List of television stations in the San Francisco Bay Area
Encyclopedia

Network stations

The major network television affiliates include
  • KGO-TV 7
    KGO-TV
    KGO-TV, channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, based in San Francisco, California...

     (ABC
    American Broadcasting Company
    The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

    )
  • KPIX 5
    KPIX-TV
    KPIX-TV is the CBS owned and operated television station in San Francisco, California. Through its parent company CBS Corporation, KPIX is co-owned with The CW affiliate KBCW-TV ....

     (CBS
    CBS
    CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

    )
  • KTVU 2
    KTVU
    KTVU, virtual channel 2 , is the Fox-affiliated television station serving the San Francisco Bay Area. Licensed to Oakland, California, the station has been owned by Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises since 1964, making it the largest Fox affiliate by market size that is not owned and operated by the...

     (based in Oakland
    Oakland, California
    Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

    ) (FOX
    Fox Broadcasting Company
    Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

    )
  • KNTV 11
    KNTV
    KNTV, channel 11, is the NBC owned-and-operated television station in the Bay Area market. It is licensed to San Jose, with its transmitter located on San Bruno Mountain, just south of San Francisco. It shares facilities in San Jose with NBC Universal sister station KSTS and CNBC's Silicon...

     (based in San Jose
    San Jose, California
    San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

    ) (NBC
    NBC
    The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

    )
  • KBCW 12/44 (CW
    The CW Television Network
    The CW Television Network is a television network in the United States launched at the beginning of the 2006–2007 television season. It is a joint venture between CBS Corporation, the former owners of United Paramount Network , and Time Warner's Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB...

    )
  • KQED 9 (PBS
    Public Broadcasting Service
    The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

    )
  • KCSM 60
    KCSM-TV
    KCSM-TV, virtual channel 60, is an independent, non-commercial television station located in San Mateo, California, USA. Until 2009, KCSM-TV was a PBS member station...

     (based in San Mateo
    San Mateo, California
    San Mateo is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a population of approximately 100,000 , it is one of the larger suburbs on the San Francisco Peninsula, located between Burlingame to the north, Foster City to the east, Belmont to the south,...

    ) (PBS
    Public Broadcasting Service
    The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

    )
  • KRON 4
    KRON-TV
    KRON-TV, virtual channel 4 , is a television station in San Francisco, California, serving as the Bay Area affiliate of the MyNetworkTV programming service; the station is owned by Young Broadcasting...

     MyNetworkTV
    MyNetworkTV
    MyNetworkTV is a television broadcast syndication service in the United States, owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a division of News Corporation...

     (once the NBC affiliate)
  • KKPX 65 ION Television, qubo
    Qubo
    Qubo is a multi-platform children's television specialty channel endeavor operated as a joint venture between ION Media Networks, NBCUniversal, Nelvana, Scholastic Corporation, and Classic Media...

    .

Independent stations

Several independent television stations also operate in the area, including
  • KICU 36
    KICU-TV
    KICU-TV, known as TV36, is an independent television station in the San Francisco Bay Area market. It shares its broadcast facility with sister station KTVU in Oakland but it is licensed to San Jose, where KICU was formerly located. It is owned by Cox Enterprises. It runs an independent schedule...

     (operated by KTVU Television)
  • KOFY 20
  • KTSF 26
    KTSF
    KTSF is an independent television station serving the San Francisco Bay Area. Although licensed to San Francisco, the station's studio building is located in south suburban Brisbane, California. It is owned by Lincoln Broadcasting Company, and broadcasts its digital signal on UHF channel 27 from a...

     is the primary Asian TV channel and the largest Asian-owned TV station in the U.S.
  • KCNS 38
    KCNS
    KCNS is a digital television station in San Francisco, California, in the United States, owned by NRJ TV, LLC. It carries programming from the Retro Television Network on its main channel, and programming from Sino TV and Saigon TV on its subchannels. The station operates on 39 digital, covering...

     infomercials, Asian programming

  • W6JDI-TV, Burlingame, was on the air in 1948, six months before the first commercial TV station in San Francisco came on the air. The amateur station was operated by Clarence Wolfe Jr. W6JDI, and broadcast a still image of a woman, later dubbed "Gweldolyn", using home-built and Army Surplus equipment, on 429 MHz at 50 watts. The signal was received by local hams
    Amateur radio
    Amateur radio is the use of designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication...

     using Army Air Force surplus radio altimiters, rigging them into the reception terminals of television sets. http://www.californiahistoricalradio.com/photos54.html http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/02/13/home-made-tv-station/


There were amateur television
Amateur television
Amateur television is the transmission of Broadcast quality video and audio over the wide range of frequencies of allocated for Radio amateur use. ATV is used for non-commercial experimentation, pleasure and public service events...

 stations in the US before 1940.

http://www.earlytelevision.org/1940_home_camera.html

KPIX

San Francisco's first television station was KPIX
KPIX-TV
KPIX-TV is the CBS owned and operated television station in San Francisco, California. Through its parent company CBS Corporation, KPIX is co-owned with The CW affiliate KBCW-TV ....

 (Channel 5), which began broadcasting on December 24, 1948. The station became an affiliate of the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 television network and was owned and operated by Westinghouse
Westinghouse Electric (1886)
Westinghouse Electric was an American manufacturing company. It was founded in 1886 as Westinghouse Electric Company and later renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation by George Westinghouse. The company purchased CBS in 1995 and became CBS Corporation in 1997...

 for many years, with studios on Van Ness Avenue and a transmitter on a Mount Sutro
Mount Sutro
Mount Sutro is a hill in San Francisco, California. Most of Mount Sutro remains private property owned by the University of California, San Francisco , but a parcel, including the summit, has been set aside as the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve and is open to the public. It is one of San...

 tower shared with KGO-TV. The station produced one of the first local children's television shows, Captain Fortune, during the 1950s, which featured live studio segments hosted by artist Peter Abenheim, as well as episodes of the early television cartoon series Crusader Rabbit
Crusader Rabbit
Crusader Rabbit is the first animated series produced specifically for television. The concept was test marketed in 1948, while the initial episode - Crusader vs. the State of Texas - aired on KNBH in Los Angeles, California on August 1, 1950....

. KPIX had a popular Dance Party program on weekday afternoons from its studios during the 1950s and 1960s, hosted by Dick Stewart, who also appeared on a weekly High School Salute program. KPIX has a long-running, locally-produced news magazine. Today KPIX operates from studios on lower Broadway, near the Embarcadero. It has been owned and operated by CBS since November 1995.

KGO-TV

On May 5, 1949, the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 television network launched KGO-TV
KGO-TV
KGO-TV, channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, based in San Francisco, California...

 (Channel 7), which had studios on Golden Gate Avenue (beginning in 1954) and a transmitter on Mount Sutro
Mount Sutro
Mount Sutro is a hill in San Francisco, California. Most of Mount Sutro remains private property owned by the University of California, San Francisco , but a parcel, including the summit, has been set aside as the Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve and is open to the public. It is one of San...

. A number of daytime ABC network shows originated at those studios, including programs featuring Tennessee Ernie Ford
Tennessee Ernie Ford
Ernest Jennings Ford , better known as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was an American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres...

, Jack LaLanne
Jack LaLanne
Francois Henri "Jack" LaLanne was an American fitness, exercise, and nutritional expert and motivational speaker who is sometimes called "the godfather of fitness" and the "first fitness superhero." He described himself as being a "sugarholic" and a "junk food junkie" until he was 15...

, and Gypsy Rose Lee
Gypsy Rose Lee
Gypsy Rose Lee was an American burlesque entertainer famous for her striptease act. She was also an actress, author, and playwright whose 1957 memoir was made into the stage musical and film Gypsy.-Early life:...

. San Francisco's popular disc jockey Don Sherwood
Don Sherwood (disc jockey)
Don Sherwood was an American radio personality. He was a San Francisco, California disc jockey during the 1950s and 1960s. Billed as "The World's Greatest Disc Jockey," Sherwood spent most of his career hosting a 6 to 9 a.m...

 (who had a morning show on KSFO
KSFO (AM)
KSFO is a conservative talk radio station in San Francisco, California, USA, broadcasting on 560 kHz AM. It is owned by Cumulus Media.The content of the KSFO's talk programming is solidly conservative, which is in stark contrast to the rather liberal San Francisco area, with show hosts such as Rush...

 radio) also hosted a program on KGO, until he was fired for complaining on-air about the plight of the Navajo Indians. The station produced a popular children's program King Norman's Kingdom of Toys, hosted by the owner of a local toy store, Norman Rosenberg. The station began carrying ABC's first color program, The Flintstones
The Flintstones
The Flintstones is an animated, prime-time American television sitcom that screened from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966, on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones was about a working class Stone Age man's life with his family and his next-door neighbor and best friend. It...

, in 1962 and was the first to produce live color telecasts in the Bay Area. Today the station has studios at 900 Front Street.

KRON-TV 4

The city's third station was KRON
KRON-TV
KRON-TV, virtual channel 4 , is a television station in San Francisco, California, serving as the Bay Area affiliate of the MyNetworkTV programming service; the station is owned by Young Broadcasting...

 (Channel 4), which began broadcasting on November 15, 1949, with studios in the basement of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

, which owned and operated the station, and a transmitter on San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain in northern San Mateo County, California is the northernmost part of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most of the mountain lies within the San Bruno Mountain State Park, a unique open-space island in the midst of the San Francisco Peninsula's urbanization. Next to the state park is the...

. KRON was long affiliated with the NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 television network; that affiliation passed to KNTV, located in San Jose
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

, in early 2002. KRON was the first Bay Area station to offer programs in RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...

's compatible color, including NBC specials and occasional movies, beginning with The Big Cat, a 1949 Technicolor feature starring Preston Foster
Preston Foster
Preston Foster was an American stage and film actor, and singer. Foster entered films in 1929 after appearing as a Broadway stage actor. He was appearing in Broadway plays as late as October 1931 when he acted in a play titled Two Seconds starring Edward J. Pawley...

 and Forrest Tucker
Forrest Tucker
Forrest Tucker was an American actor in both movies and television from the 1940s to the 1980s. Tucker, who stood 190 cm tall and weighed 93 kg , appeared in nearly 100 action films in the 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:Forrest Meredith Tucker was born in Plainfield, Indiana, a son of...

, shown in 1954. KRON's local children's programs included Fireman Frank, hosted by George Lemont, who utilized puppets and drawings to entertain children; he was succeeded by Art Finley's Mayor Art show, which had begun on Stockton's KOVR
KOVR
KOVR, channel 13, is an owned-and-operated station of the CBS Television Network located in Sacramento, California and licensed to Stockton. KOVR-TV shares its offices and studio facilities with sister station KMAX-TV in West Sacramento, California, and its transmitter is located in Walnut Grove,...

. A longtime staff announcer was Vern Wilson, whose voice was often heard during station I.D.s and whenever technical problems occurred. In 1967, KRON moved from the Chronicle Building to a massive facility on Van Ness Avenue near Civic Center; the production studio was later used for a special live telecast by the Oakland Symphony Orchestra. Today the station is independently owned and operated, producing local programs and carrying syndicated shows.

Before the Transcontinental Microwave

KPIX, KGO, and KRON all relied on filmed network shows until the completion of the transcontinental microwave in September 1951. They also produced a number of local live shows. Some live network shows were preserved on kinescope films, then shipped to the West Coast for later airing. After the microwave radio relay connections were completed, work proceeded on the development of videotape, which was first used extensively by CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 for its West Coast feed of the nightly network newscast hosted by Douglas Edwards
Douglas Edwards
Douglas Edwards was America's first network news television anchor, anchoring CBS's first nightly news broadcast from 1948–1962, which was later to be titled CBS Evening News.-Early life and career:...

, beginning in November 1956. Network shows were usually transmitted in the Bay Area three hours after they aired on the East Coast, a practice still largely followed today.

KQED

Further Reading: KTEH-TV

KQED (Channel 9) was one of the first educational television stations in the nation. The station began broadcasting on April 5, 1954. It was affiliated with National Educational Television
National Educational Television
National Educational Television was an American non-commercial educational public television network in the United States from May 16, 1954 to October 4, 1970...

 (NET), which later became known as the Public Broadcasting Service
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

, better known as PBS. KQED's transmitter tower was originally on San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain in northern San Mateo County, California is the northernmost part of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most of the mountain lies within the San Bruno Mountain State Park, a unique open-space island in the midst of the San Francisco Peninsula's urbanization. Next to the state park is the...

. Like other educational stations, KQED did not air commercials; instead, the station relied on underwriters and viewer support, through the use of regular pledge drives and its annual on-air auction. KQED has produced a number of special programs for PBS and is a regular contributor to the Lehrer Newshour.

KOVR

KOVR
KOVR
KOVR, channel 13, is an owned-and-operated station of the CBS Television Network located in Sacramento, California and licensed to Stockton. KOVR-TV shares its offices and studio facilities with sister station KMAX-TV in West Sacramento, California, and its transmitter is located in Walnut Grove,...

 (Channel 13) in Stockton
Stockton, California
Stockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city...

 began broadcasting on September 6, 1954, using studios both in San Francisco and in Stockton. Until the construction of the huge television tower near Walnut Grove
Walnut Grove, California
Walnut Grove is a census-designated place in Sacramento County, California, United States. It is part of the Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area...

, the station transmitted from Mount Diablo, near Danville
Danville, California
The Town of Danville is located in the San Ramon Valley in Contra Costa County, California. It is one of the incorporated municipalities in California that uses "town" in its name instead of "city". The population was 42,039 in 2010. Danville is one of the wealthiest suburbs of Oakland and San...

, and could be clearly seen in most of the Bay Area. The station was affiliated with ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 for much of that time. Its most popular local program in the 1950s was Toonytown, hosted by Art Finley
Art Finley
Art Finley is a former North American television and radio personality, mostly in San Francisco and Vancouver, until his retirement in 1995....

, before he moved to KRON.

KNTV

KNTV
KNTV
KNTV, channel 11, is the NBC owned-and-operated television station in the Bay Area market. It is licensed to San Jose, with its transmitter located on San Bruno Mountain, just south of San Francisco. It shares facilities in San Jose with NBC Universal sister station KSTS and CNBC's Silicon...

 (Channel 11) began broadcasting from studios in downtown San Jose
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...

 on Park Avenue in 1955. For many years, its transmitter tower was on Loma Prieta
Loma Prieta
Loma Prieta is a Northern California mountain located in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The peak is located on private property, about west of Morgan Hill and within the boundaries of Santa Clara County...

 in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The station was initially affiliated with ABC; today it is owned and operated by NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

. Its transmitter tower is now located on San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain in northern San Mateo County, California is the northernmost part of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most of the mountain lies within the San Bruno Mountain State Park, a unique open-space island in the midst of the San Francisco Peninsula's urbanization. Next to the state park is the...

.

KTVU

KTVU
KTVU
KTVU, virtual channel 2 , is the Fox-affiliated television station serving the San Francisco Bay Area. Licensed to Oakland, California, the station has been owned by Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises since 1964, making it the largest Fox affiliate by market size that is not owned and operated by the...

 (Channel 2) went on the air on March 3, 1958. It has studios in historic Jack London Square
Jack London Square
Jack London Square is a popular tourist attraction on the waterfront of Oakland, California. Named after the author Jack London and owned by the Port of Oakland, it is the home of stores, restaurants, hotels, an Amtrak station, a ferry dock, the historic Saloon, the cabin Jack London lived in the...

 in Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

 and initially used a transmitter tower on San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain in northern San Mateo County, California is the northernmost part of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most of the mountain lies within the San Bruno Mountain State Park, a unique open-space island in the midst of the San Francisco Peninsula's urbanization. Next to the state park is the...

. It was an independent station for many years and was the first station to telecast the San Francisco Giants
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....

 baseball games, whenever the team played the Los Angeles Dodgers
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are a professional baseball team based in Los Angeles, California. The Dodgers are members of Major League Baseball's National League West Division. Established in 1883, the team originated in Brooklyn, New York, where it was known by a number of nicknames before becoming...

 at Chávez Ravine
Chávez Ravine
Chavez Ravine is an area in Sulfir Canyon that is the current site of Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California.It was named after Julian Chavez, a Los Angeles Councilman in the 19th century.-History:...

, through arrangements with KTTV
KTTV
KTTV, channel 11, is an owned-and-operated television station of the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, located in Los Angeles, California. Serving the vast Los Angeles metropolitan area, KTTV is a sister station to KCOP , Los Angeles' MyNetworkTV station...

 in Los Angeles. Don Sherwood hosted a nightly talk show on the station during the late 1950s, often interviewing entertainers who were appearing in the Bay Area. KTVU's children's programming included Captain Satellite, hosted by Bob March. The station aired numerous classic television shows and regular movies, including a Sunday night series called Premiere, which included the first local telecasts (often in color) of classic Warner Brothers films from the 1950s. A Friday night feature in the 1960s was live professional wrestling matches from the KTVU studios, hosted by Walt Harris
Walt Harris
Walt Harris is a former American football player and coach in the United States. Harris served as the head football coach at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California from 1989 to 1991, the University of Pittsburgh from 1997 to 2004, and at Stanford University from 2005 to 2006,...

 with live Chevrolet
Chevrolet
Chevrolet , also known as Chevy , is a brand of vehicle produced by General Motors Company . Founded by Louis Chevrolet and ousted GM founder William C. Durant on November 3, 1911, General Motors acquired Chevrolet in 1918...

 commercials. Another popular KTVU program was Creature Features, initially hosted by Bob Wilkins
Bob Wilkins (Television Personality)
Bob Wilkins was a television personality born as Robert Gene Wilkins in the town of Hammond, Indiana. Wilkins was best known as the creator and host of a popular television show named Creature Features that ran on KTVU in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1971 to 1984, and which premiered with Del...

, a collection of low budget horror and science fiction films, interspersed with interviews of such actors as Buster Crabbe
Buster Crabbe
Clarence Linden "Buster" Crabbe was an American athlete and actor, who starred in a number of popular serials in the 1930s and 1940s.-Birth:...

 and Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...

; John Stanley took over the program when Wilkins gave it up. With the creation of the FOX
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

 television network, KTVU became the Bay Area's affiliate with that network. KTVU has won numerous awards and acclaim for its nightly news program at 10 p.m.

UHF channels

UHF channels in the Bay Area began with KSAN
KMTP-TV
KMTP-TV, channel 32, is an independent, non-commercial television station located in San Francisco, California, USA. Owned and operated by the Minority Television Project, KMTP's has its main studio and offices in Palo Alto, California, and transmitter situated atop Mount Sutro.KMTP airs a large...

, operating on Channel 32, in 1954. KBAY, which was to operate on Channel 20, was intended to be another early UHF station in San Francisco, but it didn't sign on the air until 1968. KSAN had a limited audience because most television sets could only receive UHF with a special converter. Only in markets such as Fresno
Fresno, California
Fresno is a city in central California, United States, the county seat of Fresno County. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 510,365, making it the fifth largest city in California, the largest inland city in California, and the 34th largest in the nation...

 and Bakersfield
Bakersfield, California
Bakersfield is a city near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley in Kern County, California. It is roughly equidistant between Fresno and Los Angeles, to the north and south respectively....

, which had only UHF channels, was there any real reason to purchase such a converter in the 1950s.

Later, in the early 1960s, the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

 (FCC) ruled that all television sets had to have tuners for both VHF and UHF channels. On October 12, 1964, KCSM
KCSM-TV
KCSM-TV, virtual channel 60, is an independent, non-commercial television station located in San Mateo, California, USA. Until 2009, KCSM-TV was a PBS member station...

 began broadcasting on Channel 14 with studios and transmitter on the new College Heights campus of the College of San Mateo
College of San Mateo
College of San Mateo is a community college in San Mateo, California. It is part of the San Mateo County Community College District....

 in San Mateo. The station later switched to Channel 60 and recently began transmitting DTV
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...

 on Channel 43 (where it will remain after the analog shutdown in 2009
DTV transition in the United States
The DTV transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of free over-the-air television programming...

).

By the mid 1960s, more sets were being equipped to receive UHF signals and this led to additional UHF stations, beginning on January 2, 1968, with KBHK, operating on Channel 44, a station owned by Kaiser Broadcasting. In 1968, KSAN was acquired by Metromedia
Metromedia
Metromedia was a media company that owned radio and television stations in the United States from 1956 to 1986 and owned Orion Pictures from 1986-1997.- Overview :...

 and renamed KNEW, then donated to KQED in 1970, which operated it as a secondary PBS channel under the call letters KQEC. The station changed hands again in 1988, becoming a foreign language station known as KMTP-TV
KMTP-TV
KMTP-TV, channel 32, is an independent, non-commercial television station located in San Francisco, California, USA. Owned and operated by the Minority Television Project, KMTP's has its main studio and offices in Palo Alto, California, and transmitter situated atop Mount Sutro.KMTP airs a large...

.

Sutro Tower

In 1972, with the completion of the Sutro Tower
Sutro Tower
Sutro Tower is a three-pronged antenna tower near Clarendon Heights in San Francisco, California. Rising from a hill between Twin Peaks and Mount Sutro, it is a prominent part of the city skyline and a landmark for city residents and visitors...

, KPIX, KGO, KRON, KQED, and KTVU all moved their transmitters to the new 900 feet (274.3 m) tower. Actual transmissions from the new tower began on July 4, 1973 and greatly improved their signals in the hilly terrain of the Bay Area. It was planned to be demolished in 2000, but the measure was overturned.

See also

  • KTVU
    KTVU
    KTVU, virtual channel 2 , is the Fox-affiliated television station serving the San Francisco Bay Area. Licensed to Oakland, California, the station has been owned by Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises since 1964, making it the largest Fox affiliate by market size that is not owned and operated by the...

     (Channel 2)
  • KRON (Channel 4)
  • KPIX (Channel 5)
  • KGO
    KGO-TV
    KGO-TV, channel 7, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Company-owned American Broadcasting Company, based in San Francisco, California...

     (Channel 7)
  • KQED (Channel 9)
  • KNTV
    KNTV
    KNTV, channel 11, is the NBC owned-and-operated television station in the Bay Area market. It is licensed to San Jose, with its transmitter located on San Bruno Mountain, just south of San Francisco. It shares facilities in San Jose with NBC Universal sister station KSTS and CNBC's Silicon...

     (Channel 11)
  • KDTV
    KDTV
    KDTV-DT, channel 14, is a Univision-owned and operated station in San Francisco.-History:KDTV began operation in 1975 on channel 60 as the Bay Area's first exclusively Spanish-language TV station. The station was owned by a local group headed by Reynold Anselmo and affiliated with the Spanish...

     (Channel 14)
  • KOFY (Channel 20)
  • KTSF
    KTSF
    KTSF is an independent television station serving the San Francisco Bay Area. Although licensed to San Francisco, the station's studio building is located in south suburban Brisbane, California. It is owned by Lincoln Broadcasting Company, and broadcasts its digital signal on UHF channel 27 from a...

     (Channel 26)
  • KMTP (Channel 32)
  • KICU (Channel 36)
  • KCNS
    KCNS
    KCNS is a digital television station in San Francisco, California, in the United States, owned by NRJ TV, LLC. It carries programming from the Retro Television Network on its main channel, and programming from Sino TV and Saigon TV on its subchannels. The station operates on 39 digital, covering...

     (Digital Channel 39, formerly Analog Channel 38)
  • KBCW (TV) (Channel 44)
  • KCSM
    KCSM-TV
    KCSM-TV, virtual channel 60, is an independent, non-commercial television station located in San Mateo, California, USA. Until 2009, KCSM-TV was a PBS member station...

     (Channel 60)
  • KKPX
    KKPX
    KKPX-TV, San Jose, California broadcasts on digital channel 41, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. It is an owned and operated affiliate of the Ion Television network.-History:...

     (Digital Channel 41, formerly Analog 65)
  • KFSF (Channel 66)
  • San Francisco, CA
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