KITV
KITV is a television station in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, serving the Hawaiian Islands as an affiliate of ABC. It is owned by Allen Media Group alongside multicultural independent station KIKU. The two stations share studios on South King Street in downtown Honolulu; KITV's main transmitter is located atop the Ala Moana Hotel in Honolulu. Rebroadcasters on the islands of Maui and Hawaii extend the station's signal.
Channel 4 was the third station established in Honolulu as KULA-TV in April 1954. It was constructed by Iowa-based American Broadcasting Stations, then-owner of radio station KULA, and affiliated with ABC from the start. Three years later, industrialist Henry J. Kaiser founded the city's fourth TV station, KHVH-TV on channel 13. Established in the same year as radio station KHVH, it was an independent station that aired primarily movies and brought color television to the islands. Kaiser bought KULA-TV in 1958 and merged the two stations as KHVH-TV on channel 4. Its signal extended with a 1958 affiliation agreement with KMVI-TV, covering Maui from atop Haleakalā, and the 1960 construction of satellite station KHJK-TV—now KHVO—in Hilo on the island of Hawaii.
Kaiser sold KHVH radio and television to Lawrence Berger in 1964 as he sought to move into broadcasting in the continental U.S. KHVH-TV brought Hawaii its first live television via satellite in 1966 and aired the first live programs between Hawaii and Japan. Berger kept KHVH radio and sold the television stations to Starr Broadcasting in 1973; channel 4 was renamed KITV. Under Starr, Shamrock Broadcasting, and Tak Communications ownership for the next 20 years, KITV languished as the market's third-rated news station but initiated live coverage of the Merrie Monarch Festival.
Tak wound up a years-long bankruptcy proceeding in 1995 by selling two of its stations, including KITV, to Argyle Television. Argyle—which merged with the Hearst Corporation in 1997 to form Hearst-Argyle Television—improved the quality and ratings of KITV's newscasts, which moved into second place from the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s. In conjunction with its move from studios on Ala Moana Boulevard to a new facility at One Archer Lane, KITV became the first television station in the United States to begin commercial digital broadcasts in January 1998. Hearst sold KITV to SJL Broadcasting in 2015. It was acquired in 2021 by Allen, which a year later purchased KIKU and restored its traditional format of Japanese- and Filipino-language programming.
History
KULA-TV: Early years
Channel 4 was one of the first two channels to receive interest after the Federal Communications Commission began taking applications for television stations to serve the Honolulu area on one of five commercial channels. The Advertiser Publishing Company, publisher of the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper and owner of radio station KGU, applied for channel 4 in early June. Applications quickly piled up, especially for channels 2 and 4 in the low VHF band, seen as most desirable due to their propagation characteristics. Honolulu station KPOA, the Island Broadcasting Company, was the second applicant to seek channel 4. KPOA's filing was called in "bad faith" by the Advertiser, which pointed out that two other channels were available and had not yet been filed for. KGU and KPOA both bowed out of the channel 4 fight at the same time in March 1953, when they each bought half the stock in Honolulu's struggling KONA-TV on channel 11.One of the applications for channel 2 came from radio station KULA, which was in competition with a consortium known as Royaltel. KULA was sold in 1953 to American Broadcasting Stations, the owner of WMT in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which filed in April 1953 for channel 4 in an effort to prevent KGU and KPOA from moving KONA from channel 11 to channel 4. Even while its purchase of KULA was still pending, the FCC granted channel 4 to ABS on May 14, 1953. After the commission approved its acquisition of KULA, it withdrew its application for channel 2 and began scouting studio sites for the new station. Originally designated KABS-TV, the channel became KULA-TV when it was transferred to the same subsidiary as KULA radio, the Pacific Frontier Broadcasting Company.
Construction of KULA-TV's studios and original transmitter site on Ala Moana Boulevard began in December 1953; the facilities would accommodate studios for KULA radio. KULA-TV began broadcasting on April 16, 1954. It was an affiliate of the ABC network, whose programs had previously appeared over KGMB-TV; KULA had been an ABC radio affiliate.
The ownership of KULA radio and television shifted several times in its early history. ABS sold the outlets to the Television Corporation of America, a new Hawaiian company headed by Jack Burnett and Albert Zugsmith, in 1955. The Crowell-Collier Publishing Company agreed to purchase all of the outstanding stock in the KULA stations in April 1956, which was canceled four months later when mortgage holders in the firm refused to permit the necessary stock swap.
KHVH-TV: Kaiser's channel 13
Where channels 2 and 4 both received multiple applications, channel 13 was the last of Honolulu's original five TV allocations to receive any interested bidders, possibly because of fear of the number 13. Territorial Telecasters, a group linked to radio woman Christmas Early, filed for the channel in December 1952, only to abandon its bid within months and formally withdraw it in June.In October 1956, industrialist Henry J. Kaiser applied for channel 13 after also requesting authority to build a new Honolulu radio station. Kaiser had been a dignitary at the launch of KULA-TV two and a half years prior. The FCC granted a construction permit in December, but KULA-TV protested, fearing the Honolulu market could not support an additional station and that it would face negative economic impacts from the sign-on of channel 13.
Hal Lewis, better known on the radio as J. Akuhead Pupule, was the executive vice president of the new Kaiser broadcasting operation in Honolulu. KHVH was approved in February 1957 and began broadcasting on March 15.
The FCC dismissed KULA-TV's challenge to the channel 13 permit on April 8, 1957. On May 5, KHVH-TV began broadcasting on channel 13. Airing from Kaiser's Hawaiian Village Hotel, it was the first station to broadcast color television in Hawaii. KHVH-TV was an independent station that lacked network affiliation or even a studio camera; it was primarily a movie station, scheduling three to four feature films a day.
KHVH-TV, channel 4: Merger
In May 1958, Kaiser announced the acquisition of KULA-TV; he would retain KHVH radio, with KULA being sold off to Jack Burnett. The two television stations merged as KHVH-TV on channel 4, retaining KULA-TV's affiliation with ABC and its studios on Ala Moana Boulevard, at midnight on July 15, 1958.The late 1950s and early 1960s saw KHVH-TV's programming expand to the neighbor islands. Channel 4's programming began to be seen on Maui on the island's first TV station, KMVI-TV in Wailuku. The station, at the time independently owned by the Maui Publishing Company, had rebroadcast KONA-TV programs until KONA-TV set up its own repeater. Kaiser Industries constructed the station at Hilo, KHJK-TV on channel 13, which launched on May 15, 1960, from studios in the Naniloa Hotel.
By 1960, Kaiser's interests in Hawaii were diverse and far-reaching. In addition to the KHVH stations and the Hawaiian Village Hotel that was their namesake, he developed Hawaii Kai on eastern Oahu as well as a cement plant and a hospital. His influence led the Advertiser to ask in a December 1959 editorial, "Who's Running Hawaii?" Kaiser soon cast his gaze to broadcasting on the U.S. mainland. In 1962, he filed for stations in the UHF band in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Burlington, New Jersey, near Philadelphia. His plans called for seven TV stations—the maximum one company could own at the time—with the stations in Honolulu and Hilo counting as two of the seven.
During Kaiser ownership, the station developed several local programs. Children's show Captain Honolulu aired from 1959 to 1969; Robert "Bob" Smith served as host under the "Sgt. Sacto" and Captain Honolulu characters before the show came to an end in 1969. Other early local shows included Kaiser Sports Central, 50th State Wrestling, and the Tom Moffatt Show. Station manager John Serrao was transferred to Detroit in 1963 to help construct Kaiser's WKBD-TV and cited KHVH-TV's local programming successes when discussing WKBD's planned emphasis on local sports coverage and entertainment.
Western Telestations, Starr, and Shamrock ownership
Kaiser Industries announced the creation of Kaiser Broadcasting, a dedicated subsidiary of the company, to house the firm's broadcasting interests in September 1964. The KHVH stations would not be among them for long. That October, Kaiser announced the $3 million sale of the KHVH stations and KHJK-TV to Lawrence S. Berger, who had experience running stations in Wyoming and Montana. The transaction also included a construction permit for an FM radio station. The acquisition of KHVH-TV and KHVO—the former KHJK—by Berger's company, Western Telestations, was completed in December.KHVH-TV was the first Hawaiian television station to air live pictures from the continental United States. Using the Lani Bird satellite, channel 4 brought viewers a college football game between Michigan State and Notre Dame on November 19, 1966. During halftime, viewers in the U.S. saw sunbathers on Waikiki's beaches; in addition, KHVH fed film from the Vietnam War to the ABC and NBC networks. KHVH-TV also originated the first live broadcast from Hawaii to Japan and aired the first live television program produced in Japan to be seen in Hawaii, as well as nationally aired coverage of ceremonies commemorating the 25th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Berger accepted an offer from the Starr Broadcasting Company of New Orleans to sell KHVH-TV in March 1971; Berger would have bought KHVH radio from Western Telestations in a concurrent transaction. The deal fell apart that August, but Starr agreed to acquire KHVH-TV in November 1972. The sale closed on August 1, 1973; with the KHVH stations now under separate owners, channel 4 changed its call sign to KITV, for Island Television. Berger would later regret not holding on to the television stations; in 1979, he said, "It was a mistake as far as money, at least. Who knew ABC would end up with Happy Days instead of the junk stuff we had in those days?"
Under Starr, two changes were made in KITV's transmission setup. In early 1977, channel 4 switched to an antenna atop the Ala Moana Hotel, which improved reception for viewers in Waikiki shaded from the original tower by a new condominium building but not some viewers on windward Oahu. The company purchased KMVI-TV on Maui from its owner, Pacific Media Group, in 1978; it changed its call sign to KMAU after the sale.
The Starr stations were acquired by Shamrock Broadcasting, a company founded by Roy E. Disney, in a deal announced in May 1978 and approved by the FCC in May 1979. The merger of Starr and Shamrock came after LIN Broadcasting made a higher offer that required more divestitures, with the two satellite stations of KITV a complicating factor. Under Shamrock, KITV endured a two-month-long strike by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists that began on November 3, 1980. On that date, eight on-camera employees walked off the job, claiming that general manager Dick Grimm had refused contract negotiations for four years. During the strike, public officials including governor George Ariyoshi, Honolulu mayor Frank Fasi, and other state and city leaders refused to speak to reporters from KITV, and the city prosecutor filed a complaint in district court accusing the station of hiring strikebreakers. Shamrock planned new studio facilities for KITV in 1986, but they were not built, and the station remained on Ala Moana Boulevard, where the station televised the annual Aloha Festivals parade as it passed by.
Grimm brought many local broadcasts to KITV. In the mid-1970s, University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine women's volleyball was added to the station's lineup at a time when the team was among the top squads in the nation. A University of Hawaii football game aired in 1974 as a favor for the ailing governor, John A. Burns; the university arranged telling the NCAA that the game was a sellout as required by television rules of the time to allow Burns to see the game on TV. Most notable, however, was the Merrie Monarch Festival in Hilo; Grimm successfully petitioned organizer Dottie Thompson, initially reticent, to allow a telecast. Originally in the form of an edited highlight package, live coverage debuted in 1984, and KITV held the rights to the festival through 2009, after which it was outbid by KFVE.