KNIC-DT

29°41′48″N 98°30′45″W / 29.69667°N 98.51250°W / 29.69667; -98.51250Translator(s)KCOR-CD 34 (27 UHF) San AntonioLinksWebsiteUniMás

KNIC-DT (channel 17) is a television station licensed to Blanco, Texas, United States, broadcasting the Spanish-language UniMás network to the San Antonio area. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Univision outlet KWEX-DT (channel 41). The two stations share studios on Network Boulevard in Northwest San Antonio; KNIC's transmitter is located on Hogan Drive in Timberwood Park. Although Blanco is geographically within the Austin market, that city has its own UniMás station, KTFO-CD.

History

KNIC-DT's history traces back to the March 1991 sign-on of K17BY, a low-power television station that San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia) was issued a construction permit to build on March 23, 1988; operating on UHF channel 17, Clear Channel sold the station in March 1991 to Nicolas Communications. In November 1997, the station changed its calls to KNIC-LP (in reference to its owners); Nicolas Communications sold KNIC-CA in November 2001 (the station received approval to upgrade its license to Class A status that same month) to Univision Communications, a sale that was completed in January 2002; that month, it became a charter affiliate of Univision's secondary network, TeleFutura (which relaunched as UniMás on January 7, 2013).

Univision had applied for a license to build a full-power television station in 2000 on UHF channel 52 in Blanco; after the Federal Communications Commission awarded Univision the license at auction, Univision requested that the FCC move the allocation to UHF channel 17; the request was granted in February 2003.^[2] KNIC-TV was founded on July 13, 2005. The formal application for KNIC-TV called for Univision to either move KNIC-CA to another channel, or to shut it down outright,^[3] KNIC-CA moved to channel 34 under special temporary authorization, before it ceased operations on September 28, 2006; its license survives as KCOR-CD, a translator of KNIC-DT. KNIC-DT was one of the few television stations to have been built and signed on by Univision Communications.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of KNIC-DT^[4]

Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
17.1	1080i	16:9	KNIC-DT	UniMás
17.2			KWEX-DT	Univision (KWEX-DT)
17.3	480i		MYSTERY	Ion Mystery
17.4			LAFF	Laff
17.5			SHOP LC	Shop LC

Analog-to-digital conversion

Because it was granted an original construction permit after the FCC finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997 [1], the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. KNIC-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 17, on June 12, 2009. The station "flash-cut" its digital signal into operation UHF channel 18,^[5] using virtual channel 17.

References