KTBN-TV

KTBN-TV, virtual channel 40 (UHF digital channel 33), is the flagship television station of the Christian religious broadcaster Trinity Broadcasting Network serving the Los Angeles, California area. Licensed to Santa Ana, California, the station is owned and operated by TBN. The station's offices are based in the TBN network headquarters in nearby Tustin, and its transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.

History

Channel 40 first launched on January 5, 1967 as KLXA-TV, licensed to Fontana but operating from offices and studios at 816 North Highland Avenue in Hollywood. It was Southern California's first Bilingual television station. In its first months, KLXA broadcast most days from 4:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M., with English programming made up of old movies and 1950s-era reruns of network and syndicated series such as The Whirlybirds, The Phil Silvers Show and Circus Boy, ending with a Lyn Sherwood newscast from 8:00 to 8:15. Then, starting with an 8:15-8:30 newscast from Miguel Alonso, the remainder of the schedule would be telenovelas, variety shows and sporting events (most frequently bullfighting) in Spanish. By 1971, the entire schedule was changed to Spanish-language programming, directly competing with KMEX-TV on Channel 34.

KTBN (shortwave)

KTBN (formerly known as KUSW) was the shortwave radio outlet of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, a large religious international broadcaster. The station's programming was a simulcast of the audio portion of the TBN television service.

History

KUSW, which was also branded "The Superpower", officially launched on December 26, 1987 during the peak years of the American commercial shortwave broadcasting boom triggered by the founding of WRNO Worldwide. Owned by Carlson Communications International, which owned a network of AM and FM stations in Utah, Nevada, and Arizona, KUSW broadcast a combination of news and rock music. The station also offered a mail-order catalog of products made in the Rocky Mountains. The station's "theme song", used as an interval signal for sign-ons, sign-offs, and to signal frequency changes, was "Telegraph Road" by Dire Straits.

Carlson sold the station to the TBN ministry in 1990 for approximately $2 million. The station signed off under its old format on December 16 of that year, to be relaunched under the KTBN callsign two days later. To celebrate the format/ownership change, TBN founders Paul and Jan Crouch staged a televised demolition by explosion of the KUSW record library.