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KSWB-TV (channel 69, cable channel 5) is a television station in San Diego, California, United States, affiliated with the Fox network. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside independent station KUSI-TV (channel 51). The two stations share studios on Viewridge Avenue (near I-15) in the Kearny Mesa section of San Diego; KSWB-TV's transmitter is located southeast of Spring Valley. The station is branded as Fox 5 San Diego, in reference to its primary cable television channel number in the media market.
KSWB-TV went on the air as independent station KTTY in 1984. It was the third independent station in the market with programming that was generally inferior to its two competitors. In 1994, the station was placed into bankruptcy to avoid foreclosure. Tribune Broadcasting won the bidding to purchase KTTY in 1995, and it was relaunched as KSWB-TV on August 16, 1996. Stronger programming, including The WB, and the start of a new local newscast, which ran from 1999 to 2005, dramatically improved its on-air product.
In 2008, Tribune reached a deal to make KSWB-TV the region's new Fox affiliate, displacing XETV, a Tijuana-based independent that had long targeted the U.S. market. The move led the station to restart its own local newscasts.
This cleared the way for the consortium known as San Diego Television to get a construction permit on January 3, 1983. However, nearly two years would pass before KTTY began to broadcast. One complication arose when the Llewellyn group opted to sell, suffering from the difficulty of living on the East Coast and trying to set up a West Coast TV station, and wound up being bought out by the other groups for $2 million. Technical issues also had to be resolved; when the antenna was shipped, it was first delivered to the studios in Chula Vista, not to the San Miguel Mountain transmitter site where it needed to be installed. The Chula Vista studio site was chosen for its access to I-5 and relative lack of congestion; this contrasted with the situation in the Kearny Mesa area, where most San Diego TV stations are located.
KTTY began broadcasting on September 30, 1984, mostly airing classic movies and old syndicated reruns, as well as Newspot news briefs throughout the day. In its first year, ratings were low; even some Los Angeles independent stations, seen on San Diego cable systems, surpassed it in the ratings. It aired San Diego State Aztecs sports and such local productions as Beach Party, a show filmed on local beaches described by its producer as " PM Magazine meets American Bandstand for teenagers". As an independent station, KTTY consistently trailed XETV (channel 6) and KUSI-TV (channel 51) in the quality of its programming and its ratings. It promoted itself as "San Diego's Movie Channel", but John Freeman, TV writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune, called it in retrospect "a laughingstock—bankrupt and virtually bereft of watchable programming". The Harmon/Alvarez Smith group became the primary owners of San Diego Television in 1986 when the group obtained a $17 million bank loan.
On August 29, 1995, in a Los Angeles courtroom, bidders competed at a bankruptcy auction to buy KTTY. Before the auction, offers for the station had hovered between $40 and $42 million. In an event described as "exciting" by an observer, and amidst a frenzied market for TV stations nationally, bidding was fierce. After groups including Newsweb and Viacom dropped out, third-place finisher New World Communications exited when the price reached $60 million, leaving Tribune Broadcasting and United Television—associated with The WB's rival, UPN—to fight it out in a bidding war. After both parties bid in 22 rounds to push the price to $70 million, Tribune bid $70.5 million without United matching it, winning the right to buy KTTY. After the debts—which had increased to $26 million—were covered, the owners of San Diego Television split $44 million.
Tribune assumed control of KTTY on April 19, 1996; 20 people lost their jobs, as the new owners only rehired 34 of the 54 employees of the station, and new programming started to debut. For the new television season in September, KTTY changed its call sign to KSWB-TV almost a month prior, on August 16 of that same year. It also moved on San Diego cable systems from channel 14 to channel 5, which had previously been assigned to Tribune's Los Angeles WB station, KTLA.
In 2000, a marketing campaign conducted by the station in which it mailed VHS tapes to 75,000 San Diego-area homes and urged homes reporting in Nielsen Media Research ratings diaries, "Attention Nielsen homes: Please watch KSWB 5/69", led to Nielsen taking action against the station. It delisted KSWB from its ratings for an entire survey period; a Nielsen spokesman noted that this action was a first in company history.
The news blindsided XETV management, which contended their Fox affiliation agreement ran through 2010, and represented the second time that the station's Mexican location had cost it a network affiliation after an FCC ruling forced ABC to move to a U.S. station in 1973. It gave Tribune a seventh station airing Fox programming, solidifying its status as the second-largest Fox affiliate owner.
On July 2, 2008, 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, and KSWB-TV and XETV exchanged affiliations on August 1, 2008. The switch was also met with an open letter from XETV management, stating in part, "Unfortunately, in these troubled times, it seems as though there is no honor or loyalty anymore."
In 2017, Sinclair Broadcast Group announced it had agreed to purchase Tribune Media for $3.9 billion. As part of divestitures associated with the deal, KSWB-TV and other stations were to be sold to Fox Television Stations. Both transactions were nullified on August 9, 2018, when Tribune Media terminated the Sinclair deal and filed a breach of contract lawsuit; this followed a public rejection of the merger by FCC chairman Ajit Pai and the commission voting to put the transactions up for a formal hearing.
Following the merger's collapse, Nexstar Media Group announced a $6.4 billion all-cash purchase of Tribune Media on December 3, 2018. The sale was completed on September 19, 2019, with KSWB not subject to any additional transactions.
On May 8, 2023, Nexstar announced that it would acquire KUSI-TV from McKinnon Broadcasting for $35 million with the intention of making it an affiliate of The CW when the affiliation becomes available. The deal was completed on August 31.
The WB News at Ten, a half-hour 10 p.m. newscast, began to air on September 27, 1999. It was designed to cater to viewers aged 18 to 49; the average age of the initial on-air presenters was 29. It was the second prime time newscast in San Diego, with KUSI-TV having aired one since 1990; both stations were joined three months later by a startup 10 p.m. newscast from XETV, which was bolstered by its Fox affiliation to beat KSWB's offering in the ratings. KUSI's ratings generally compared to XETV's and KSWB's combined. 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.
To correspond with KSWB's affiliation change to The CW, the KTLA morning news simulcast and the KNSD-produced 10 p.m. news were accordingly renamed as The CW Morning Show and CW News at Ten on September 18, 2006. The newscast was anchored by Vic Salazar and Anne State, both of KNSD. The station also aired a public affairs program, Take 5, on Sunday evenings; this was hosted by Perette Godwin, who also anchored the morning newscast cut-ins.
Upon the affiliation switch on August 1, 2008, KSWB-TV debuted a new weekday morning news program (initially airing from 5 to 9 a.m. and hosted by Arthel Neville) and an hour-long 10 p.m. newscast, both produced in high definition. A total of 50 staffers were added to KSWB to facilitate the news revival.
In the years that followed, the station progressively added local newscasts. In 2009, a 6 p.m. news hour was introduced, followed by a 5 p.m. hour in 2011 and newscasts at 1 and 4 p.m. in 2014. A 7 p.m. newscast was added in 2020 and extended to an hour the next year. By 2022, KSWB was producing hours of local news and sports programming a week, as well as a daily lifestyle show with paid segments, The Localist SD.
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On January 16, 2024, KUSI-TV converted to ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) broadcasting of the two Nexstar stations, with the main KUSI subchannel moving to the KSWB multiplex.
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