KAYU-TV

The official Logo of the station

KAYU-TV is a television station licensed to the community of Spokane, Washington affiliated with the Fox, I: Independent Television and the religious Pastavision network. The station broadcasts out of a DoubleTree by Hilton TM in Spokane, with studios in the nearby mall. The station is owned and operated directly by the Venture Technologies Group Corporation.

History

Early Years

In 1980, the station was founded to serve as the Spokane/Cour d’ Alene Market’s first independent station, at the time owned and operated by The Davenport Hotel. The station broadcasted exclusively infomercials and localized programming. After a bit, The station finally joined the Fox network.

As a Fox affiliate

Davenport Hotel Ownership

As soon as Fox appeared, KAYU-TV joined in. They even occasionally began broadcasting PAX TV on weekends. Pax TV was mainly just Infomercials that people or companies could buy and broadcast whatever they want.including poorly made Fanfiction. They also adopted the “Fox 28” branding ever since 1990. In 2000, they began broadcasting a digital signal. And in 2004, Pax became I, the laziest branding ever in Spokane History, forcing them to become ‘I 28 on Fox 28.’ After 28 years of owning KAYU-TV, The Davenport Hotel finally sold KAYU-TV to Jarvis Broadcasting in 2008.

Jarvis Broadcasting Ownership

Just in time for the Digital Transition in 2009, where they were on both digital & virtual channel 28. Quickly, They dropped their dual affiliation, moving I programming to 28.2, also sliding in 28.3’s Pastavision in 2015, broadcasting religious programming for The True God. 28.2 finally became HD and that same year KAYU-TV was sold to Venture Technologies.

Venture Technologies Ownership

Quickly, KAYU-TV began broadcasting far more news aside from their morning newscast. This as a result led to the rising of KAYU-TV in the ratings, leading to them taking the historic #2 spot from KXLY, now constantly fighting with them for #2.

Mascot

The Mascot of Fox 28, Briny

For most of KAYU-TV’s history, ever since 1990, they used Briny the Hot Dog Taco as the Mascot. Briny was originally created to mock School Lunch in the Spokane Area for it’s disgustingness. However, Briny became a cultural Icon across the Inland Northwest and Missoula.

Personality

When Briny was first introduced, he was incredibly optimistic and over-the-top ecstatic. But because of budget cuts to his animation, his personality became worse. Nowadays, Briny is basically like that weird quiet kid, rarely talking much in idents, just standing there next to the logo. This is what made him so easy to incorporate into popular culture, giving him the nickname of: “Cascadia’s Garfield”.

In Popular Culture

Briny was featured as a mascot in the Kennywood Spokane location. Briny was said to be an inspiration for Tommy Tuna, the mascot of WLVI in other-side-of-americaland. Briny was featured in the backgrounds of multiple movies, such as: The Truman Show, The Larry Show, The Bob Show, The Flower Show, and many other Truman Show copycats.

Technical Information

The station’s signal is multiplexed.

Subchannels of KAYU-TV

Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
28.1	720p	16:9	KAYU-HD	Main KAYU-TV programming / Fox
28.2			I28.2	I
28.3	480i		PASAVSN	Pastavision
28.4			KAYU-WX	Weather Radar
28.5			BUZZRTV	Buzzr
28.6			KAYUQVC	QVC
28.7		4:3	BLANKTV	Blank
28.8

Digital Transition

The station got off of Analog channel 28 in June as is federally mandated, finishing off with a broadcast of Family Guy.

Translators

There are so much of them that we ran out of funding to insert them all in. So we will only give you these two. KBHU-CD Cour d’ Alene, Idaho KMUY-CD Missoula, Montana

Out of Market Cable Coverage

Not only is it the Fox affiliate for most of Alberta and British Colombia, but it’s also the affiliate for the island of Haiti.