KBWB

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KBWB

San Francisco, California
Branding	Your TV20
Channels	20 (UHF) analog, 19 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	Independent
Owner	Granite Broadcasting
Founded	April 1, 1968
Call letters meaning	The Bay Area's WB (former affiliation)
Former callsigns	KEMO-TV (1968-1980) KTZO (1980-1986) KOFY-TV (1986-1998)
Former affiliations	Independent (1968-1995), Bilingual English and Spanish (circa mid-1970s), CBS, NBC (both secondary in 1980s), The WB (1995-2006)
Website	www.yourtv20.com

KBWB is an independent television station 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 movies. Its transmitter is located atop the Sutro Tower in San Francisco. KBWB has a repeater station for Ukiah and Mendocino County, K29DF. From January of 1995 until September 17, 2006 KBWB was a WB affiliate. Prior to 1995 they were an independent station.

1 History
2 Selling KBWB
3 Newscasts
4 Trivia
5 Previous Logos
6 Syndicated Programming
- 6.1 Sitcoms
- 6.2 Other Shows
7 External links

[edit] 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.

By 1980, it was telecasting Spanish shows and owned by Leon Crosby. The station was then sold to FM radio pioneer James 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 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 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.

In 1986 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 p.m. newscast, plus simulcasts of their morning news, and, in return, got 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, became an owner and operator of that network.

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 (now KBCW) 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.

[edit] Selling KBWB

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].

In May 2006, Granite announced that it had 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. On July 18, 2006 this sale also fell apart; Granite has announced they will try to find another company willing to buy KBWB. [3]

[edit] Newscasts

In the days as KOFY, the station had a newscast, which was cancelled by the early 90s. Prior to this, in 1989, the station rebroadcast KRON's newscasts under the NewsCenter 4 on KOFY brand. Under Granite's ownership as KBWB, the station reintroduced a 10 p.m. newscast titled WB20 Primetime News produced by then-sister KNTV, as well as a morning newscast. However, the 10 p.m. news failed to pose a significant threat to KTVU's news (an issue which caused several other newscast competitors (notably KRON and KPIX) to move their newscasts back to 11 p.m. in the 1990s), and both newscasts were cancelled after NBC purchased KNTV in 2002. In September 2005, the station began to air a syndicated morning show, The Daily Buzz, but it was subsequently dropped from KBWB's lineup.

KBWB also had an entertainment segment called "The Daily Mixx" which ran from 2002-2006 at 5:56 PM and 10:00 PM. The Mixx as it's sometimes called showed clips of interviews from celebrities as well as previews from movies as well as giveaways such as tickets to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Winchester Mystery House among giveaways. It's first host was Angela Murrow (sometimes known as Angela Bakke) for the first two years of the run and later with hosts Lesley Nagy and Shane Tallant. There was also a show called "The Mixx EP" which was the longer version of the entertainment segment which aired on the fourth Wendesday or Thursday of each month. When KBWB went independent, The Daily Mixx was cancelled and was later turned into "Your Green Report" as part of their slogan.

On January 8, 2007, KBWB will begin airing a 9:00 p.m. Monday-Friday newscast produced by ABC O&O KGO-TV that will be known on-air as ABC7 News at 9 on Your TV 20. [4]

[edit] Trivia

As San Francisco was, at the time, the sixth largest media market in the country (now fifth), 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.

[edit] Previous Logos

KBWB's 1980s logo when known as KTZO	KBWB's pre-1998 logo when known as KOFY	KBWB's 1998 KOFY logo	KBWB's logo, used from September 14, 1998 when KOFY became KBWB until September of 2002.
KBWB's last WB20 logo, from September of 2002-January 2006.	Transitional KBWB "TV 20" logo, from January-late August 2006.	Current KBWB "Your TV 20" logo.

[edit] Syndicated Programming

[edit] Sitcoms

[edit] Other Shows

[edit] External links

Broadcast television in the San Francisco Bay Area market (Nielsen DMA #5)

Greater San Francisco Bay Area: KTVU 2 (Fox) - KRON 4 (MNTV) - KPIX 5 (CBS) - KGO 7 (ABC) - KQED 9 (PBS) - KNTV 11 (NBC) - KDTV 14 (UNI) - KBWB 20 (Ind) - KRCB 22 (PBS) - KAXT 22 (TBN) - KTSF 26 (Ind) - KFTL 28 (HSN) - KMTP 32 (Ind) - KICU 36 (Ind) - KTVJ 36 (Ind) - KCNS 38 (S@H/JTV) - KTNC 42 (AZA) - KBCW 44 (The CW) - KSTS 48 (TEL) - KFTY 50 (Ind) - KTEH 54 (PBS) - KCSM 60 (PBS) - KKPX 65 (i) - KFSF 66 (TFT) - KTLN 68 (TLN)

Ukiah-Mendocino County: KUNO 8 (AZA) - K17CG 17 (Ind) - K21CD 21 (TEL) - K27EE 27 (PBS) - K29DF 29 (Ind) - K39AG 39 (Fox) - K41AF 41 (MNTV) - K43AF 43 (CBS) - K45AH 45 (ABC) - K51AQ 51 (The CW) - K55GX 55 (PBS) - K67BV 67 (Ind) - K69DF 69 (PBS)

Local cable television channels
FSN Bay Area - Comcast SportsNet West

Past broadcast stations
KQEC 32 (PBS)

Independent Television Stations in the state of California

KBTV-CA 8 (Sacramento) - KCAL 9 (Los Angeles) - KSCI 18 (Long Beach) - KBBV-CA 19 (Bakersfield) - KBWB 20 (San Francisco) - KWHY 22 (Los Angeles) - KBSV 23 (Ceres) - KVMD 23 (Twentynine Palms) - KTSF 26 (San Francisco) - KNLA-LP 27 (Los Angeles) - KMTP 32 (San Francisco) - KICU 36 (San Jose) - KBOP-CA 43 (San Diego) - KXLA 44 (Rancho Palos Verdes) - KFTY 50 (Santa Rosa) - KUSI 51 (San Diego) - KDOC 56 (Anaheim) - KJLA 57 (Ventura) - KRCA 62 (Riverside) - KBEH 63 (Oxnard)

See also: ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, MyNetworkTV, NBC, PBS, Telefutura, Telemundo, Univision, Other Spanish Network, Religious, Home Shopping and Other stations in California

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Categories: Television stations in the San Francisco Bay Area | Television stations in California | Independent television stations in the United States | Channel 20 TV stations in the United States