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KCAL-TV
KCAL-TV (channel 9) is an independent television station in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS West Coast flagship KCBS-TV (channel 2). The two stations share studios at the Radford Studio Center on Radford Avenue in the Studio City section of Los Angeles; KCAL-TV's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.
Channel 9 signed on the air as commercial station KFI-TV on August 25, 1948, owned by Earle C. Anthony alongside KFI radio (640 AM). However, the station was originally licensed as experimental W6XEA about 1940, and in 1944 applied for the call letters KSEE (which are now used by the NBC affiliate in Fresno, California). It is unknown whether any transmissions occurred under either call sign.
The station initially broadcast a limited schedule with six hours weekly, and formally began operations on October 6, 1948, with 3+1⁄2 hours that day. Though KFI had long been affiliated with NBC Radio, KFI-TV did not affiliate with the then-upstart NBC Television Network as NBC was building its own station, KNBH (channel 4, now KNBC), which went on the air in January 1949. KFI general manager William B. Ryan indicated a willingness to affiliate with a network other than NBC or start a mutual regional network. Channel 9 has been an independent station for virtually its entire history, though it carried DuMont programming from 1954 up until that network's 1956 demise.
At the 3rd Emmy Awards in January 1951, the station won in the best educational show category for KFI-TV University.
Channel 9's engineers threatened to go on strike in 1951 over financial reasons the station had to go through, leading Anthony to sell the station to the General Tire and Rubber Company in August of that year. A few months earlier, General Tire had purchased the Don Lee Broadcasting System, a regional West Coast radio network (the original Don Lee television station, KTSL (channel 2), was sold separately to CBS; it evolved into future sister KCBS-TV). Don Lee's flagship station was KHJ radio (930 AM),[citation needed] and General Tire changed its new television station's call letters to KHJ-TV in September 1951. One former employee referred to the call letters as standing for "kindness, happiness and joy", although the call sign was likely randomly assigned. The Don Lee name was so well respected in California broadcasting that KHJ-TV called itself "Don Lee Television" for a few years in the early 1950s, even though it had never been affiliated with KHJ radio until the 1951 deal.
In 1955, General Tire purchased RKO Radio Pictures to give the company's television station group access to RKO's film library. In 1959, General Tire's broadcasting and film divisions were merged as RKO General.
By the mid-1960s, channel 9 offered a standard independent schedule of movies, off-network reruns, children's shows like The Pancake Man hosted by Hal Smith (who showed educational shorts like The Space Explorers), first-run syndicated programs, and locally produced programs including local newscasts, sports events and public affairs programs. In the late 1960s, KHJ embarked on a novel, groundbreaking (and inexpensive) experiment, called Tempo, which heavily borrowed from the talk radio craze on local radio stations. Daytime programming was divided into three blocks running three hours in length, called Tempo I, Tempo II and Tempo III. The second of the three programs, Tempo II was perhaps the most active, controversial and innovative. For the first couple of years the hosts were Stan Bohrman and Maria Cole (the wife of Nat King Cole). Guests ranged from William F. Buckley to Sammy Davis Jr. and the political movers and shakers in Southern California. At one point, Stan even quit the program after what he called censorship on the topic of Eldridge Cleaver. Bohrman came back to the program and was joined by a new co-host, Regis Philbin. They became a very popular fixture in Los Angeles television. In fact, in his book about those days, Philbin credits the chemistry with Bohrman and the format of the program as forerunners of much of what would become the cable news format 20 years later.[citation needed]
In the early 1970s, KHJ-TV sought a similar programming strategy to that of crosstown competitor KTLA (channel 5), which focused more on talk shows, game shows, sports, feature films and off-network drama series. The cartoons were phased out (some of them moving to KTTV and KCOP-TV), and the station ran fewer off-network sitcoms. It did continue to have a weekday children's show called Froozles, which ran until the late 1980s. It also produced many half-hour public affairs programs, as well as a local talk show called Mid-Morning L.A. The first hosts were Kathy McKee and Sandy Baron on the Mid Day and Good Morning L.A. talk shows. Both were hired by KHJ's then-station manager Lional Schaen. Bob Hilton, Meredith MacRae, Geoff Edwards and Regis Philbin also hosted programs on the station well into the 1980s. Edwards and MacRae won Emmy Awards for their hosting duties during the early 1980s. Some other locally produced public affairs programs included the investigative show Camera 9 and The Changing Family, a program about family and social issues during the 1980s. Despite this, KHJ-TV was perceived as an also ran while KTLA was the leading independent station, even though it had a similar format.
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KCAL-TV
KCAL-TV (channel 9) is an independent television station in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS West Coast flagship KCBS-TV (channel 2). The two stations share studios at the Radford Studio Center on Radford Avenue in the Studio City section of Los Angeles; KCAL-TV's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.
Channel 9 signed on the air as commercial station KFI-TV on August 25, 1948, owned by Earle C. Anthony alongside KFI radio (640 AM). However, the station was originally licensed as experimental W6XEA about 1940, and in 1944 applied for the call letters KSEE (which are now used by the NBC affiliate in Fresno, California). It is unknown whether any transmissions occurred under either call sign.
The station initially broadcast a limited schedule with six hours weekly, and formally began operations on October 6, 1948, with 3+1⁄2 hours that day. Though KFI had long been affiliated with NBC Radio, KFI-TV did not affiliate with the then-upstart NBC Television Network as NBC was building its own station, KNBH (channel 4, now KNBC), which went on the air in January 1949. KFI general manager William B. Ryan indicated a willingness to affiliate with a network other than NBC or start a mutual regional network. Channel 9 has been an independent station for virtually its entire history, though it carried DuMont programming from 1954 up until that network's 1956 demise.
At the 3rd Emmy Awards in January 1951, the station won in the best educational show category for KFI-TV University.
Channel 9's engineers threatened to go on strike in 1951 over financial reasons the station had to go through, leading Anthony to sell the station to the General Tire and Rubber Company in August of that year. A few months earlier, General Tire had purchased the Don Lee Broadcasting System, a regional West Coast radio network (the original Don Lee television station, KTSL (channel 2), was sold separately to CBS; it evolved into future sister KCBS-TV). Don Lee's flagship station was KHJ radio (930 AM),[citation needed] and General Tire changed its new television station's call letters to KHJ-TV in September 1951. One former employee referred to the call letters as standing for "kindness, happiness and joy", although the call sign was likely randomly assigned. The Don Lee name was so well respected in California broadcasting that KHJ-TV called itself "Don Lee Television" for a few years in the early 1950s, even though it had never been affiliated with KHJ radio until the 1951 deal.
In 1955, General Tire purchased RKO Radio Pictures to give the company's television station group access to RKO's film library. In 1959, General Tire's broadcasting and film divisions were merged as RKO General.
By the mid-1960s, channel 9 offered a standard independent schedule of movies, off-network reruns, children's shows like The Pancake Man hosted by Hal Smith (who showed educational shorts like The Space Explorers), first-run syndicated programs, and locally produced programs including local newscasts, sports events and public affairs programs. In the late 1960s, KHJ embarked on a novel, groundbreaking (and inexpensive) experiment, called Tempo, which heavily borrowed from the talk radio craze on local radio stations. Daytime programming was divided into three blocks running three hours in length, called Tempo I, Tempo II and Tempo III. The second of the three programs, Tempo II was perhaps the most active, controversial and innovative. For the first couple of years the hosts were Stan Bohrman and Maria Cole (the wife of Nat King Cole). Guests ranged from William F. Buckley to Sammy Davis Jr. and the political movers and shakers in Southern California. At one point, Stan even quit the program after what he called censorship on the topic of Eldridge Cleaver. Bohrman came back to the program and was joined by a new co-host, Regis Philbin. They became a very popular fixture in Los Angeles television. In fact, in his book about those days, Philbin credits the chemistry with Bohrman and the format of the program as forerunners of much of what would become the cable news format 20 years later.[citation needed]
In the early 1970s, KHJ-TV sought a similar programming strategy to that of crosstown competitor KTLA (channel 5), which focused more on talk shows, game shows, sports, feature films and off-network drama series. The cartoons were phased out (some of them moving to KTTV and KCOP-TV), and the station ran fewer off-network sitcoms. It did continue to have a weekday children's show called Froozles, which ran until the late 1980s. It also produced many half-hour public affairs programs, as well as a local talk show called Mid-Morning L.A. The first hosts were Kathy McKee and Sandy Baron on the Mid Day and Good Morning L.A. talk shows. Both were hired by KHJ's then-station manager Lional Schaen. Bob Hilton, Meredith MacRae, Geoff Edwards and Regis Philbin also hosted programs on the station well into the 1980s. Edwards and MacRae won Emmy Awards for their hosting duties during the early 1980s. Some other locally produced public affairs programs included the investigative show Camera 9 and The Changing Family, a program about family and social issues during the 1980s. Despite this, KHJ-TV was perceived as an also ran while KTLA was the leading independent station, even though it had a similar format.
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