KTDO

KASK-TV

In 1983, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) designated for comparative hearing three applications seeking to build new television stations in Las Cruces, New Mexico, from Doña Ana County Family Television; Las Cruces Family Television; and KASK Incorporated, the owner of Las Cruces radio station KASK (103.1 FM). The parties settled in October 1983, with KASK's application being the one granted. KASK-TV was announced to go on the air as an independent station and the city's first commercial TV outlet. The station was built on the ninth floor of the First National Bank Tower. KASK-TV began broadcasting on November 18, 1984. At launch, its schedule included daily news programming: a 7 p.m. news brief and a full 10 p.m. newscast, concentrating on news of southern New Mexico.

Despite having won a construction permit and put the station on the air, KASK-TV struggled to get a license to cover the permit because of its co-ownership with KASK radio. The station also struggled financially: in April 1986, the owners stated KASK-TV was losing $2,500 a month, and it was put on the market. A sale to an unnamed business group from Las Cruces was announced in September 1986. Former First National Bank vice president John Hoagland was approved as the new licensee in October; he had been approved as a receiver in a sealed legal case. The receivership had been agreed to avoid a bankruptcy proceeding in which the bank was the principal creditor. Hoagland agreed to sell the station to Roy Henderson of Houston in 1987. Ahead of the transaction closing, KASK-TV left the air on October 2, 1987, so it could execute a planned transmitter move and rebuild at higher power. Bayport received approval to build a 529-foot (161 m) tower at a site near Anthony, New Mexico, and increase power from 74,000 watts to the maximum 5 million. However, by late 1988, Henderson had abandoned attempts to put KASK-TV back on the air and was searching for a buyer.

KZIA

KASK-TV was put back into receivership, and in October 1989, the receiver filed to sell the station to Southwestern Broadcasting Company, owned by Carol and Robert Muñoz. The station's call sign was changed to KZIA, after the Zia symbol that is a state symbol of New Mexico. Muñoz, a former general manager for KCIK-TV in El Paso, aimed to provide local news coverage of Las Cruces and hoped to air New Mexico State Aggies athletics events; this included a 6:30 p.m. newscast, Newswatch, managed by former KDBC-TV newsman Bill Mitchell. Outside of local programming, KZIA broadcast comedies, dramas, and movies.

KZIA began broadcasting again on June 13, 1990; Muñoz announced on the first newscast that it had reached a deal for NMSU sports. The station was added to the El Paso cable system in 1991, giving it access to a wider potential audience. In addition to its own news, KZIA-TV initially offered a replay of KDBC's 6 p.m. newscast at 9:30 p.m. In March 1991, channel 48 began carrying by microwave link all of KOB-TV's local newscasts live from Albuquerque in a first-of-its-kind arrangement; three months later, the local newscast was dropped due to insufficient advertiser support. The six NMSU basketball games the station carried in 1990 lost KZIA significant money.

Muñoz put KZIA into bankruptcy reorganization in August 1992 to keep it on the air. At the time, he had been appointed as interim general manager of KCOS, El Paso's public TV station. He attributed the station's problems to an unexpected downturn in the economy and the impact of the Gulf War on advertising. The bankruptcy action followed the FCC dismissing a sale application to Two If By Sea Broadcasting Corporation of Seattle.

In March 1993, Lee Enterprises, owner of KRQE in Albuquerque, agreed to acquire KZIA. Lee agreed to pay $440,000, less than half the $900,000 price of the Two If By Sea purchase bid of 1992. Under Lee, KOB news was replaced by that of KRQE. The station began carrying New Mexico Lobos football and a local sports show, Las Cruces Sports Sunday. It also opened a translator on channel 46 to serve areas of Las Cruces that had previously received a poor signal.

KZIA became an affiliate of the United Paramount Network (UPN) when it launched in January 1995. Later that year, after a dispute with the city of Las Cruces over microwave dishes, KZIA relocated its studios from Las Cruces to east El Paso. The dishes were important for the station to have a line of sight to the transmitter.

Lee Enterprises decided in late 1997 to change the station from an English-language to a Spanish-language outlet. The call sign was changed to KMAZ in November 1997, and channel 48 affiliated with Telemundo beginning January 15, 1998. In making the change, management cited the ability to grow as the second Spanish-language station (after KINT-TV, channel 26, the Univision affiliate) in a major Hispanic market instead of the fifth or sixth outlet in a top-100 general market. KMAZ replaced XHIJ-TV (channel 44) of Ciudad Juárez as the area's Telemundo affiliate and was replaced by KJLF (channel 65), El Paso's affiliate of The WB, which began airing some UPN shows.

Lee put its broadcasting properties up for sale in 2000, deciding to focus on its publishing businesses. In January 2001, KMAZ was sold to Council Tree Hispanic Broadcasters of Longmont, Colorado. Council Tree had, in August 2000, purchased a 17-percent controlling stake in Telemundo, making channel 48 a network owned-and-operated station. The call sign was changed to KTYO in September 2001.

Council Tree sold its Telemundo stake to NBC in October 2001, but it retained channel 48 for another three years, making improvements to the station's signal. The station was sold to ZGS Broadcast Holdings for $11.8 million in 2004. The call sign was changed to KTDO effective October 1, 2004. Under ZGS, KTDO entered into direct competition with KINT-TV for news for the first time on November 16, 2010, when it debuted local 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts on weeknights.

On December 4, 2017, NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group announced its purchase of ZGS's television stations, including KTDO. The sale was completed on February 1, 2018. After the purchase, KTDO launched newscasts at 4 and 4:30 p.m. in June 2018. In 2023, NBC moved the station to a new building in El Paso.

Subchannels

KTDO's transmitter is located in the Franklin Mountains. The station's signal is multiplexed:

  Broadcast on behalf of another station

Analog-to-digital conversion

KTDO shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 48, on June 12, 2009, the official digital transition date. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 47, using virtual channel 48. KTDO relocated its signal from channel 47 to channel 26 in 2020, as a result of the 2016 United States wireless spectrum auction.