KCOY
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Santa Maria / Santa Barbara / San Luis Obispo, California United States |
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| City | Santa Maria |
| Branding | KCOY 12 (general) Central Coast News (newscasts) Fox 11 (on DT2) |
| Channels |
Digital: 19 (UHF) Virtual: 12 () |
| Subchannels | 12.1 CBS 12.2 Fox |
| Translators | KSBB-CD 17 Santa Barbara K44DN 44 Paso Robles |
| Affiliations | CBS (secondary until 1969) |
| Owner | VistaWest Media, LLC (VistaWest California, LLC) |
| Operator | News-Press & Gazette Company |
| First air date | March 16, 1964 |
| Sister station(s) | KEYT-TV, KKFX-CD |
| Former channel number(s) |
Analog: 12 (VHF, 1964–2009) |
| Former affiliations | NBC (1964–1969) |
| Transmitter power | 130 kW |
| Height | 579 metres (1,900 feet) |
| Facility ID | 63165 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 34°54′37.2″N 120°11′12.8″W / 34.910333°N 120.186889°W |
| Licensing authority | FCC |
| Public license information: |
Profile CDBS |
| Website | www |
KCOY-TV is the CBS-affiliated television station for the Central Coast of California that is licensed to Santa Maria. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 19 from a transmitter on Tepusquet Peak in the Los Padres National Forest east of Santa Maria. Owned by VistaWest Media, KCOY is operated by News-Press & Gazette Company through a shared services agreement, making it sister stations to ABC affiliate KEYT-TV, and Class A Fox affiliate KKFX-CD. KCOY and KKFX share studios on West McCoy Lane in Santa Maria. Its signal can also be seen on repeater K44DN (on channel 44 from a transmitter northwest of Paso Robles) licensed to Paso Robles and on KSBB-CD (channel 17) in Santa Barbara.
The station went on-the-air on March 16, 1964. KCOY would not have existed if it were not for the Federal Communications Commission's decision in 1959 to move KFRE-TV (now KFSN-TV) in Fresno from channel 12 to channel 30 under pressure from politicians in the Central Coast. This allowed channel 12 to be used in Santa Maria. The station signed on as Santa Barbara County's NBC affiliate, sharing CBS with ABC affiliate KEYT.
It was owned for more than a dozen years by Central Coast Broadcasters, who acquired the station from the near bankruptcy of the original owners on August 1, 1968. The consortium of local business people including Mili Acquistapace and Burns Rick, was headed by Helen Pedotti, who had previously not even owned a television set, but took personal interest in the operation of the station. The station took its current affiliation with CBS in 1969 with the consolidation of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties into a single market; KSBY in San Luis Obispo became the NBC affiliate for the enlarged market. It was owned by Stauffer Communications from the early-1980s until 1995 when the company merged with Morris Communications. However, the FCC did not allow Morris to keep the former Stauffer television stations due to the agency's rules in effect at the time against newspaper / broadcast station cross-ownership which affected several of the Stauffer markets where Morris already owned newspapers. KCOY was sold along with most of its sisters to Benedek Broadcasting in 1996. Three years later, Benedek traded KCOY to the Ackerley Group for that company's KKTV in Colorado Springs, Colorado. In 2002, Ackerley was bought out by Clear Channel Communications.
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Wikipedia