KOFY-TV
KOFY-TV is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area as an affiliate of Merit TV. It is owned by CNZ Communications, LLC, alongside Class A station KCNZ-CD and low-power station KMPX-LD. The three stations share transmitter facilities atop San Bruno Mountain. KOFY-TV's studios were previously located on Marin Street in the Bayview–Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco until 2018; the station has since maintained space at KGO-TV's studios in the city's North Waterfront district.
History
Unbuilt
The construction permit for channel 20 was first awarded to Lawrence A. Harvey as KBAY-TV on March 11, 1953. Harvey owned industrial interests in Torrance and had also attempted to pursue construction permits in Los Angeles and Salem, Oregon. Despite an apparent attempt to sign on September 15, KBAY-TV did not make the air. Leonard and Lily Averett, doing business as Bay Television, acquired the unbuilt construction permit in January 1955 for no consideration; Leonard was a doctor who lived in Beverly Hills. A third southern Californian, Sherrill Corwin, acquired channel 20 in 1957 for the $1,750 the Averetts had spent on the venture, but KBAY-TV was still not built.In late 1964, Corwin filed to sell KBAY-TV to Overmyer Communications Company, a broadcaster owned by Daniel H. Overmyer, who would later start the short-lived Overmyer Network. The sale application was approved, after a hearing, in October 1965. The following year was a busy one: the station filed to move its facility from KGO's tower on Avanzada Street to Mount Sutro, while the call letters were changed to KEMO-TV, for Daniel's son, Edward Manning Overmyer.
KEMO-TV
As KEMO-TV, channel 20 would sign on April 1, 1968. It was jointly owned by the U.S. Communications Corporation station group of Philadelphia, holding an 80% interest and the remaining 20% by Corwin. Overmyer had previously sold 80% interest in the construction permits for WBMO-TV in Atlanta, WSCO-TV in Cincinnati, KEMO-TV in San Francisco, WECO-TV in Pittsburgh and KJDO-TV in Houston to AVC Corporation on March 28, 1967, with Federal Communications Commission approval of their sale coming December 8, 1967. None of the stations were on the air at the time of the FCC approval of the sale. Beside KEMO-TV, U.S. Communications also operated WPHL-TV in Philadelphia, WATL in Atlanta, WXIX-TV in Cincinnati and WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh.KEMO-TV showed conventional independent fare, along with The Adults Only Movie, a series of art films, not featuring sex or nudity—it was named "Adults Only" merely due to the films' lack of appeal to children. KEMO also offered Japanese live-action programs and cartoons dubbed into English including Speed Racer, Ultraman, 8 Man, Prince Planet, Johnny Cypher in Dimension Zero and The King Kong Show. With a mixture of locally produced and syndicated programming, KEMO-TV remained on the air for three years to the day, powering down its transmitter at midnight on March 31, 1971, to avoid paying the following month's PG&E electricity bill.
The former owner of KMPX-FM in San Francisco, Leon Crosby bought KEMO-TV later that year and it returned to the air on February 4, 1972. With an eclectic type of programming, KEMO featured shows such as Solesvida and Amapola Presents Show co-hosted by Amapola and Ness Aquino, to name a few. In 1973, Crosby also purchased WPGH-TV, the dark U.S. Communications station in Pittsburgh, bringing it back on the air January 14, 1974.
From 1972 to 1980, KEMO aired stock market programming in the mornings, religious programming in midday, local Spanish programming in the weekday afternoons and evenings, local Italian and imported Japanese programming on Sunday nights, and B-grade movies overnight, with Oakland carpet store owner Leon Heskett hosting the films. Leon Crosby's KEMO signed off on September 30, 1980.
KTZO
The station was then sold to FM radio pioneer James Gabbert, who returned it to the air on October 6, 1980, as KTZO, with a dramatically upgraded general entertainment format, featuring off-network drama shows, sitcoms, old movies, rejected CBS and NBC shows preempted by KPIX-TV and KRON-TV, music videos, and religious shows. But while its independent competitors at that time, KTVU, KICU-TV and KBHK landed stronger syndicated programs, a majority of KTZO's programming lineup at most consisted of low-budget programs, which continued into its early years as KOFY. Most memorable were the station identification bumpers featuring pets — usually dogs, but occasionally cats and even parrots — of Bay Area viewers that would look on cue at a television screen showing the station's logo. In fact, these proved to be immensely popular, so much so that KTZO/KOFY eventually began working with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals by displaying pets that could be adopted, along with a phone number to call with the pet's name on screen. These IDs were retired in 1998, having aired alongside "official" WB-issued KOFY IDs for the first three years of the network's existence.Other popular programming during the early and mid-1980s included the TV-20 Dance Party — originally a "Top 40" music format featuring local high schools, hosted by Bay Area DJ Tony Kilbert; later a 1950s "retro" style show hosted by Gabbert — and a Sunday late-night movie program. The Sunday program included studio segments at the beginning and commercial breaks of the movie, hosted by Gabbert and set in the fictional "Sleazy Arms Hotel" bar. Viewers were invited to join Gabbert on the set and for a time, enjoy a sponsor's product, a malt liquor.
Also in the early 1980s, KTZO became one of the many stations in the U.S. to broadcast Star Fleet, a.k.a. X-Bomber, a sci-fi marionette television series that originally debuted in Japan in 1980.
KOFY
On March 1, 1986, the station changed its call letters to KOFY-TV. The change occurred following Gabbert's purchase of radio station KOFY, which operated as a Spanish language station until Gabbert changed the format to 1950s–60s oldies rock during the 1980s and 1990s, later reverting to the Spanish language format. Gabbert sold KOFY radio in 1997 to Susquehanna Radio Corporation which changed the format from Spanish music to a sports talk format complementing its existing sports station, KNBR. At one point, Gabbert made Bay Area broadcasting history by televising a 3D movie that required special glasses, Gorilla at Large. KOFY-TV continued to run a general entertainment format, and added more cartoons in the late 1980s. Beginning in September 1987, the station filled the 7 to 11 p.m. timeslot with drama series such as Perry Mason, Cannon, Lou Grant and Combat!From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, KOFY also featured an in-studio, live kids cartoon show called Cartoon Classics. Hosted by Maestro Dick Bright, the show offered such cartoons as Mighty Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry and Popeye. The show frequently featured local magician Magic Mike performing for the studio children. However, the live-action studio segment was later scrapped, and the program just showed the cartoons straight. Afternoon cartoon shows such as these eventually became a thing of the past, as cable television was able to feature round-the-clock cartoons aimed at younger viewers with the launch of Cartoon Network in October 1992.
KOFY added more sitcoms in the early 1990s. As noted above, KOFY also broadcast network daytime game shows and Saturday morning cartoons not carried by KRON and KPIX such as NBC game shows Blockbusters, Classic Concentration and the daytime version of Win, Lose or Draw; the NBC cartoon series Alvin and the Chipmunks; the CBS game show The Price Is Right; the CBS cartoon series The Get Along Gang and Saturday Supercade; and for a few weeks during the Oliver North Iran-Contra hearings, Wordplay. The CBS game show Tattletales was picked up for the KEMO schedule during the mid-1970s among its foreign language-heavy programming when KPIX did not carry its CBS feed.
On Christmas Eve, KOFY would preempt normal programming during the entire evening and broadcast its own version of the Yule Log, a concept borrowed from WPIX in New York City. From the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, the station ran an "oldies dance party" show hosted by James Gabbert, and emceed by Sean King.
In mid-January 1994, the station began airing the Action Pack programming block with TekWar, which caused ratings to jump 350% over its November numbers.
As a WB affiliate
The station became the Bay Area's WB affiliate, when the network launched on January 11, 1995. KOFY eventually began to upgrade its programming inventory from low-budget programming to more higher-profile syndicated programs to compete with other stations in the market and channel 20's own growth as a WB affiliate.In 1996, KOFY-TV employees attempted to organize as a collective bargaining unit under the labor union for broadcast employees, NABET. Gabbert interfered with the organizing effort, resulting in a case before the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB ultimately ruled against the station.
In 1998, Gabbert sold KOFY for $170 million to minority-owned Granite Broadcasting, who changed the call sign to KBWB on September 14, 1998, to reflect its network affiliation. In 1999, KBWB's operations were merged with those of then-sister station KNTV in San Jose, who contributed a 10 p.m. newscast, plus simulcasts of its morning newscast, and, in return, received a temporary WB affiliation for 18 months after KNTV voluntarily dropped its ABC affiliation at the behest of network-owned KGO-TV. This arrangement ended in April 2002 after KNTV, by then the NBC affiliate for the San Francisco market, was sold to that network.