List of Sacramento Cable channels (June 1988)

Parent Page: List of Retro Cable lineups in the United States

Sacramento Cable customers in Sacramento, California had access to the following in June of 1988. In October of 1995, The E. W. Scripps Company, announced its sale of all of its cable television systems including Sacramento Cable to Comcast which wasn't fully completed until mid-late 1997. Today, it operates through Xfinity.

Legend

• CALL — The call letters of an over-the-air television station in bold text.
• CABLE — Cable channels in regular text.
•  ##  — Over-the-air channel number for stations within the Sacramento television market, according to current laws by the FCC and mapping of markets by Nielsen Media Research. Also, some stations may service areas outside of the television market as well.
•  ##  — Over-the-air channel number for distant out-of-market stations, including regional and national "superstations", according to current laws by the FCC and mapping of markets by Nielsen Media Research.
• Network affiliated stations will have the network's logo (of the corresponding era) next to them and independent stations are unmarked.

Market

The Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto television market includes 16 counties in California with market hubs in bold text:

• Counties: Amador, Calaveras, Colusa, El Dorado, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Sierra, Solano, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tuolumne, Yolo and Yuba
• Cities: Almanor, Alta Sierra, Angels Camp, Antelope, Arbuckle, Auburn, Beckwourth, Buckhorn, Cedar Vista, Ceres, Chester, Clio, Colusa, Crescent Mills, Davis, Empire, Forbestown, Georgetown, Glenbrook, Grass Valley, Green Valley, Groveland, Elk Grove, Empire, Esparto, Fair Oaks, Folsom, Fremont, Jamestown, Keyes, Lathrop, Lemon Hill, Lincoln Village, Live Oak, Lockeford, Lodi, Loma Rica, Loomis, Loyalton, Meadow Vista, Modesto, Morada, Nevada City, New Jerusalem, Oak Grove, Olivehurst, Orangevale, Parklawn, Pollock Pines, Portola, Quincy, Rancho Cordova, Rancho Murieta, Rio Linda, Rio Vista, Riverbank, Riverview, Rouse, Sacramento, Salida, San Andreas, Sierra City, Spring Garden, Stockton, Tahoe City, Tahoma, Taylorsville, Tracy, Trucklee, Tuolumne, Turlock, Vacaville, Vallecito, Vallejo, Valley Springs, Walnut Grove, West Modesto, Wheatland, Woodland, Yolo and Yuba

Source: Newspapers.com (Paid subscription to "Publisher Extra" may be required for some sections)

CH#	Name	Notes/Today
2	Music Television (MTV)	Owned by Paramount Global, it has shifted from strictly music and music videos in its early years to a mix of music, reality shows and dramas in recent years
3	3  KCRA-TV Sacramento	Still an NBC affiliate, sister station to MyNetworkTV affiliate  58  KQCA (the former KSCH), owned by Hearst Television
5	Cable News Network	CNN in Atlanta, an American multinational news channel, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery
6	6  KVIE Sacramento	Then and now, still a PBS station (Owned by KVIE, Inc., a non-profit (501(c)3) organization)
8	40  KTXL Sacramento	Still a Fox affiliate, owned today by Nexstar Media Group (The Sacramento Bee erroneously listed KTXL as an independent still by this time, when the station joined Fox in 1986 with the network's launch)
9	ESPN	A 24-hour channel devoted to local, regional, national and international sports (Owned as a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company at 80% and Hearst Communications at 20%)
10	10  KXTV Sacramento	Swapped affiliations with  13  KOVR and has been an ABC affiliate since March of 1995, owned by Tegna Inc.
11	58  KSCH Sacramento	Today a MyNetworkTV affiliate with the call letters KQCA, sister to NBC affiliate  3  KCRA, owned by Hearst Television
12	31  KRBK Sacramento	Today a CW network owned-and-operated with the call letters KMAX-TV (Owned by Paramount Global in a duopoly with CBS O&O  13  KOVR, KMAX to disaffiliate from The CW and become an independent station once again starting in September of 2023)
13	13  KOVR Stockton	Swapped affiliations with  10  KXTV and has been an CBS affiliate since March of 1995 and a network O&O since April of 2005 (Owned by Paramount Global in a duopoly with CW O&O  31  KMAX-TV, the former KRBK)
14	USA Network	Then and now, a general entertainment and sports channel, now owned by NBCUniversal
15	Lifetime	Programming geared towards women and women in lead roles of movies and shows (Owned by A&E Networks, a 50-50 joint venture between Hearst Communications and Disney General Entertainment Content, a division of The Walt Disney Company)
17	17  WTBS Atlanta, GA	The direct feed of the OTA station at the time, now as WPCH-TV, owned by Gray Television, alongside CBS affiliate  46  WANF (then independent as WGNX) and Telemundo affiliate  47  WKTB-CD (Both the station and the TBS network (short for Turner Broadcasting System), were separated from each other in 2007, TBS today, is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery)
18	Public/Community Access	Still operates today as Access Sacramento on Comcast channels 17 and 18 (Access Sacramento also operates a low-power radio station, KUBU-LP at 96.5 FM)
19	19  KCSO Modesto	Still a Univision affiliate and has been network owned-and-operated since 1997 with the call letters KUVS-DT (Owned by TelevisaUnivision as part of a duopoly with UniMás O&O  64  KTFK out of Stockton, then known as independent KFTL, owned by the late Harold Camping)
21	Nickelodeon	Today owned by Paramount Global, schedule then and now, still consists of programming towards children and teenagers up to 18 years of age
	Nick at Nite	Programming initially consisted of 1950s and 1960s shows but shows from later decades added in the years and decades since, owned by Paramount Global
24	9  WGN-TV Chicago, IL	The direct feed of the OTA station at the time, then and now, an independent (Now owned by Nexstar Media Group, its later cable counterpart, WGN America, has since been rebranded and relaunched as NewsNation)
25	C-SPAN	A channel entirely focused on federal government and public affairs pertaining to the United States House of Representatives, including live coverage of proceedings
28	Public/Community Access	Still operates today as Access Sacramento on Comcast channels 17 and 18 (Access Sacramento also operates a low-power radio station, KUBU-LP at 96.5 FM)
31	Showtime	A premium subscription channel with movies, shows, documentaries and sporting events, owned by Paramount Global
33	Arts & Entertainment (A&E)	Once a channel focused on arts and history, the channel has shifted significantly towards reality shows, dramas and documentaries, now known only as A&E (The flagship network of A&E Networks, a 50-50 joint venture between Hearst Communications and Disney General Entertainment Content, a division of The Walt Disney Company)
34	Home Box Office	A premium pay subscription network, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery (Home Box Office is still used as the network's legal corporate name, though it operates on-air and online exclusively by the acronym HBO)
35	The Discovery Channel	Still operates today with a program mix of technology, science, nature and reality, and its name shortened to just Discovery (also occasionally known as Discovery Channel), owned by Warner Bros. Discovery
36	The CBN Family Channel	Spun off by the Christian Broadcasting Network in 1990 and renamed The Family Channel, and then sold to Fox becoming Fox Family in 1998 and then resold to The Walt Disney Company and renamed ABC Family in 2001 and rebranded and relaunched as Freeform in 2016
37	Cinemax	Sister and companion network to HBO, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery (A premium pay subscription channel with mainstream, independent and original shows, movies and documentaries)
38	The Disney Channel	Originally a premium pay subscription channel, Disney is now a general cable channel
39	Financial News Network	Financial, consumer and business news and stocks, sold to NBC and absorbed/integrated into CNBC in 1991
	FNN Score	Sports programming from 6:00 pm to 1:00 am (Eastern Time) Weeknights (1985-1988) and 12:00 pm to 1:00 am on Weekends (1988-1991), shut down after NBC began integrating FNN into CNBC in 1991
40	The Movie Channel	A premium pay subscription channel with classic, mainstream and independent movies (Sister and companion network to Showtime, owned by Paramount Global)
42	Galavisión	A cable companion network to Univision and UniMás, also owned by TelevisaUnivision
44	The Playboy Channel	Today known as Playboy TV, though still a premium pay subscription channel focused entirely on adult erotica and pornography
47	42  KFCB Concord	Today a Tri-State Christian Television (TCT) network O&O with the call letters KTNC
49	PTL	The network folded in 1989 and was relaunched in 2015, owned by televangelist Jim Bakker