KPIF

KPIF

Pocatello/Idaho Falls, Idaho
Channels	Digital: 15 (UHF)
Affiliations	RTV
Owner	KM Communications, Inc. (Pocatello Channel 15, LLC)
First air date	March 1, 2004
Call letters' meaning	Pocatello Idaho Falls
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 15 (VHF, 2004-2009)
Former affiliations	America One (2004) The WB (2004-2006) The CW (2006-2009)
Transmitter power	239 kW
Height	327 m
Facility ID	86205
Transmitter coordinates	42°51′50″N 112°31′10″W

KPIF is a full-power television station serving Pocatello and Idaho Falls, Idaho, as an affiliate of the Retro Television Network. The station is owned by KM Communications Inc. and broadcasts on UHF channel 15 from a transmitter located on Howard Mountain in Pocatello. It has no separate digital channel allotment. The station appears to be still broadcasting; however, it may be available only on cable. The station may be forced to shut down permanently (and may also force KM Communications to forfeit the licenses of all of its remaining stations) if it actually continues to broadcast an over-the-air signal without a license.

History

The original construction permit for KPIF was granted on March 2, 2001, to Pocatello Channel 15, LLC, a partnership between KM Communications, Inc. of Skokie, Illinois, Kaleidoscope Foundation, Inc. of Little Rock, Arkansas (a subsidiary of Equity Broadcasting Corporation), and Potelco Broadcasting of Greensboro, North Carolina. The three companies had been competing applicants for a channel 15 television station in Pocatello, and agreed in 2000 to form a partnership in order to expedite construction of the station. In 2003, due to irreconcilable differences that caused delays in development of the permit, Myoung Hwa Bae of KM Communications extended an offer to buy out the other two members. KM Communications completed construction of the station and signed on in March 2004 under Program Test Authority from the FCC. The station applied for a license to cover the construction permit on March 1, 2004, and was granted the license on October 11, 2006.

Initially, KPIF was affiliated with America One, but the station picked up a WB affiliation a few months later. It became an affiliate of The CW on September 18, 2006. At one point, KBEO of Jackson, Wyoming (which was the first to sign on, on March 30, 2001) became a satellite of KPIF (KBEO has since gone dark).

After The CW moved to a digital subchannel of KIFI-TV on September 7, 2009, the stations switched to RTV.

Digital television

Because they were granted original construction permits after the FCC finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997, KPIF did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. Instead, on June 12, 2009, which was the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, KPIF was to have turned off its analog signal and turned on its digital signal (called a "flash-cut").

While KPIF did broadcast a digital signal after the analog shutdown, it never applied for a license to cover or an extension of the digital construction permit (which expired on June 12, 2009). As a result, the KPIF license was cancelled by the FCC on February 16, 2011, and the call sign was deleted.^{[citation needed]}

External links

• Query the FCC's TV station database for KPIF
• Query TV Fool's coverage map for KPIF
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KPIF-TV
• Post Register article on station sign-on