KCOP-TV
KCOP-TV, branded Fox 11 Plus, is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, owned by the Fox Television Stations group. It is programmed as an independent station, with MyNetworkTV airing in prime time. Under common ownership with Fox outlet KTTV, the two stations share studios at the Fox Television Center on South Bundy Drive in West Los Angeles; KCOP-TV's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.
History
Early history
Channel 13 first signed on the air on September 17, 1948, as KLAC-TV, and adopted the moniker "Lucky 13". It was originally co-owned with local radio station KLAC. Operating as an independent station early on, it began running some programming from the DuMont Television Network in 1949 after KTLA ended its affiliation with the network after a one-year tenure. One of KLAC-TV's earlier stars was veteran actress Betty White, who starred in Al Jarvis's Make-Believe Ballroom from 1949 to 1952, and then her own sitcom, Life with Elizabeth from 1952 to 1956. Television personality Regis Philbin and actor/director Leonard Nimoy once worked behind the scenes at channel 13, and Oscar Levant had his own show on the station from 1958 to 1960.On December 23, 1953, the now-defunct Copley Press purchased KLAC-TV and changed its call letters to the current KCOP, which reflected their ownership. A Bing Crosby-led group purchased the station in June 1957. In 1959, the NAFI Corporation, which would later merge with Chris-Craft Boats to become Chris-Craft Industries, bought channel 13. NAFI/Chris-Craft would be channel 13's longest-tenured owner, running it for over 40 years.
For most of its first 46 years on the air, channel 13 was a typical general entertainment independent station. It was usually the third or fourth highest-rated independent in Southern California, trading the No. 3 spot with KHJ-TV. The station carried Operation Prime Time programming at least in 1978.
In the early 1980s, KCOP became one of the many stations in the U.S. to broadcast Star Fleet, a science-fiction marionette series which originally debuted in Japan in 1980.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, it was the Los Angeles home of Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Arsenio Hall Show and Baywatch. KCOP was the original Los Angeles home of the syndicated version of Wheel of Fortune. The station had also picked up Jeopardy! from KCBS-TV in 1985. Both game shows moved to KCBS-TV in 1989, and later to current home KABC-TV in 1992. Channel 13 aired select episodes of the Australian soap opera Neighbours from early June to late August 1991. The station tried airing movies six nights a week in 1992; however, they fared poorly.
KCOP partnered with WWOR-TV and MCA TV Entertainment on a two night programming block, Hollywood Premiere Network starting in October 1990. KCOP carried the Prime Time Entertainment Network programming service from 1993 to 1995. KCOP carried Spelling Premiere Network at its launch in August 1994 on Thursday nights.
UPN affiliation (1993–2006)
On October 27, 1993, Chris-Craft and its broadcasting subsidiary, United Television, partnered with Viacom's newly acquired subsidiary Paramount Pictures to form the United Paramount Network, making KCOP the network's Los Angeles affiliate. UPN debuted on January 16, 1995. In 1996, Viacom bought 50% of UPN from Chris-Craft. At the network's launch, which also served to launch Paramount's Star Trek: Voyager, KCOP served as UPN's West Coast "flagship" station. During the late 1990s, the station began carrying a large amount of younger leaning talk shows, reality series, some sitcoms during the evening, and syndicated cartoons in the morning well as the popular anime series Sailor Moon.In 2000, Viacom bought CBS and Chris-Craft's 50% ownership interest in UPN. On August 12, 2000, Chris-Craft agreed to sell its television stations to the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of News Corporation for $5.5 billion; a deal that was finalized on July 31, 2001, creating a duopoly with Fox O&O KTTV. Upon being sold to Fox, the Fox Kids weekday block moved to KCOP in the mid-afternoons, only for it to be discontinued nationwide in January 2002. KCOP still ran UPN's Disney's One Too block during the morning until the network ended the block's run in 2003. Soon after, the station ran an hour-long morning cartoon block, but dropped cartoons entirely in September 2006. Channel 13 was the last local television station to air cartoons on weekdays; like the other local stations, the cartoons were replaced with infomercials. In a separate transaction from its purchase of UPN, Viacom purchased KCOP's rival, KCAL-TV, from Young Broadcasting on June 1, 2002. Rumors persisted that UPN would move to the higher-rated KCAL, reverting KCOP to independent station status. However, Viacom decided to continue operating KCAL as an independent, as Fox renewed affiliation agreements for its UPN-affiliated stations for four years, keeping the network's programming on KCOP.
From UPN onto MNTV
With Fox's acquisition of KCOP, the station abandoned its longtime Hollywood studios at 915 North La Brea Avenue with KCOP's news and technical operations being moved into KTTV's facilities at the Fox Television Center in West Los Angeles in 2003. The La Brea Avenue studio was put up for sale, with Fox electing to keep the facility, remodeling it to house the first two seasons of the reality series Hell's Kitchen. It was eventually abandoned with fixtures in place, and became a haven for squatters who were evicted by police in May 2009. The studio was eventually torn down, and currently the site is now a Sprouts store, with a large apartment complex that opened November 2015.On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down UPN and The WB and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW. KTLA, which had been the market's WB affiliate since the network's January 1995 launch, became The CW's Los Angeles affiliate as part of a 10-year affiliation deal between the new network and KTLA's owner, Tribune Broadcasting.
MyNetworkTV affiliation (2006–present)
The CW's initial affiliate list did not include any of Fox's UPN stations, but even without the Tribune affiliation deal, it is unlikely that KCOP would have been picked over KTLA as The CW's management was on record as preferring The WB and UPN's "strongest" affiliates – KTLA had led KCOP in the ratings dating back to when they were both independent stations. The day after the announcement of The CW's pending launch, on January 25, 2006, Fox dropped all network references from its UPN stations' on-air branding, and stopped promoting UPN's programs altogether. Accordingly, KCOP changed its branding from "UPN 13" to "Channel 13", and amended the station's 2002 logo to omit the UPN logo and just feature the boxed "13". On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV, which would have KCOP and the other Fox-owned UPN stations as the core group of stations.UPN continued to broadcast on stations across the country until September 15, 2006. While some of the network's affiliates that switched to MyNetworkTV aired the final two weeks of UPN programs outside of its recommended prime time slot, the Fox-owned stations, including KCOP, dropped UPN entirely on August 31, 2006. In September 2006, the station began identifying itself as "MyNetworkTV, Channel 13"; the branding changed again in May 2007, simplified to "My13 Los Angeles".
Rebranding to KCOP 13 and Fox 11 Plus; timeshifting of MyNetworkTV programming
On July 12, 2021, KCOP-TV changed its on-air branding to KCOP 13, dropping the MyNetworkTV branding. The change of branding was accompanied by a move of MyNetworkTV programming to late night and carrying Decades programming on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 pm, simulcasting the programming on sister KTTV's 11.4 subchannel.As of September 14, 2015, the station began airing other programming in MyNetworkTV's traditional 8–10 p.m. timeslot, including TMZ Live and Hollywood Today Live; MyNetworkTV's schedule was thus carried out of prime time in late night from 11:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. on weeknights. This made KCOP the most high-profile station carrying MyNetworkTV to move it out of prime time, along with the first Fox-owned station to do so.
A year later, with the failure of Hollywood Today Live and KCOP's other alternate programming, KCOP returned MyNetworkTV back to the 8–10 p.m. slot. On July 12, 2021, MyNetworkTV's programming was again moved to late-nights, with off-network sitcoms filling prime time. As part of this, the station rebranded itself from "My13" to "KCOP 13". In January 2023, KCOP rebranded as "Fox 11 Plus", a branding scheme used by other Fox-owned MyNetworkTV stations that aligns them as a companion to their parent Fox station. On July 3, 2023, KCOP replaced the simulcast of Catchy Comedy programming with airings of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit from 10 a.m. to noon, followed by the syndicated Dateline and TMZ Live. The schedule change also eliminated airings of Fox Soul's Black Report and the Fox Weather programming segments. At some point between then and September, the MyNetworkTV schedule was moved to earlier in the day, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. However, starting the week of December 11, it was moved back to the traditional 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. slot.
Programming
KCOP-TV may air Fox network programming should it be preempted by KTTV for long-form breaking news or severe weather coverage or other special programming.Sports coverage
Channel 13 served as the broadcast home of the Los Angeles Marathon from its inception in 1986 until 2001, the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers from 1991 to 1996, MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers from 2002 to 2005, MLB's Los Angeles Angels from 2006 to 2019 and since 2021, MLS's Los Angeles FC from 2021 to 2022 and the NHL's Anaheim Ducks since 2024.Like many local stations in the earlier years of television, KCOP hosted its own weekly Studio Wrestling show for many years during the 1970s. Stars such as Freddie Blassie, John Tolos, Rocky Johnson, André the Giant and The Sheik headlined the shows, with longtime local announcer Dick Lane behind the microphone calling the action. In later years, pro wrestling returned to KCOP by way of WWE's secondary flagship television program Smackdown!, which aired on the station from 1999 to 2006 and again from 2008 to 2010. In the past, Channel 13 also aired other wrestling programs, including World Class Championship Wrestling and the NWA. Channel 13 also televised live boxing matches, originating from the Grand Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles, on and off from the late 1960s until as recently as the mid-1990s, with legendary Los Angeles sportscaster Jim Healy calling the action in the early years.
From 2005 to 2007, KCOP carried St. Louis Rams preseason games produced by now-former corporate siblings Fox Sports Midwest and KTVI. Back in the 1950s during the team's early years in Los Angeles, the station broadcast many Rams regular season games before NFL games became more exclusive to the major broadcast networks. However, in July 2008, the NFL's broadcast committee decided to no longer allow teams to broadcast preseason games beyond even their secondary markets. This was done more so to protect the league's broadcast partners, including KCBS-TV and KTLA, the respective local broadcasters of San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders preseason games.
From 2006 to 2011, KCOP held the broadcast television rights to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim baseball; the team and Fox Sports West signed a 20-year broadcast deal beginning with the 2012 season, making 150 annual Angels telecasts exclusive to Fox Sports West, with select games airing on Prime Ticket, although KCOP still serves as an occasional overflow outlet. In the 2021 MLB season, KCOP was scheduled to air at least four Angels games due to delays in the NBA and NHL seasons caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, 2023 and 2024, KCOP carried one spring training game between the Angels and the Dodgers featuring the Angels broadcasters. In 2025, KCOP and the Angels announced that 12 Sunday games would be simulcast on KCOP and FanDuel Sports Network West. That package would be the largest amount of Angels games to air on the station since 2011. One additional Thursday game in May aired exclusively on KCOP due to conflicts on FanDuel Sports Network West.
Due to its previous common ownership with Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket, KCOP served as an overflow channel for Bally Sports West and Bally Sports SoCal. During the 2011–12 season, KCOP aired Game 6 of the Clippers playoff series versus the Memphis Grizzlies on May 11. Over-the-air coverage of the Clippers moved to KTLA prior to the 2022–23 season; Kings over-the-air coverage moved to KCAL-TV prior to the 2023–24 season.
During the 2017 NFL season, KCOP aired two Los Angeles Chargers home games as an overflow for the NFL on Fox during weeks when CBS had the doubleheader, but the Los Angeles Rams were on KTTV.
In 2021, KCOP announced an agreement with Los Angeles FC of Major League Soccer to broadcast select matches alongside Bally Sports SoCal. In 2022, KCOP expanded its agreement to air games previously aired by Bally Sports. LAFC games moved exclusively to MLS Season Pass prior to the 2023 season. However, in February 2025, KCOP aired LAFC, LA Galaxy and Angel City FC matches from the Coachella Valley Invitational preseason tournament. In April 2025, KCOP announced a new agreement with LAFC to air encore matches on Tuesday nights.
On August 27, 2024, the Ducks announced that they would not renew their contract with Bally Sports, and would partner with both KCOP-TV and the Dallas Stars' free ad-supported streaming television platform Victory+ to air all of its regional games, beginning in the 2024–25 NHL season. Selected games will air on KTTV.