KOFY-TV
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KOFY-TV is an Anime National Affiliate in San Francisco, California broadcasting in digital on UHF channel 19. KOFY's virtual channel remains ch. 20. The station is owned by Granite Broadcasting and offers a schedule of first-run talk shows, court shows, off-network sitcoms, reality shows, and movies. The station's transmitter is located atop the Sutro Tower in San Francisco, and a translator, K29DF, broadcasts KOFY in Ukiah and Mendocino County. The station has been an independent station for most of its existence, although it was the Bay Area's WB Network affiliate during that network's existence (1995–2006).
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History
KEMO era
Originally designated as KBAY-TV, the construction permit for the station went through many owners from the 1950s on. The KEMO call letters were originally assigned to the nascent Overmeyer Network. The Founder, Daniel H. Overmeyer, used his initials as the last three letters of the Toledo, Ohio station (WDHO-TV, now WNWO-TV) and his children's initials for the remaining five stations in his network. When the network ceased operation in 1967, U.S. Communications applied to the FCC for the licenses which were granted on December 12, 1967. KEMO-TV (pronounced "Key-Mo") signed on the air less than 4 months later, on April 1, 1968. It was seemingly off the air more than it was on.[citation needed] At the time, the station showed conventional independent fare, plus The Adults Only Movie, a series of art films, but no sex or nudity — it was named "Adults Only" merely due to the films' lack of appeal to children.
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 March 31, 1971 to avoid paying the following month's PG&E electricity bill. Leon Crosby bought it later that year and it returned back to the air in 1972 with an eclectic type of programming - "Solesvida", "Amapola Presents Show" hosted by Amapola Cabase, to name a few. KEMO offered Japanese live-action and cartoons dubbed into English including Speed Racer, Ultraman, 8 Man, Prince Planet, Johnny Cypher in Dimension Zero and The King Kong Show.
From 1972 until 1980, it was telecasting stock market programming in the mornings, religious programming in midday, Spanish programming in the afternoons and evenings, and B-grade movies overnight, with carpet store owner Leon Heskett hosting the films. Leon Crosby's KEMO signed off on September 30, 1980.
KTZO era
The station was then sold to FM radio pioneer James Gabbert, who signed it back on October 6, 1980 as KTZO (which stood for Television 20, the Z being construed as a numeral 2), with a dramatically upgraded general entertainment format, featuring off-network drama shows, sitcoms, old movies, rejected CBS and NBC shows preempted by KPIX and KRON, music videos, and religious shows. But unlike its independent competitors in that time, KTVU, KICU-TV and KBHK (now KBCW), a majority of KOFY's programming lineup at most consisted of low-budget television programs. Most memorable were the station identification breaks featuring pets, usually dogs, of Bay Area viewers that would look on cue at a television screen showing the station's logo. In fact, these proved to be popular enough that KTZO/KOFY would often work together with the SPCA by displaying pets that could be adopted, along with a phone number to call with the pets name on screen.
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).
First KOFY era
On March 1, 1986 the station changed its call letters to KOFY-TV (pronounced "coffee"). The change took place at the time owner James Gabbert purchased KOFY (AM). The original KOFY-AM 1050 was a Spanish language radio station before Gabbert changed the format to 1950s-60s oldies rock during the 1980s and 1990s before reverting back to the Spanish language format. Gabbert sold KOFY-AM to KNBR which changed the format from Spanish to Sports Talk with the call numbers KNBR 1050-AM. At one point, Gabbert made Bay Area broadcasting history by televising a 3-D movie that required special glasses, Gorilla at Large. The station continued to run a general entertainment format, and added more cartoons in the late 1980s. In September 1987, for example, it aired Perry Mason, Cannon, Lou Grant and Combat from 7 to 11 p.m. weeknights.
KOFY added more sitcoms in the early 1990s. KOFY also broadcast network daytime game shows and Saturday Morning cartoons not carried by NBC affiliate KRON and CBS affiliate KPIX such as NBC game shows Blockbusters; Classic Concentration; 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. Interestingly, 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, Gabbert would pre-empt normal programming during the entire evening and broadcast its own version of the Yule Log, a concept borrowed from WPIX-TV in New York (which incidentally, would also later affiliate with The WB).
In the late 1980s through the mid 1990s the station ran an "oldies dance party" hosted by James Gabbert, and emceed by Sean King.
In 1996, KOFY-TV employees attempted to organize as a collective bargaining unit under the labor union for broadcast employees, NABET. Attempts by Gabbert and various KOFY-TV managers to interfere with the organizing effort resulted in a case before the National Labor Relations Board.[1]
KBWB era
The station became the WB affiliate for the Bay Area in early 1995, when the network launched. Eventually since then, KOFY began to upgrade its programming schedule from low-budget programs to more well-known syndicated programming to match its competitors and the growth of the station as a WB affiliate. In 1998, Gabbert sold KOFY to Granite Broadcasting for $170 million, who changed the calls to KBWB on September 14, 1998 to reflect its affiliation. In 1999, KBWB's operations were merged with that of then-sister station KNTV in San Jose, who contributed a 10:00 p.m. newscast, plus simulcasts of its morning news, and, in return, received a temporary WB affiliation for 18 months. This arrangement ended in April 2002 after KNTV, by then the NBC affiliate for the San Francisco market, was sold to that network.
As San Francisco was, at the time, the fifth largest media market in the country (now sixth), KBWB was the largest WB affiliate to not be owned by the Tribune Company. Tribune owned a 25% stake in the network, while the majority owner is Time Warner. So any WB affiliate owned and operated by Tribune was also considered network owned and operated by the network itself.
Sale of KBWB
As a JTN Affiliate
KOFY began affiliating the Japanese Television Network from 2006-2011 when the WB merged with UPN to become The CW.
Transition to Anime National
On March 25, 2011, The JTN affiliation was moved to KTSF (Asahi 26) on subchannel 26.2 as JTN: Japanese Television as the Anime National affiliation was moved from KFTY (which is a temporary affiliate of CMXtv while transitioning to the classic MeTV) (CMXtv Bay Area) as the station signal doesn't cover the entire San Francisco bay area.
