KEYU (channel 31) is a television station licensed to Borger, Texas, United States, serving the Amarillo area as an affiliate of the Spanish-language network Telemundo. It is owned by Gray Television alongside CBS affiliate KFDA-TV (channel 10). The two stations share studios on Broadway Drive (just south of West Cherry Avenue) in northern Amarillo; KEYU's transmitter is located on Dumas Drive (US 87-287) and Reclamation Plant Road in rural unincorporated Potter County.
Despite its full-power status, the station's broadcasting radius does not reach the entire Amarillo market (covering a area, compared to KFDA's signal contour). To reach portions of the Texas Panhandle that do not receive KEYU's signal adequately, if at all, KEYU's fourth digital subchannel (affiliated with Ion Television) is simulcast in 480i widescreen standard definition on KFDA's third subchannel (10.3) from a separate transmitter at the KEYU/KFDA studios.
History
The station first signed on the air on November 2, 2004; it was founded and owned by Little Rock-based Equity Broadcasting Corporation (later Equity Media Holdings). KEYU originally operated as an affiliate of Univision, becoming the first Amarillo television station to have affiliated with the Spanish-language network. The station originally broadcast from studio facilities located on South Kentucky Street (behind I-40) on Amarillo's southwest side. Prior to the station's sign-on, Univision had previously been only receivable via local cable providers within the state (such as Cox Communications in Amarillo and Canyon), which carried the Spanish language network's programming via its national feed; that feed was eventually replaced by a direct fiber optic feed of KEYU—whose schedule mirrored the national feed outside of local advertising, news inserts and occasional paid programming substitutions—from the station's studios.
On June 25, 2008, Equity announced that it would sell KEYU and its low-power repeaters—along with Univision affiliates KUOK in Woodward, Oklahoma (and its Oklahoma City and Sulphur translators), KUTW-LP/KWKO-LP in Waco, Texas, WLZE-LP/WEVU-CA in Fort Myers, Florida; and WUMN-CA in Minneapolis–Saint Paul—to Luken Communications (owned by former Equity executive Henry Luken) for $25 million, with a contingency to reduce the sale price to $17.5 million if Luken closed its purchase on all of the stations simultaneously. That December, Equity Media Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection; offers by Luken Communications to acquire Equity-owned stations in six markets were later withdrawn. According to the Retro Television Network website, KEYU had at one point planned to add an RTN affiliate on DT3 sometime in the future. However, after Equity filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2008, Luken began to distance itself from Equity; its offers to acquire KEYU and other Equity stations were eventually withdrawn, and on January 4, 2009, RTN affiliation was removed from all Equity-owned or operated stations as a result of a commercial dispute with Luken.
In 2009, KEYU and three Amarillo LPTV stations—Telefutura affiliate KAMT-LP and KEYU repeaters KEYU-LP and KEAT-LP—were put up for sale for $7.5 million, as part of a sell-off of all of Equity's stations. A buyer was not found until October, when Drewry Communications announced that it would purchase the stations, with a failing station waiver being obtained to allow KEYU to be co-owned with KFDA. The station subsequently relocated its operations to KFDA's studios on Broadway Drive in northern Amarillo. (The former KEYU studio building is now occupied by the Mewbourne Oil Company.) Shortly after assuming control in 2010, Drewry dropped the station's affiliation with Univision and moved the programming of KTMO-LP, including its Telemundo affiliation and local newscasts, to KEYU.
On August 10, 2015, Montgomery, Alabama–based Raycom Media announced that it would purchase Drewry Communications' eight television stations as well as radio stations KEYU-FM (102.9 FM) in Amarillo and KTXC in Lamesa for $160 million. The sale was completed on December 1; as a result, KEYU became the first full-power Spanish-language television station to be owned by Raycom. (The remainder of the group's Telemundo-affiliated stations were low-power or subchannel-only outlets.)