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KOFY-TV

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KBWB is the WB television affiliate in San Francisco, California. It is owned by Granite Broadcasting. It offers a schedule of first-run talk shows, court shows, off-network sitcoms, reality shows, and first-run primetime programs from WB in addition to Kids WB programming on Saturday mornings. Its transmitter is located atop the Sutro Tower in San Francisco.

History

The construction permit for the station went through many owners from the 1950s on. It began operations in April 1968 as KEMO-TV, an independent station owned by Overmeyer Broadcasting. It was seemingly off the air more than it was on. 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 because kids would be bored to sleep. It has been suggested that KEMO went dark around late-1971 or early-1972, as no program listings for the station were available after that time; however, rumor has it that there was a feud between the listing service and KEMO -- KEMO might have been still on the air, but with no listings.

By 1980, it was telecasting Spanish shows and owned by Leon Crosby. The station was then sold to FM radio pioneer Jim Gabbert, who signed it back on in the fall of 1980 as KTZO (which stood for Television 20, the Z being construed as a numeral 2), with a 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. Most memorable were the station IDs featuring pets (usually dogs) of Bay Area viewers that would look (on cue) at a TV screen showing the station's logo.

In 1987 the station changed its call letters to KOFY-TV (pronounced "coffee"). It continued to run a general entertainment format, and added more cartoons in the late 1980s. It also added more sitcoms in the early 1990s. The station became the WB affiliate in early 1995. In 1998, Gabbert sold KOFY to Granite Broadcasting for $170 million with Granite changing the calls to KBWB on September 14, 1998 after taking control of the station to reflect their affiliation. In 1999, KBWB's operations were merged with that of then-sister KNTV in San Jose who contributed a 10:00 newscast (plus simulcasts of their morning news) and, in return, got a temporary WB affiliation between for 18 months. This arrangement ended in April 2002 after KNTV, by then the NBC affiliate for the San Francisco market, became an O&O of that network.

In September 2005, Granite announced the sale of KBWB and sister station WDWB (now WMYD) Detroit to AM Media Holdings, Inc. (a unit of Acon Investments and several key Granite shareholders) for a price rated, on KBWB's end, to around $83 million[1]. The low price, compared to the more than double Granite had purchased the station for, came out of Granite wanting to cut down their debt load while wanting to keep control of the stations. On February 15, 2006, Granite announced the restructuring of the sale considering the changing conditions of the station and that AM Media Holdings may not own the station (see below)[2].

On Tuesday January 24, 2006, it was announced that CBS Corporation and Time Warner will close their respective UPN and WB networks and jointly launch the CW Network in September 2006. The network will be a 50-50 joint venture between the two companies. KBWB will return to its roots as an independent station using the branding, once again, as TV 20, as KBHK will be the sole Bay Area outlet for the CW network. This announcement has had an effect on their on-air image with the station returning to the TV 20 branding shortly after the announcement.

Granite has sold KBWB, along with WMYD, to DS Audible, a new group affiliated with Canyon Capital Advisors, D.B. Zwirn & Co., Fortress Investment Group and Ramius Capital Group, among others, for $150 million cash. (DS Audible San Francisco, LLC, one of the two groups created by the investment groups, would be acquiring KBWB for $65,750,000.) The previous agreement to sell the two stations to AM Media has been cancelled.

It is not yet known whether or not KBWB will change its call letters.

Newscasts

In the days as KOFY, the station had a newscast which got cancelled by the early 90s. As KBWB, the station under Granite's ownership reintroduced a 10 p.m. newscast titled WB20 Primetime News produced by then-sister KNTV, and KBWB also had a morning newscast. Now KTVU has always been the long-standing station with their original Ten O'Clock newscasts for years, which caused several other newscast competitors (notably KRON and KPIX) to move their newscasts back to 11 p.m. in the 1990s. And when KNTV was sold to NBC in 2002, KBWB's newscast was cancelled, and the morning newscast was also cancelled as well. Now it airs The Daily Buzz which was cancelled briefly after premeiring in September 2005. At one time KOFY did reruns of KRON 4 News in 1989, The newscast was branded NewsCenter 4 on KOFY.

Trivia

  • As San Francisco is the sixth largest media market in the country, KBWB is the largest WB affiliate to not be owned by the Tribune Company. Tribune owns a 25% stake in the network, while the majority owner is Time Warner. So any WB affiliate owned and operated by Tribune can also be considered network owned and operated by the network itself.

Previous Logos

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