. kswb tv san diego california united states branding fox 5 san diego general ; cable channel fox 5 news newscasts channels digital 19 uhf virtual 69 psip affiliations .1 fox .2 antenna tv .3 this tv owner tribune broadcasting kswb llc first air date october 1 1984 ; 32 years ago 1984 10 01 call letters meaning san diego s warner brothers former affiliation sister station s ktla & ktxl former callsigns ktty 1984 1996 former channel number s analog 69 uhf 1984 2009 former affiliations dt1 independent 1984 1995 the wb 1995 2006 the cw 2006 2008 dt2 the tube 2006 2007 transmitter power 322.8 kw height 598 m facility id 58827 transmitter coordinates 32 41 47 n 116 56 7 w 32.69639 n 116.93528 w 32.69639 ; 116.93528 coordinates 32 41 47 n 116 56 7 w 32.69639 n 116.93528 w 32.69639 ; 116.93528 licensing authority fcc public license information profile cdbs website fox5sandiego.com kswb tv virtual channel 69 uhf digital channel 19 is a fox affiliated television station located in san diego california united states . the station is owned by the tribune broadcasting subsidiary of the tribune media company . kswb maintains studio facilities located on engineer road in the city s kearny mesa section within a quarter mile to the west of the studios of cbs affiliate kfmb tv and its transmitter is located southeast of spring valley . kswb tv is branded as fox 5 san diego in reference to its primary cable position in the market on local cable providers it is also carried in tijuana on cablem s channel 165 and channel 166 in high definition ; as such until 2011 the logo bug shown during the station s newscasts rotated between its common cable channel position and its over the air virtual channel number 69 . contents 1 history 1.1 early years 1.2 transition to the cw 1.3 affiliation swap with xetv 2 digital television 2.1 digital channels 2.2 analog to digital conversion 3 programming 4 news operation 4.1 on air staff 4.1.1 notable current on air staff 4.1.2 notable former on air staff 5 see also 6 references 7 external links history edit early years edit the station first signed on the air on october 1 1984 as ktty . the station originally operated from studios located on frontage road in chula vista . originally locally owned by san diego television it operated as an independent station ; it maintained a general entertainment format featuring a mix of dramas classic movies cartoons and religious programming that the other stations in the market declined to air . ktty also aired a significant amount of paid programming . the station suffered from low ratings throughout its run as an independent station struggling to compete with established independents xetv tv channel 6 and kusi tv channel 51 . on january 11 1995 ktty became the san diego charter affiliate of the wb an upstart broadcast network that was majority owned by the warner bros. entertainment division of time warner . 1 the station fell into bankruptcy and tribune broadcasting whose corporate parent the tribune company owned the remaining stake in the wb that time warner did not maintain purchased the station at a bankruptcy auction in 1995 2 and took control of it in 1996 ; shortly afterward the company changed the station s call letters to kswb tv for san diego s wb which served as the station s slogan for most of its tenure with the wb . 3 after tribune took ownership of channel 69 the station added many off network sitcoms to its schedule with talk and court shows being mixed in as well throughout the remainder of the 1990s . transition to the cw edit kswb s cw era logo used from september 18 2006 to july 31 2008 . on january 24 2006 time warner and cbs corporation announced that the two companies would shut down the broadcast networks that they had respectively owned the wb and upn . in their place the companies would combine the wb and upn s respective programming to create a new fifth network called the cw a name that represents the first initials of each of the network s corporate parents which would also include newer series developed for the network . 4 5 with the announcement the cw signed a ten year affiliation agreement with tribune broadcasting for 16 of the group s 19 wb affiliates with kswb tv named as the network s san diego affiliate . 5 6 the cw officially launched on september 18 2006 entravision owned upn affiliate xhupn tv in nearby tecate baja california mexico joined mynetworktv another startup network run by fox entertainment group that launched two weeks prior to the cw s debut and changed its callsign to xhdtv tv . unlike many other former wb affiliates that also had call letters relating to its former affiliation kswb chose to retain the callsign that references the now defunct network . the station also served as the local broadcaster of games from the nba s los angeles clippers until it switched to fox which were produced by los angeles sister station ktla ktla itself would lose the broadcast rights to the clippers to regional sports networks fox sports west and prime ticket in 2009 . affiliation swap with xetv edit during a seminar by sam zell on march 25 2008 it was revealed that tribune broadcasting which zell acquired as part of his 2007 takeover of the tribune company which would result in the start of chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings that lasted four years until 2012 due to debt from zell s leveraged buyout had signed an affiliation agreement with fox to make kswb the network s new san diego affiliate . 7 this caught station management at tijuana licensed xetv tv off guard as there was no knowledge about the impending loss of its fox affiliation until the announcement was made public that station s status as a fox affiliate was contested unsuccessfully in a previous attempt by kusi tv to strip the affiliation from xetv in a 1995 u.s. court of appeals filing . 8 fox later cited concerns with having its programming airing on a mexican licensed station even though xetv had broadcast its programming almost entirely in english for over half a century and was fox s charter affiliate in the market since the network s october 1986 inception . 9 at first there was speculation that cw network programming in the san diego market would be brought in out of market from kswb s los angeles sister station ktla which was carried on cable locally at the time on cox communications channel 14 . 10 two other scenarios were also being entertained including speculation that kusi tv would pick up the cw affiliation or that kswb would re activate its second digital subchannel which had been silent since the tube music network abruptly ceased operations in october 2007 and move the network s programming there . on july 2 2008 bay city television grupo televisa signed an affiliation agreement to bring the cw s programming over to xetv . with the fox affiliation agreement kswb tv s ten year contract with the cw was rendered void ending the station s two year association with the network as it joined fox on august 1 2008 directly swapping affiliations with xetv tv as the cw affiliation for the market was moved over to that station . 11 in turn xetv replaced kswb as the default cw affiliate for directv subscribers in the few areas of the western united states where a cw affiliated station is not receivable over the air or through cable television . digital television edit digital channels edit the station s digital channel is multiplexed channel video aspect psip short name programming 12 69.1 720p 16 9 kswb main kswb tv programming fox 69.2 480i 4 3 antenna antenna tv 69.3 this tv this tv upon receiving the fox affiliation kswb surpassed syracuse new york affiliate wsyt which broadcast on uhf channel 68 as the highest channel allocation of any fox station in the country and was tied with atlanta owned and operated station wupa for the highest channel number of any cw affiliate during kswb s two year tenure with that network . since the digital transition it retains the highest psip channel number out of fox s stations . on october 1 2010 the station began to carry this tv on its second digital subchannel the first time since a short lived affiliation with the tube music network prior to that service ending operations in october 2007 that kswb had carried a digital subchannel . the station then added the tribune owned classic television service antenna tv to a new 69.3 subchannel upon that network s january 1 2011 debut . analog to digital conversion edit kswb shut down its analog signal over uhf channel 69 on february 17 2009 the original target date in which full power television stations in the united states were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate which was later pushed back five months to june 12 2009 . the station s digital signal remained on its pre transition uhf channel 19 . 13 14 through the use of psip digital television receivers display the station s virtual channel as its former uhf analog channel 69 which was among the high band uhf channels 52 69 that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition . programming edit outside of the fox network schedule syndicated programming on kswb tv includes the dr. oz show two and a half men family guy bones and jerry springer . news operation edit as a wb affiliate kswb launched its first news department on september 27 1999 with the debut of a half hour 10 00 p.m. newscast called wb news at ten ; the news operation was formed as a result of a corporate request by tribune for its wb affiliated stations that did not already have news departments to begin producing their own local newscasts . this program was designed to compete against an established hour long primetime newscast on kusi and gained a competitor in xetv tv s upstart news department when it launched its own newscast at 10 00 p.m. that december . on march 7 2005 the station debuted the wb morning show a simulcast of los angeles sister station ktla s weekday morning newscast interspersed with half hourly local news inserts presented by a solo anchor from kswb s san diego studios . 15 on september 22 2005 kswb announced that its news department would be shut down laying off 29 of the department s 30 staffers with the exception of jeff powers who continued to anchor the 10 00 p.m. newscast until he left the station . the final 10 00 p.m. newscast produced by kswb aired on october 28 2005 . production of the primetime newscast was turned over to nbc station knsd channel 39 through a news share agreement on october 31 . the broadcast retained the wb news at ten title and the 615 music composed music package firepower news which was originally commissioned by kswb for its in house newscasts but now originated from knsd s facility at the nbc building in downtown san diego local cut ins during the wb morning show continued to originate from kswb s kearny mesa studios . 16 the agreement between knsd and kswb was similar to outsourced newscasts on other tribune stations such as wphl tv in philadelphia whose 10 00 p.m. newscast became produced by wcau following the 2005 shutdown of wphl s news department before production was turned over to wpvi tv in 2012 and krcw tv in portland whose 10 00 p.m. newscast is produced by kgw . the station s news logo during its cw affiliation