KTLM, virtual channel 40 (UHF digital channel 14), is a Telemundo owned-and-operated television station licensed to Rio Grande City, Texas, United States and serving the Rio Grande Valley metropolitan area. The station is owned by the Telemundo Station Group subsidiary of NBCUniversal (itself a subsidiary of Comcast). KTLM's studios are located in the Chase Bank building in McAllen, and its transmitter is located near Rio Grande City.
History[]
The station's original construction permit was issued to the Starr County Historical Foundation on June 10, 1994, with the call sign KAIO issued on September 1. The foundation intended to run KAIO as a non-commercial station promoting tourism in the Rio Grande Valley; that idea, however, was later abandoned. On October 5, 1998, KAIO changed its call letters to KTLM and picked up the Telemundo affiliation from XHRIO-TV (channel 2), which had struggled with signal strength in the western parts of the Lower Rio Grande Valley. The station went on the air August 1, 1999.
In 2000, the Starr County Historical Foundation sold KTLM to Sunbelt Multimedia, a division of the Starr Camargo Bridge Company, unrelated to Sunbelt Communications Company. Sunbelt Multimedia had been managing the station since its launch. On September 10, 2012, Sunbelt Multimedia put KTLM up for sale, with Patrick Communications managing partner Larry Patrick named to run the station while in receivership. Documents were forwarded to the FCC to officially put the station under Patrick's control. His media worked to try to earn enough money to repay creditors of Sunbelt Multimedia. A year later, a deal was reached to sell KTLM to Telemundo Rio Grande Valley LLC, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal; this made the station a Telemundo owned-and-operated station. The sale was finalized on December 31.