('''''"ABC7"''''') is a
Television Station based in
San Francisco, California . It is an
Owned-and-operated Television Station of the
Walt Disney Company -owned
ABC .
The station's signal covers the
San Francisco Bay Area from its transmitter located on the
Sutro Tower . In addition, its signal is currently carried by a cable-only ABC affiliate in the
Santa Cruz and
Monterey Bay Area .
The station signed on the air for the first time on
May 5 ,
1949 , as
Northern California 's second-oldest TV station, behind Associated Broadcasters'
KPIX Channel 5 (later sold to
Westinghouse , now a CBS O&O). In fact, KPIX had a hand in getting KGO-TV on the air, as Channel 5 produced informational programming on how to receive and view Channel 7.
KGO is ABC's oldest owned and operated station on the West Coast, as sister station KECA-TV (now
KABC ), also operating on Channel 7, did not sign on the air until September
1949 .
In
1999 , the station came to an agreement with
Granite Broadcasting Corporation , the owner of
San Jose's ABC affiliate
KNTV . KGO-TV agreed to pay Granite in exchange for dropping ABC programming from KNTV, and as a result the station became the exclusive ABC outlet in the Bay Area.
The agreement, however, also saw the
Monterey /
Salinas area lose over-the-air reception of ABC programming, as KNTV also served those communities. In response, a cable-only ABC affiliate was set up for the Monterey/Salinas area; the station simulcasts the signal from KGO (including ABC programming and KGO's newscasts) for part of the day, and opts out of KGO's signal during programming which KGO is only allowed to show within the San Francisco Bay Area (under
Syndication Exclusivity ). The ABC affiliate is carried on channel 7 on area cable systems, and also identifies as "ABC 7". There were also rumors that KGO may start a true satellite station for Monterey/Salinas, with different local programming, but as of 2006, this has not happened.
For many years, KGO-TV was the only network owned-and-operated station in the Bay Area, as such, the station did not heavily pre-empt network programming-unlike its competitors -- mostly sister stations like Philadelphia's
WPVI and Houston's
KTRK were known for doing so in those days. This distinction ended in 1995, when KBHK's then-owners Chris-Craft owned a stake in UPN and made KBHK the Bay Area affiliate (KBHK and 100% of UPN are now owned by
CBS Corporation ), and CBS' merger with Westinghouse that same year made KPIX a CBS O&O (this succeeded a deal between CBS and Westinghouse in which all of Westinghouse's TV stations switched to CBS, and as a condition, run the entire CBS lineup). In 2002, after being unable to sign a new deal with
KRON-TV , NBC purchased KNTV. KGO-TV was the first to Capture Loma Prieta Earthquake in
1989, after all,
ABC was televising the game at the time.
