KLOC TV Channel 19, Modesto, CA

Local television innovator's dream becoming a reality

June 11, 1978

It has been 12 years since Chester Smith's Modesto television station started broadcasting from its site on Iowa Avenue, west of Modesto. But the principal owner of KLOC-TV, Channel 19, said major changes are in store for the independent television outlet and, hopefully, many will become a reality later this year.

In the early years of the station, Smith and his wife, Naomi, lived in the office-trailer on the 20-acre "KLOC Ranch" and survived the lean years with profits from his radio station. And, for lack of better programming, the station even videocast the radio disc jockey. Smith relied on his many years of radio experience and integrity to keep the television station afloat. The easy-going Smith admits that he "kept a low profile all those lean years while trying to find a need and fill it. Now, we're quite successful, though radio helped pay the bills for awhile and with student help and a lot of prayers, we kept the television station on the air."

It took the nationwide switch to new color sets with improved UHF tuners, the advent of cablevision systems and KLOC-TV's power boost to 3.5 million watts to turn the station around in the late '60s and early '70s. Smith further added that, "We envisioned in the beginning a total first-class station serving the Modesto-Merced area and we started with good movies, children's programs and news. Advertisers supported us in the beginning, but it didn't last. Then SIN came along in 1972 and it saved us."

SIN, or Spanish International Network, is a minority broadcasting network that started in Texas in 1961. Today, more than 13 stations are affiliated with SIN, with facilities in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Fresno and Modesto-Ceres. Most of SIN's programming is imported from Mexico and South America. Now, with the added network, KLOC-TV is carried on some 30 cablevision systems in Northern California.

Smith admits though that, in the beginning and prior to SIN affiliation, he "honestly thought Modesto needed a general audience station but I was ahead of my time. We came in underfinanced with too low power and the home sets couldn't pick us up very well." He added that KLOC was the first UHF television station in the valley to come on the air and remain unsold. Now, he says, "I'm responsible for 35 salaries and we've never had a paycheck bounce."

Today, the changes at KLOC-TV continue: All studio equipment has been replaced and $300,000 in a new high-power transmitter and antenna is on order. Another $200,000 has been spent for movie projectors, a studio camera and control room equipment. The Ceres-licensed station will also get a major power increase to 5 million watts, with the new antenna site near San Andreas The coverage area is expected to greatly increase from its present antenna site atop Mt. Oso.

KLOC-TV's new general sales manager, Vince Paul, said the new high- powered signal is expected to capitalize the Spanish-speaking market in the Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto viewing area. This is especially true since the Spanish-language Channel 31 in Sacramento, owned by the Pappas brothers, is being sold to pay-TV status. He said KLOC just completed production of the first regional Spanish-language commercial for Ford Motor Company, using Ford's ad agency, J. Walter Thompson, to test market the commercial on KLOC.

Programming changes include the addition of full-length movies, old Hollywood classics, which began on June 1st. One feature is shown at noon, during the programming break between Christian broadcasting and the SIN network. And the 11 pm feature is being shown uncut. According to Paul, local merchants are being approached by salespersons, who moved into offices on I Street in downtown Modesto. He added that, "What we're trying to say is 'OK, Modesto, you have a television station in your backyard, so let's support it."

Besides SIN, KLOC-TV has also affiliated with the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), now a powerful nationwide medium after meager beginnings a decade ago in Virginia. The network announced this spring it has ordered 30 satellite earth stations for delivery in the next several months, with another 30 to follow. When completed, CBN will air a daily national and international newscast and later, twice-daily, six days a week to independent stations like KLOC, across the nation.

Chester Smith said the changes expected to reach fruition this year didn't come overnight. KLOC Broadcasting, Inc., more than two years ago sought a new UHF television allocation in Salinas and transmitters already have been purchased in expectation of FCC license approval. Once on the air, the new Salinas Channel 35 will offer Spanish-language programming to the community.

For the Modesto-based oeration, Smith said long-range plans include more community involvement, perhaps video-taping local events, such as youth soccer and a projected relocation of the television studio closer to town.

Smith ended his 28-year on-the-air radio career in 1976 after making his debut in 1947 as a country singer and announcer on KTRB in Modesto. Today, however, he's back on the air with "A Man Called Smith" show on television, still plucking his guitar.

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Channel 19 History

Channel 19 signed on the air on August 15, 1966 as KLOC-TV. The station was founded by country and western performer Chester Smith, who also owned what then was KLOC-AM 920 in Ceres, California. His company, Sainte Partners II, L.P. presently owns KCSO-LP in Sacramento as well as stations in Chico/Redding, Eureka, Salinas/Monterey/Santa Cruz and Medford, Oregon.

Initially, KLOC was a general entertainment station, and was one of the handful of stations that carried the one month of programming from the United Network in May, 1967. About a year after its sign on, the syndicators providing KLOC's programming raised their prices to that of a Sacramento-licensed station (they had been paying the lower prices of an unrated market), and Smith resorted to simulcasting the co-owned radio station in the daytime, including a camera in the radio studio to show the disc jockey when he was talking, and Spanish-language telenovelas in the evening, when the radio station signed off.

By the 1970s, the radio simulcast was ended and KLOC-TV's broadcast day was split into two parts, the morning portion devoted to English-language religious programming, the rest of the day (from approximately 2:00pm to sign-off) to Spanish-language programming as one of the original affiliates of SIN (the Spanish International Network), carrying the afternoon and evening schedule of KMEX from Los Angeles via a live microwave feed, as did KDTV in the Bay Area.

SIN would later be renamed Univision. In the 1980s, the station call letters were changed to KCSO (for "Chester Smith Organization").

In the late 1990s, the station was sold to Univision (Smith had accepted stock in SIN as part of the agreement to be an original affiliate), and currently airs all of its programming in Spanish as Univision 19. After the ownership change, the studios were moved from Modesto to Sacramento, and the call letters changed to KUVS.

Courtesy of Wikipedia