About KFFV

KFFV

KFFV is a television station licensed to Seattle, Washington, in the United States, broadcasting on virtual channel 44 with programming from MeTV, the classic television network. It is owned by Weigel Broadcasting, of Chicago, through KFFV-TV LLC. Its sister station is KVOS-TV, channel 12, the Bellingham-licensed Univision affiliate, and the two stations share studios on Third Avenue South in Seattle. KFFV brands itself on air as MeTV Seattle.

Channel 44's first two decades were turbulent: a ten-year wait between its construction permit and its sign-on, a rapid rotation of small programming services on its subchannels, a period off the air after an eviction, a bankruptcy auction, and two changes of ownership in seven years. Since Weigel Broadcasting took over in 2018, the station has settled into a stable role as the Seattle home of Weigel's family of classic-programming networks.

Licensing, channels and call sign

KFFV transmits digitally on UHF channel 16 and is displayed by receivers as virtual channel 44. The Federal Communications Commission lists the station under facility ID 49264. Its transmitter stands on Capitol Hill, east of downtown Seattle, with an effective radiated power of 260 kilowatts and an antenna height of 259 metres, or 850 feet, above average terrain. The call sign KFFV, adopted in 2010, is a reference to the station's former channel allocation: the letters evoke Channel Forty-Five, the analog and original virtual channel position the station occupied when it signed on. Its signal is also relayed in the Bellingham area, where sister station KVOS-TV carries the MeTV feed on its 12.3 subchannel.

A long road to air: permit to sign-on

The station's history begins on October 2, 1989, when the FCC assigned the call letters KHCV to a construction permit for a new Seattle station. Building the station took far longer than first planned. After many permit extensions, KHCV finally signed on the air on January 1, 1999, broadcasting in analog on UHF channel 45. The ten-year gap between permit and launch meant the station arrived at the very end of the analog era, just as the American television industry was beginning the transition to digital broadcasting, and it went on the air without a major network affiliation, as an independent station assembling its schedule from smaller programming services.

Early programming experiments

KHCV's early years were defined by experimentation, particularly on its digital subchannels, which at the time were a new frontier for broadcasters. In the week of August 11, 2006, the station began carrying the Spanish-language network Azteca América on its analog channel 45 and on digital subchannel 44.2. On December 20, 2006, FUNimation Entertainment announced that its Funimation Channel, devoted to anime programming, would air on subchannel 44.3. On March 1, 2007, content from GNF Entertainment Network took over subchannels 44.3 and 44.4, with one stream devoted to games and music and the other to movies. In October 2007, programming from AAT Television began on 44.3, and in April 2008 the America One service on 44.4 was replaced by the Sportsman Channel, which later gave way to MBC-D, a Korean television channel.

The main channel changed as well. The analog broadcast had carried Azteca América exclusively, while the version of the station carried on Comcast cable in Seattle showed Jewelry TV. On September 10, 2007, the analog channel switched to the same Jewelry TV programming seen on the digital main channel and on cable. Over its first decade the station's listed affiliations also included the Military Channel, AMGTV and Jewelry TV — a record that shows how a late-arriving independent station survived by leasing time to whichever services were buying carriage.

Silence, a new name and bankruptcy

The station's difficulties deepened in late 2008 and 2009. On November 13, 2008, KHCV filed a request for silent status for its analog signal. On September 28, 2009, the station changed its call sign to KPST. On December 22, 2009, KPST went silent altogether: the station had been evicted from its studios, and its studio-to-transmitter link could not be operated from the new location. Management hoped to return within a few weeks, and broadcasting resumed on February 4, 2010, with the main channel airing infomercials around the clock. The underlying problem was financial. The station's owner, North Pacific International Television, was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, having struggled since the 2008 recession, and the station was put up for auction.

OTA Broadcasting and the KFFV call sign

The call letters changed to KFFV on November 15, 2010. At a bankruptcy auction on June 30, 2011, OTA Broadcasting won the station with a bid of 5.2 million dollars, against one other bidder; because OTA had earlier placed the stalking-horse bid of 3.45 million dollars, it received a 150,000-dollar discount, making the effective proceeds 5.05 million dollars. OTA Broadcasting was controlled by Michael S. Dell through MSD Capital. The sale was completed on October 12, 2011. Under OTA, KFFV continued as a multi-service independent: WeatherNation was added to channel 44.5 in January 2013, later replaced by Cozi TV, and on March 12, 2015, the MeTV service carried by sister station KVOS-TV was soft-launched onto subchannel 44.6 — an early sign of the station's future direction.

Sale to Weigel Broadcasting

On October 18, 2017, Weigel Broadcasting agreed to acquire KFFV and KVOS-TV, together with two San Francisco-area stations, KAXT-CD and KTLN-TV, in a deal valued at 23.2 million dollars. The sale closed on January 15, 2018. Weigel, the Chicago-based owner of MeTV and a family of companion diginets, moved quickly to remake the station. On January 17, 2018, it ended KFFV's carriage agreements with the networks aired under OTA ownership and rebuilt the lineup as a near-duplication of KVOS's services. MeTV replaced the shopping service Evine on the main channel, 44.1; Movies! replaced Azteca América on 44.2; and Heroes & Icons replaced AAT on 44.3, with AAT moving to a low-power Seattle station. Cozi TV later returned to the Seattle market on other stations, in 2019 and 2020, while Azteca América left the air at the end of 2022 without finding a new Seattle affiliate.

Subchannels today

KFFV now carries one of the fuller diginet lineups in the Seattle market, with most of its streams supplied by its owner's own networks. Channel 44.1 carries MeTV in 720p high definition. Channel 44.2 carries Movies!, 44.3 carries Heroes & Icons, 44.4 carries Catchy Comedy, 44.5 carries MeTV+, 44.6 carries Story Television, 44.7 carries MeTV Toons, and 44.8 carries WEST, Weigel's western-oriented network. A further stream, 44.12, carries OnTV4U infomercials. The station's branding as MeTV Seattle is shared with the KVOS-TV simulcast on 12.3, so the same service is available over the air from transmitters in both Seattle and the Bellingham area, giving the network unusually complete coverage of the Puget Sound region.

Digital transition and repack

Like every American full-power station, KFFV passed through the digital television transition. Its analog signal on channel 45 ended in 2009, the year of the national switch-off; the station had already sought silent authority for the analog transmitter in November 2008. Its digital signal originally broadcast on UHF channel 44 — the source of its present virtual channel number — and remained there until 2019, when the station moved to UHF channel 16 as part of the nationwide spectrum repacking that followed the FCC's incentive auction. Receivers continue to display the station as channel 44, preserving the identity it adopted after the move to digital broadcasting.

Studios, sister station and market role

KFFV shares its Seattle studios on Third Avenue South with KVOS-TV, the Bellingham station whose Bellingham facilities were closed after its own sale to OTA Broadcasting in 2010; the pairing of a Seattle-licensed and a Bellingham-licensed station under one roof dates from that period and continued under Weigel. In the Seattle–Tacoma market, KFFV occupies the classic-television niche: while the market's major network affiliates compete on news and sports, channel 44 offers a schedule of vintage series, films and westerns through its owner's networks. Its listed web presence is its station page on MeTV's network website, metv.com, consistent with its operation as a network outlet rather than a locally programmed station.