is an
NBC Owned-and-operated television station based in
San Diego, California . It uses the on-air branding '''''NBC 7/39''''', which reflects its channel location on all San Diego-area
Cable systems (7) and its over-the-air analog channel number (39). KNSD is the only network-owned television station in San Diego, with 76 percent of its ownership controlled by NBC; the remaining 24 percent is owned by
LIN Television .
The station went on the air on
November 16 ,
1965 as , San Diego's first
UHF independent station. The station at the time was based in the building once occupied by the National Pen Company, located in suburban Kearny Mesa, ten miles north of downtown San Diego. However, in
1966 , a fire destroyed the KAAR building, and the station was off the air for more than year. Channel 39 was sold to Bass Broadcasting, a Texas-based broadcaster, and returned to the air in
1968 as '''KCST-TV'''. The new call letters supposedly stood for '''C'''alifornia '''S'''an Diego '''T'''elevision.
For a three to four year period in the late
1960s to the early
1970s , Bass tried to take the
ABC network affiliation from
XETV (channel 6), a station licensed across the
Mexican Border in
Tijuana but based in San Diego. XETV had been San Diego's ABC affiliate since
1956 , but Bass claimed that it wasn't appropriate for an American television network to affiliate with a Mexican television station when there was a viable American station available. In
1972 , the
FCC revoked XETV's permission to carry ABC. KCST took over the ABC affiliation, and XETV became an independent station until it became a charter
Fox affiliate in
1987 . In
1973 , KCST started a news department, with Harold Greene, later to gain fame in
Los Angeles , as news director.
Storer Broadcasting , owner of major network stations in the East and Midwest, bought KCST on
September 30 ,
1974 . In
1977 , in the wake of its newfound success as America's number one television network, ABC switched its San Diego affiliation from KCST to
KGTV (channel 10), with KCST taking KGTV's old NBC affiliation. ABC had never been happy with the way its San Diego affiliation had ended up on KCST in the first place, and had sought a way to get back on VHF at the first opportunity. This move did not please Storer, who retaliated by dropping ABC from KCST's then-sister station,
WITI-TV in
Milwaukee , in favor of
CBS (although Storer had originally purchased WITI in hopes of affiliating it with CBS anyway).
In 1987, KCST and the other Storer stations were sold to
Gillett Communications , and the station changed its call letters to the current . It also began calling itself ''"Channel 7/39"'' on-air. The Gillett stations were sold to
New World Communications in the early
1990s , and New World entered into a deal with
News Corporation in which most New World stations (mostly CBS affiliates, with a few ABC and NBC stations mixed in) would convert to the Fox network. However, KNSD stayed with NBC since Fox was already on VHF in San Diego (see XETV). KNSD and
WVTM in
Birmingham, Alabama were both sold to NBC in November
1996 . That following January, KNSD began calling itself ''"NBC 7/39"''.
In spring
2001 , KNSD moved its studios and offices into a redeveloped high-rise office building in downtown San Diego, which includes an all glass enclosed street-level news studio resembling that of ''
The Today Show '' in New York City's
Rockefeller Center .
As of 2006, KNSD's newscasts are in first place in mornings and at 11 PM, but come in second to
KFMB-TV at 4 PM, and third to KFMB and KGTV at 5 PM and 6 PM, and on weekend afternoons.
KNSD also currently produces a 10pm newscast for
KSWB .
- ''NBC 7/39 News in the Morning'' - with Marianne Kushi and Bill Menish
- ''NBC 7/39 News at 10AM'' - with Marianne Kushi and Bill Menish
- ''NBC 7/39 News at 4PM'' - with Susan Taylor and Catherine Garcia
- ''NBC 7/39 News at 4:30PM'' - with Catherine Garcia and Vic Salazar
- ''NBC 7/39 News at 5PM'' - with Marty Levin and Susan Taylor
- ''NBC 7/39 News at 6PM'' - with Marty Levin and Susan Taylor
- ''NBC 7/39 News at 11PM'' - with Marty Levin and Susan Taylor
- ''NBC 7/39 News This Weekend'' - with Artie Ojeda and Rory Devine
- ''NBC 7/39 News at 6PM: Weekend'' - with Steve Walker and Alicia Barnes
- ''NBC 7/39 News at 11PM: Weekend'' - with Steve Walker and Alicia Barnes
- ''NBC 7/39 News This Weekend'' - with Artie Ojeda and Rory Devine
- ''NBC 7/39 News at 6PM: Weekend'' - with Steve Walker and Alicia Barnes
- ''NBC 7/39 News at 11PM: Weekend'' - with Steve Walker and Alicia Barnes
- ''Sportswrap'' - with Jim Laslavic
