: KDMD competes for entertainment viewing rather than for local news audiences, while still inserting local Alaskan programming, most notably on its MeTV subchannel.

History

KDMD debuted on the air on October 1, 1989, with a mix of religious programming, classic television series and paid programming. That eclectic independent schedule was typical of new UHF stations of the era, which assembled their broadcast days from syndicated library product, ministry programs and infomercials while building an audience and advertiser base. For its first nine years, channel 33 operated in that independent mode in a market already served by established VHF network affiliates.

The station's defining affiliation arrived in 1998, when it joined Pax TV, the network launched by Paxson Communications that was later renamed i: Independent Television and then, in 2007, Ion Television. KDMD has carried that network, under its successive names, ever since, giving Anchorage viewers a continuous outlet for the service for more than a quarter of a century. Sports also featured in the station's earlier years: from 2002 to 2006, KDMD carried Seattle Mariners baseball through the Mariners Television Network, reflecting the strong following for Seattle professional sports that has long existed in Alaska.

Ownership

For much of its life, KDMD was owned by Ketchikan Television LLC, the Alaska broadcaster commonly known as Ketchikan TV. Under that ownership the station was grouped with other Alaska outlets, including KTNL-TV in Sitka, and Ketchikan TV also operated Alaska's Spanish-language Telemundo service from the Anchorage station. The company's holdings were reshaped over time, including the 2013 agreement to sell its southeast Alaska CBS affiliates to Denali Media Holdings, while KDMD itself remained with Ketchikan TV for another decade.

That long tenure ended with a transaction announced on December 11, 2023, under which Ketchikan TV agreed to sell KDMD, sister station KTNL-TV in Sitka and three low-power stations to Bridge News LLC, backed by entrepreneur Manoj Bhargava, for $2.4 million. The sale was completed on March 12, 2024, and the station is now held under Bridge Media Networks. The change of ownership brought a visible change to the subchannel lineup, with Bridge-branded infomercial services appearing among the station's multiplexed streams.

Affiliation and Programming

Ion Television programming anchors the schedule on 33.1. The network, owned within the E. W. Scripps Company's Scripps Networks operation, built its modern identity around marathon presentations of popular procedural dramas, supplemented by films and, more recently, live sports properties developed by Scripps Sports. For Anchorage viewers, KDMD is the local over-the-air home of that service, continuing an affiliation that began when the network still traded as Pax TV in 1998.

Beyond Ion, the station's programming identity is defined by variety. Its subchannels carry classic television, westerns and action, courtroom coverage, situation comedies old and new, feature films, game shows and women's sports, among other services. The breadth of the lineup means that a viewer scanning Anchorage's free channels encounters KDMD repeatedly, under different program brands, across the dial position's many decimal points.

Telemundo Alaska and Spanish-Language Service

One of the most significant chapters in KDMD's history began in June 2007, when the station began broadcasting the Spanish-language Telemundo network on a digital subchannel. The launch made KDMD the first Spanish-language broadcast station in Alaska, a notable milestone in a state not usually associated with Spanish-language media. Branded as Telemundo Alaska, the service brought national Spanish-language news, entertainment and sports programming to Hispanic viewers in the Anchorage area over the air, without the need for a cable subscription.

The Telemundo affiliation continued for some eighteen years, an unusually long run for a subchannel service, before ending in 2025 following the station's change of ownership. Its departure closed a distinctive era in which an entertainment-focused independent station in Anchorage also served as the state's pioneering outlet for Spanish-language broadcasting.

MeTV Alaska and Local Programming

KDMD's third subchannel, 33.3, branded MeTV Alaska, has its own separate history. Before 2010, the service operated as a separate low-power analog station on UHF channel 38 under the call sign KACN-LP. It later migrated onto KDMD's digital multiplex, and on April 24, 2014, it became an affiliate of MeTV, the national classic-television network.

What sets MeTV Alaska apart from a purely national feed is its local content. In addition to MeTV's library programming, the subchannel broadcasts a daily mix of local Alaskan programming from both professional and amateur video producers. That open, community-flavored element preserves something of the spirit of the old low-power KACN service and gives the KDMD multiplex a genuinely Alaskan component that its national network streams do not provide.

Market and Audience

Anchorage is Alaska's largest city and its dominant media market, and KDMD serves it from within a competitive field of network affiliates with established news operations. The station's strategy has never been to out-news those rivals. Instead, it targets entertainment audiences: fans of classic television, crime and courtroom programming, comedy reruns, movies and the procedural dramas that fill the Ion schedule, along with viewers who value the sheer quantity of free choices its multiplex provides.

That approach suits the economics of a relatively small market. National network and library programming can be acquired and scheduled far more cheaply than a full local news department can be staffed, and digital multicasting allows one licensee to occupy many niches at once. KDMD's fourteen-stream lineup is an extreme, and therefore instructive, example of how American stations outside the largest markets have adapted to the digital era.

Technical Details

KDMD broadcasts virtually on channel 33, the same number it used in the analog era, when it transmitted on UHF channel 33 from 1989 until the national digital transition in 2009. Its digital signal has been broadcast on UHF channel 32. The station has been described as the only full-power UHF station on the air in Alaska, a distinction reflecting how most of the state's full-power outlets were established on VHF assignments.

The transmitter is located in Eagle River, the community northeast of central Anchorage, while the studios sit on East 66th Avenue near the Seward Highway in Anchorage itself. From the Eagle River site, the signal covers the Anchorage bowl and surrounding communities, and the station's service is supplemented in the area by low-power sister outlet KLDY-LD.

Recent Developments

The defining recent development for KDMD was its 2024 sale to Bridge Media Networks, completed on March 12, 2024 as part of the $2.4 million multi-station transaction with Ketchikan TV. Under the new owner, the multiplex was reworked: Bridge-branded infomercial channels joined the lineup, newer services such as the All Women's Sports Network and One America Plus appeared among the streams, and the long-running Telemundo subchannel affiliation ended in 2025.

Those changes mark a clear break with the Ketchikan TV era, during which the station combined Ion, Telemundo and the locally flavored MeTV Alaska service. What has not changed is the station's basic proposition to Anchorage viewers: a main channel devoted to a national entertainment network, surrounded by one of the widest selections of free subchannel programming available anywhere in Alaska, from a transmitter site in Eagle River and studios on East 66th Avenue that have anchored channel 33's presence in the market since the late twentieth century.