(Channel 9) is an
Independent Station in
Los Angeles, California . This station, owned by
CBS Corporation who also owns
KCBS-TV Channel 2, has a signal radius that covers the
Southern California region.
Channel 9 went on the air as on
August 25 ,
1948 , owned by
Earle C. Anthony along with
KFI-AM 640 . Since KFI-AM had long been affiliated with
NBC , KFI-TV served for a brief period as L.A.'s NBC television affiliate, until KNBH (now
KNBC ) went on the air several months later in
1949 . The station then went independent, a status it has retained to this day (though it carried some
DuMont programming).
RKO General acquired the station in
1951 . It had bought KHJ-AM-FM a few months earlier, so it cchanged the TV station's calls to . KHJ radio had been the flagship of the Don Lee Broadcasting System, a regional West Coast radio network. 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
1965 , RKO faced a challenge to its license for KHJ from a group called Fidelity Television. At first, Fidelity's challenge focused on KHJ's programming quality. Later, and more seriously, Fidelity claimed that KHJ was involved in reciprocal trade practices. Fidelity alleged that RKO's parent company,
General Tire , forced its retailers to purchase advertising on KHJ and other RKO stations as a condition of their contracts with General Tire. An administrative law judge found in favor of Fidelity, but KHJ appealed. In
1972 , the FCC allowed RKO to keep the license for KHJ, but two years later conditioned future renewals on the renewal of sister station WNAC (now
WHDH-TV ) in
Boston . Six years later, the FCC stripped WNAC of its license for numerous reasons, but largely because RKO had misled the FCC about corporate misconduct at General Tire. The decision meant KHJ and sister station WOR-TV (now
WWOR-TV ) in
New York lost their licenses as well. However, an appeals court ruled that the FCC had erred when it tied KHJ's renewal to that of WNAC and ordered new hearings for KHJ and WOR.
The hearings dragged on until
1987 . That year, an administrative law judge found RKO unfit to be a broadcast licensee due to numerous cases of dishonesty by RKO, including fraudulent billing and lying about its ratings. The FCC advised RKO that it would almost certainly deny any appeals, and persuaded RKO to sell its stations to avoid the indignity of having their licenses taken away. Finally, in
1989 , RKO agreed to sell KHJ to Fidelity Television, the group that originally challenged the license in
1965 . Fidelity then sold the license to
Disney .
Even though Channel 9's longtime radio cousins had changed their calls to KRTH-AM-FM some years before, Disney wanted to make a clean start. Accordingly, it changed the calls to , and briefly branded the station as "California 9" before settling on "K-CAL 9."
In
1995 , Disney purchased
Capital Cities /
ABC , which owned ABC's West Coast flagship,
KABC-TV . Due to FCC regulations at the time, Disney was not allowed to keep both KABC and KCAL. Disney chose to divest KCAL, which was purchased by
Young Broadcasting .
As a result of massive debt acquired from purchasing the former NBC affiliate in San Francisco,
KRON-TV (which went independent, and beginning in 2006, My Network TV), Young Broadcasting put KCAL up for sale in
2002 , and the station was purchased by
Viacom . KCAL's operatons were merged with those of KCBS, and KCAL moved from its longtime headquarters at the
Paramount Studios (another Viacom property and former owner of rival KTLA) in Hollywood to the historic
CBS Columbia Square , home to KCBS-TV/
FM and
KNX-AM , located one mile away. In
2004 , Viacom announced plans to relocate its Los Angeles television stations to a new office complex on the site of its
CBS Studio Center in Studio City in
2006 , located 5 miles away in the San Fernando Valley, for which groundbreaking took place on
June 17 ,
2005 .
When Viacom and CBS Corporation split in 2005, KCAL became a part of the latter company along with the rest of Viacom's broadcasting interests.
When
CBS Corporation bought KCAL, many in the broadcasting industry have speculated that they would move its
UPN network affiliation from Fox Television-owned
KCOP-TV to KCAL, making KCAL a UPN O&O. KCOP's previous owners,
Chris-Craft Industries , had until 2000 owned a stake in UPN, and KCOP was considered a UPN O&O, which ended with Fox's buyout of Chris-Craft's TV stations division, United Television. However,
CBS Corporation decided to leave KCAL as an independent, as Fox renewed its affiliation agreement for its UPN-affiliated stations. Some said the reason is that Fox used KCOP for leverage to keep UPN on WWOR in New York and
WPWR in
Chicago because Viacom (and its successor, CBS Corporation) did not have duopolies in those cities.
This issue became moot in January 2006 due to the announcement of
The CW , a broadcast network created from a merger of UPN and
The WB . The WB's West Coast flagship,
KTLA , will be the West Coast flagship for the new network. In February 2006, KCOP will become the West Coast flagship of
My Network TV , a new network created by Fox (which itself is owned by
News Corp ). KCAL will stay independent, at least for now -- and due to the mergers, several sister stations that are currently UPN affiliates will join KCAL among a series of independent stations owned by CBS.
For many years since the station's launch, the showing of
Motion Pictures originally intended for theatrical release was a prime staple of KHJ's programming, although the quality of these showings was somewhat reduced by the necessity for editing in order to show paid advertising. From 1961 to 1963, KHJ-TV was also the television home of
MLB 's then
Los Angeles Angels . They moved to KTLA starting in 1964, when Angels team owner
Gene Autry bought KTLA.
KHJ programmed a similar format as KTLA in the
1960s and
1970s . By the late 1960s, Channel 9 offered a blend of movies from the 1940s through '60s (and '70s by 1975). The station also ran a blend of drama shows, westerns, sitcoms, cartoons, professional sports, older movies, syndicated talk shows, game shows, public-affairs shows, locally produced talk shows, religious shows, and live local news. Channel 9 has been the broadcast home of
Los Angeles Lakers of the
National Basketball Association since 1977, and it has the second-longest current station-team broadcast partnership in the NBA, now in its 29th season (behind
Indianapolis '
WTTV and the
Indiana Pacers , which dates back to the team's days as a member of the original
American Basketball Association ).
By the mid 1970s, the cartoons were gone (moving to KTTV and KCOP), and the station ran far fewer off-network sitcoms. It focused more on talk shows, game shows, older movies, and dramas. It did have a weekday children's show called , which ran until the late 1980s. It also produced a local talk show called '''Mid Morning L.A.''', hosted over the years by
Bob Hilton ,
Meredith MacRae ,
Geoff Edwards and
Regis Philbin , which ran well into the 1980s. Edwards and MacRae won Emmy Awards for their hosting duties during the early-1980s.
The station abruptly changed formats in the late
1980s , in the wake of its ownership change to Disney. It added a number of cartoons, some of which were from the Walt Disney library. The station also ran other syndicated cartoons, as well as a lot of off-network family sitcoms. For a while it also aired a few first-run syndicated talk shows and movies, as well as dramas.
In the 1970's, KHJ had a 10PM newscast. It was moved to 9PM during the 1980's, and the station later added a half-hour 8PM Newscast during the late 1980's. Some of its most notable personalities included Anchors Tom Lawrence, Nathan Roberts, Lonnie Lardner, Linda Edwards, and weathercaster Andrew Amador, who now works in
Bakersfield . Interestingly many of KHJ's former staff were let go by the time Disney purchased the station.
By
1990 , Disney implemented the concept of a prime time news block, with between 8 and 11 pm. The 3-hour news block is still seen on KCAL to this day. In 1997, KCAL premiered the first fifteen-minute weekday sports report "Final Quarter." The show was an expansion of the typical five minute sports report seen towards the end of a newscast. Several years later the show was renamed "KCAL 9 Sports News" and with the purchase by CBS Corporation, joined sister-station
KCBS-TV and was renamed "Sports Central." The show was recently expanded to a full half-hour.
Cartoons continued to be a big part of KCAL's schedule in the
1990s , with blocks of children's programming on weekday mornings and afternoons, including the
Disney Afternoon block, that lasted well into
1997 . The family sitcoms, however, were gradually phased out, and KCAL added more first-run syndicated talk, reality, court, and newsmagazine shows, under the then-new ownership of Young Broadcasting, who brought KCAL in 1997. The station also added more weekday daytime newscasts at 2 and 3PM.
In
1996 , KCAL once again became the broadcast TV home of the then-California Angels, now known as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and added more basketball coverage with the
Los Angeles Clippers , in addition to its Lakers telecasts. The station and the Clippers parted ways in 2000. KCAL recently became the new over-the-air television home of the
Los Angeles Dodgers , televising at least 50 games a year. Also, KCAL recently signed a contract extension to continue to carry Lakers games through the end of the current decade, which would give them a 30-plus year relationship with the NBA team. In addition, KCAL has been broadcasting several weekend
Anaheim Mighty Ducks games since the team's first season in 1993.
The afternoon kids block was gone by
1998 . The Disney kids block moved to UPN and KCOP in
1999 . By
2000 , the children's shows in the morning were gone as well.
KCAL is notable for airing newscasts during unconventional time blocks. Along with newscasts at 10PM (where it competes against KTLA and
KTTV ), 12 Noon, and 4PM, it also airs news at 2PM, 3PM, 8PM, and 9PM. The station also airs at least 50 Dodgers games and at least 35 Los Angeles Lakers road games annually, as well as the
Los Angeles Galaxy of
Major League Soccer . Additionally, Channel 9 offers first-run syndicated programs such as talk shows, reality shows, newsmagazine shows (including
Inside Edition , and late-night repeats of
Entertainment Tonight and
The Insider , both of which are previously seen the same day on KCBS), court shows, as well as the controversial hit cartoon series,
South Park , which airs late nights after the news.
Occasionally as its schedule permits, KCAL now carries some
CBS network programming in primetime, as sister station KCBS has its commitments to
Oakland Raiders NFL preseason telecasts, among other programs.
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