KESQ-TV

KESQ-TV (channel 42, cable channel 3) is a television station licensed to Palm Springs, California, United States, serving as the ABC affiliate for the Coachella Valley. It is owned by the News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG) alongside five low-power stations: CBS affiliate KPSP-CD (channel 38), Fox affiliate KDFX-CD (channel 33), CW+ affiliate KCWQ-LD (channel 2), Telemundo affiliate KUNA-LD (channel 15), and independent station KYAV-LD (channel 12). The six stations share studios on Dunham Way in Thousand Palms; KESQ-TV's transmitter is located on Edom Hill northeast of Cathedral City and I-10.

Along with other major Coachella Valley television stations, KESQ-TV identifies itself on-air using its cable designation, channel 3, because of the exceptionally high cable penetration rate in the area.

On June 1, 1966, Pacific Media Corporation filed an application for a construction permit to build a new television station to operate on channel 27 in Palm Springs. Three months after Pacific filed, the Federal Communications Commission issued a report and order changing the allocation to channel 42, a move necessitated to avoid interference to channel 28 in Los Angeles. Channel 42 received another bid in December, when Palm Springs Communications Corporation, co-owned with local radio station KCMJ, filed for a station. After Palm Springs Communications reached a settlement agreement with Pacific Media, the latter was awarded the permit on October 11, 1967. The new station took the call letters KPLM-TV and immediately began construction and talks with the major networks on affiliation.

Channel 42 set up shop in the Smoke Tree Village shopping center, the station joined the ABC network and secured channel 3 on all the cable systems in the area for its debut on October 5, 1968. KPLM-TV was the only television station in Palm Springs for just three weeks. In parallel with the battle for channel 42, channel 36 was also contested; on the morning of October 26, NBC affiliate KMIR-TV began broadcasting.

Channel 42 was not an immediate financial success. In 1972, Cine-Prime, a company engaged in educational television production and distribution, announced that it had purchased the station, though no transfer of control was ever filed. In 1973, Pacific attempted to sell KPLM-TV to Ralph Andrews Productions, which was scrapped several months later. In February 1974, Smoke Tree Village filed to evict KPLM-TV from its studios for not paying six months of rent. Ultimately, in 1975, Pacific Media Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, and the principals of a Palm Springs law firm were appointed as receivers; the studios were relocated to Cathedral City.

In late 1977, negotiations were concluded to sell KPLM-TV to Esquire, Inc. The $800,000 purchase marked Esquire's return to broadcasting after owning and selling WQXI radio in Atlanta in the 1960s. The call letters were changed to KESQ-TV on September 18, 1978.

Esquire purchased KECC-TV in El Centro in 1981. It attempted to sell both stations to Cimarron Broadcasting, an Oklahoma group headed by Harry Nilsson, in 1983, but Cimarron lacked the capital to make the purchase, and the deal fell apart in March 1984. However, Esquire, which had become wholly owned by Gulf+Western, was anxious to divest itself of the small-market TV station which the large conglomerate did not want and sold it to Gulf Broadcasting of Dallas, an unrelated concern, two months later; the El Centro station was not included. Gulf was then swallowed by Taft Broadcasting in 1985, when the FCC increased ownership limits on television and radio properties—but KESQ-TV was not included in the transaction, which immediately brought Taft to the limit. Instead, KESQ-TV was sold to E. Grant Fitts, who had been the chairman of the broadcasting division.

Fitts reached a deal to sell KESQ-TV to its current owner, the News-Press & Gazette Company of St. Joseph, Missouri, for $19.4 million in late 1995.