KSTR officially converted into a Spanish language station on January 14, 2002, when it became an owned-and-operated station of TeleFutura, which initially launched on that date on 18 Univision-owned stations (including eleven of KSTR's large-market sister stations under USA Broadcasting ownership). The meager programming inventory that had occupied KSTR's schedule prior to the switch was subsequently acquired by KFWD (channel 52, now a Sonlife Broadcasting Network affiliate), which itself converted into an English language independent station days earlier on January 1, after losing its Telemundo affiliation to KXTX-TV (channel 39) as a result of NBC/Telemundo's acquisition of that station; the local over-the-air television rights to the Mavericks were concurrently transferred to then-UPN affiliate KTXA (channel 21, now an independent station).