KCAL-TV (channel 9) is an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the eart ...

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, United States. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

West Coast flagship KCBS-TV (channel 2). Both stations share studios at the CBS Studio Center on Radford Avenue in the

Studio City Studio City is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California, in the southeast San Fernando Valley, just west of the Cahuenga Pass. It is named after the studio lot that was established in the area by film producer Mack Sennett in 1927, ...

section of Los Angeles, while KCAL-TV's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.

History

KFI-TV (1948–1951)

Channel 9 signed on the air as commercial station KFI-TV on August 25, 1948, owned by

Earle C. Anthony Earle C. Anthony (December 18, 1880—August 6, 1961) was an American businessman and philanthropist based in Los Angeles, California. He worked in broadcasting and automobiles and was also a songwriter, journalist and playwright. Early life ...

alongside KFI radio (640 AM). However, the station was originally licensed as

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...

W6XEA about 1940, and in 1944 applied for the call letters KSEE (which are now used by the NBC affiliate in Fresno, California). It is unknown whether any transmissions occurred under either call sign. The station initially broadcast a limited schedule with six hours weekly, and formally began operations on October 6, 1948, with hours that day. Though KFI had long been affiliated with NBC Radio, KFI-TV did not affiliate with the then-upstart

NBC Television Network The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

as NBC was building its own station, KNBH (channel 4, now KNBC), which went on the air in January 1949. KFI general manager William B. Ryan indicated a willingness to affiliate with a network other than NBC or start a mutual regional network. Channel 9 has been an independent station for virtually its entire history, though it carried DuMont programming from 1954 up until that network's 1956 demise. At the 3rd Emmy Awards in January 1951, the station won in the best educational show category for ''KFI-TV University''.

KHJ-TV (1951–1989)

Channel 9's engineers threatened to go on

strike Strike may refer to: People * Strike (surname) Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm *Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...

in 1951, leading Anthony to sell the station to the

General Tire and Rubber Company Continental Tire the Americas, LLC, d.b.a. General Tire, is an American manufacturer of tires for motor vehicles. Founded in 1915 in Akron, Ohio by William Francis O'Neil, Winfred E. Fouse, Charles J. Jahant, Robert Iredell, & H.B. Pushee as ...

in August of that year. A few months earlier, General Tire had purchased the Don Lee Broadcasting System, a regional West Coast radio network (the original Don Lee television station, KTSL (channel 2), was sold separately to CBS; it evolved into future sister KCBS-TV). Don Lee's flagship station was KHJ radio (930 AM), and General Tire changed its new television station's call letters to KHJ-TV in September 1951. One former employee referred to the call letters as standing for "kindness, happiness and joy," although the call sign was likely randomly assigned. The Don Lee name was so well respected in California broadcasting that KHJ-TV called itself "Don Lee Television" for a few years in the early 1950s, even though it had never been affiliated with KHJ radio until the 1951 deal. In 1955, General Tire purchased

RKO Radio Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orph ...

to give the company's television station group access to RKO's film library. In 1959, General Tire's broadcasting and film divisions were merged as

RKO General RKO General, Inc. (previously General Teleradio, RKO Teleradio Pictures, and RKO Teleradio) was, from 1952 through 1991, the main holding company for the noncore businesses of the General Tire and Rubber Company and, after General Tire's reorganiz ...

. By the mid-1960s, channel 9 offered a standard independent schedule of

movies A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

, off-network reruns, children's shows like ''The Pancake Man'' hosted by Hal Smith (who showed educational shorts like ''

The Space Explorers ''The Space Explorers'' is an animated film created by Fred Ladd that was later turned into a cartoon serial and spawned a sequel series, ''New Adventures of the Space Explorers''. The film aired in 1958; the sequel series aired the following y ...

''), first-run syndicated programs, and locally produced programs including local newscasts, sports events and public affairs programs. In the late 1960s, KHJ embarked on a novel, groundbreaking (and inexpensive) experiment, called ''Tempo'', which heavily borrowed from the

talk radio Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. Most shows are regularly hosted by a single individual, and often featu ...

craze on local radio stations. Daytime programming was divided into three blocks running three hours in length, called ''Tempo I'', ''Tempo II'' and ''Tempo III''. The second of the three programs, ''Tempo II'' was perhaps the most active, controversial and innovative. For the first couple of years the hosts were Stan Bohrman and

Maria Cole Maria Cole ( Hawkins; August 1, 1922 – July 10, 2012) was an American jazz singer and the wife of singer Nat King Cole; mother of the singer Natalie Cole. Early life Cole was born in Boston and was the niece of Charlotte Hawkins Brown. Her ...

(the wife of

Nat King Cole Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued f ...

). Guests ranged from

William F. Buckley William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...

to Sammy Davis, Jr. and the political movers and shakers in Southern California. At one point, Stan even quit the program after what he called censorship on the topic of

Eldridge Cleaver Leroy Eldridge Cleaver (August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998) was an American writer and political activist who became an early leader of the Black Panther Party. In 1968, Cleaver wrote '' Soul on Ice'', a collection of essays that, at the time of i ...

. Bohrman came back to the program and was joined by a new co-host,

Regis Philbin Regis Francis Xavier Philbin (; August 25, 1931 – July 25, 2020)Archived aGhostarchiveand thWayback Machine was an American television presenter, talk show host, game show host, comedian, actor, and singer. Once called "the hardest working ma ...

. They became a very popular fixture in Los Angeles television. In fact, in his book about those days, Philbin credits the chemistry with Bohrman and the format of the program as forerunners of much of what would become the

cable news Cable news channels are television networks devoted to television news broadcasts, with the name deriving from the proliferation of such networks during the 1980s with the advent of cable television. In the United States, the first nationwide ca ...

format 20 years later. In the early 1970s, KHJ-TV sought a similar programming strategy to that of crosstown competitor KTLA (channel 5), which focused more on

talk show A talk show (or chat show in British English) is a television programming or radio programming genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk Sh ...

game show A game show is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment (radio, television, internet, stage or other) where contestants compete for a reward. These programs can either be participatory or demonstrative and are typically directed by a host, ...

s, sports, feature films and off-network

drama series In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-ge ...

. The

cartoons A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of images ...

were phased out (some of them moving to

KTTV KTTV (channel 11) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the Fox network. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV ou ...

and

KCOP-TV KCOP-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox outlet KTTV (channel 11). Both station ...

), and the station ran fewer off-network sitcoms. It did continue to have a weekday children's show called ''Froozles'', which ran until the late 1980s. It also produced many half-hour public affairs programs, as well as a local talk show called ''Mid-Morning L.A.'' The first hosts were Kathy McKee and

Sandy Baron Sandy Baron (born Sanford Irving Beresofsky; May 5, 1936 – January 21, 2001) was an American actor and comedian who performed on stage, in films, and on television. Early life Sanford Beresofsky was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in th ...

on the ''Mid Day'' and ''Good Morning L.A.'' talk shows. Both were hired by KHJ's then-station manager Lional Schaen.

Bob Hilton Robert Wesley Hilton (born July 23, 1943) is an American television game show personality. He hosted ''The Guinness Game'', a revival of '' Truth or Consequences'', and the 1990 revival of ''Let's Make a Deal'' for one season and replaced by Monty ...

Meredith MacRae Meredith Lynn MacRae (May 30, 1944 – July 14, 2000) was an American actress, singer and talk show host. She is most remembered for her roles as Sally Morrison on ''My Three Sons'' (1963–1965) and as Billie Jo Bradley on ''Petticoat Junction ...

Geoff Edwards Geoffrey Bruce Owen Edwards (February 13, 1931 – March 5, 2014) was an American television actor, game show host, and radio personality. Starting in the early 2000s, he was also a writer and broadcaster on the subject of travel. Background P ...

and Regis Philbin also hosted programs on the station well into the 1980s. Edwards and MacRae won Emmy Awards for their hosting duties during the early 1980s. Some other locally produced public affairs programs included the investigative show ''Camera 9'' and ''The Changing Family'', a program about family and social issues during the 1980s. Despite this, KHJ-TV was perceived as an also ran while KTLA was the leading independent station, even though it had a similar format. Meanwhile, a behind-the-scenes battle was underway with serious implications on the station's future—and that of its owner. In 1965, RKO General faced a threat to its license for KHJ-TV from a group called Fidelity Television. At first, Fidelity's claim focused on channel 9's programming quality. Later, Fidelity levied a more serious claim that KHJ-TV was involved in reciprocal trade practices. Fidelity alleged that RKO's parent company, General Tire, forced its retailers to purchase advertising on KHJ-TV and other RKO-owned stations as a condition of their contracts with General Tire. An administrative law judge found in favor of Fidelity, but RKO appealed. In 1972, the FCC allowed RKO to keep the license for KHJ-TV, but two years later conditioned future renewals on the renewal of sister station

WNAC-TV WNAC-TV (channel 64), branded on-air as Fox Providence, is a television station in Providence, Rhode Island, United States, affiliated with Fox and The CW. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) ...

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. Six years later, the FCC stripped WNAC-TV of its license for numerous reasons, but largely because RKO had misled the commission about corporate misconduct at General Tire. The decision was affirmed after the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in April 1982. The FCC awarded a replacement license for channel 7 in Boston to New England Television, a merger of two competing groups for a new channel 7. RKO General sold off WNAC-TV's non-license assets to New England Television, who used them to launch WNEV-TV (now WHDH) in place of WNAC-TV that May 21. The WNAC-TV decision also meant KHJ-TV and sister station WOR-TV in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

had lost their licenses, but an appeals court ruled that the FCC erred when it tied channel 9's renewal to that of WNAC-TV and ordered new hearings for KHJ-TV and WOR-TV. The hearings dragged on for five years; as a result of this, the station was forced to air an unusually large amount of public-affairs programming; a combination of this and the station's cash reserves being drained by RKO's legal battles led to decreased ratings (and the station's perception as an "also-ran"). For a time, KHJ-TV's large slate of sports programming was virtually the only thing keeping the station afloat. On August 11, 1987, FCC

administrative law judge An administrative law judge (ALJ) in the United States is a judge and trier of fact who both presides over trials and adjudicates claims or disputes involving administrative law. ALJs can administer oaths, take testimony, rule on questions of evi ...

Edward Kuhlmann found RKO General unfit to be a broadcast licensee due to numerous cases of dishonesty on both its part and that of parent company

GenCorp Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. is a holding company of Aerojet Rocketdyne, an American manufacturer of rocket, hypersonic, and electric propulsive systems for space, defense, civil and commercial applications. Aerojet traces its origins to the ...

(the renamed General Tire), including fraudulent billing and lying about its ratings. Kuhlman ordered that all of RKO General's broadcast licenses be revoked. This ruling notably excluded WOR-TV, which had already been divested to

MCA Inc. MCA Inc. (originally an initialism for Music Corporation of America) was an American media conglomerate founded in 1924. Originally a talent agency with artists in the music business as clients, the company became a major force in the film ind ...

nine months prior, and was renamed

WWOR-TV WWOR-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area as the flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox flagship WNYW ...

. GenCorp initially filed an appeal, only to withdraw it after the FCC warned that any appeal would almost certainly be denied outright. The FCC strongly advised GenCorp to divest its remaining properties in order to avoid the indignity of additional license stripping without any compensation.

KCAL-TV (1989–present)

Disney ownership (1989–1996)

In the midst of RKO's corporate issues, the company reached terms to sell KHJ-TV to

Westinghouse Broadcasting The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, also known as Group W, was the broadcasting division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It owned several radio and television stations across the United States and distributed television shows for syndicat ...

in November 1985. But the protracted legal issues delayed FCC action on the transfer and Westinghouse ultimately withdrew its offer. A short time later, RKO General agreed to sell the station to

The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Disney Stud ...

; however, this transfer was also held up for over a year for the same reasons. Fidelity Television, the group that originally challenged the license in 1965, also argued against the sale. In July 1988, the FCC allowed Disney to acquire channel 9 in a complicated settlement. RKO dropped its bid to renew the station's license, handing it to Fidelity Television. Disney would then buy the channel 9 license from Fidelity and KHJ-TV's non-license assets (

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

, studios, etc.) from RKO. The final purchase price was $324 million. As a result of the sale, KHJ-TV's entire management team, including longtime general manager Charles Velona, was dismissed. In the following months, several of the station's newscasters were pushed out as well. During the RKO/Fidelity/Disney transition, KHJ-TV's

city of license In American, Canadian, and Mexican broadcasting, a city of license or community of license is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator. In North American br ...

was changed to the Los Angeles suburb of Norwalk, also as part of the FCC settlement. For all intents and purposes, though, it remained a Los Angeles station; the license was moved back to Los Angeles proper on October 28, 1991. On December 2, 1989, Disney changed the station's callsign to KCAL-TV, and rebranded the station as "California 9", selected from a shortlist of three possible monikers. Channel 9's longtime radio sisters had changed their calls to

KRTH KRTH (101.1 FM, "K-Earth 101") is a commercial radio station that is licensed to Los Angeles, California, United States and serves the Greater Los Angeles area. The station is owned by Audacy, Inc. and broadcasts a classic hits format. KRTH's st ...

some years before, so Disney was theoretically free to continue trading on the KHJ call letters' 66-year legacy in Southern California. However, newly hired station manager Blake Byrne said that market research revealed the station was seen as a "non-entity," leading Disney to conclude that it needed a fresh start. Disney did, however, keep a fresco mural of RKO stars in the station lobby. The station also continued to overhaul its format in the wake of its ownership change, adding a three-hour prime time newscast on March 5, 1990, featuring veteran newscasters

Jerry Dunphy Gerald Raymond Dunphy (June 9, 1921 – May 20, 2002) was an American television news anchor in the Los Angeles/Southern California media market. He was best known for his intro "From the desert to the sea, to all of Southern California, a go ...

Pat Harvey Pat Harvey is an American broadcast journalist. She joined KCAL 9 in Los Angeles in 1989, and in 2010 began co-anchoring for KCAL sister station KCBS news at 5, 6 & 11PM. She is the longest-running anchor in prime time at one station in Los An ...

, Larry Carroll and

Jane Velez-Mitchell Jane Velez-Mitchell is a television and social media journalist and author, with specialities in vegan lifestyles, animal rights, addiction and social justice. Early life and career Born to a Puerto Rican mother and an Irish American father, Ve ...

. KCAL also added many more children's programs, including cartoons from the Walt Disney animation library (including the syndicated series ''

DuckTales ''DuckTales'' is an American animated television series produced by Disney Television Animation. The original cartoon series premiered on syndication and on Disney Channel on September 18, 1987 and ran for a total of 100 episodes over four sea ...

'' and ''

Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers may refer to: * ''Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers'' (TV series), 1989 television series * ''Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers'' (film), 2022 film * ''Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers'' (video game), 1990 game based on the TV series ...

'', and later ''

The Disney Afternoon The Disney Afternoon (later known internally as the Disney-Kellogg Alliance when unbranded), sometimes abbreviated as TDA, was a created-for-syndication two-hour programming block of animated television series. It was produced by Walt Disney T ...

''). The station also added a few more family-oriented off-network sitcoms and syndicated programs and then broadcast the popular

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

series '' Sailor Moon'', Eisner, Michael D. (Mar 22, 2011). Chapter 7: Animation. Chapter pages 48-52
Work in Progress: Risking Failure, Surviving Success
Hyperion. that lasted well into 1997. In the early 1990s, family sitcoms were gradually phased out and KCAL added more first-run syndicated talk,

reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence. In physical terms, r ...

and

court show A court show (also known as a judge show, legal/courtroom program, courtroom series, or judicial show) is a broadcast programming subgenre of either legal dramas or reality legal programming. Court shows present content mainly in the form of lega ...

s, as well as

newsmagazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories, in greater depth than do newspapers or n ...

series. On March 30, 1992, Disney agreed to sell KCAL-TV's license to Pinelands, Inc., then the parent company of channel 9's former New York City sister station, now called

. Disney would have received a 45% ownership stake in Pinelands, allowing for increased original programming to be shared between the two reunited stations. The planned merger never materialized; Pineland would agree to sell WWOR-TV to Chris-Craft Industries, then-parent of KCOP (channel 13). In 1995, the station adopted its current branding, "K-CAL 9."

Young Broadcasting ownership (1996–2002)

In 1996, The Walt Disney Company purchased

Capital Cities/ABC Capital Cities/ABC Inc. was an American media company. It was founded in 1985 when Capital Cities Communications purchased the much larger American Broadcasting Company. It eventually proposed a merger of equals with The Walt Disney Company and ...

, owners of

KABC-TV KABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast of the United States, West Coast Flagship (broadcasting), flagship of the American Broadcasting Company, ABC network. ...

(channel 7). Due to FCC regulations at the time that barred the ownership of two television stations in the same media market, Disney purchased KABC-TV and chose to divest KCAL, which was purchased by

Young Broadcasting Young Broadcasting, LLC was an American media company that owned or operated 12 television stations in 10 markets with a total U.S. television household coverage of 5.9%. The company was formerly known as Young Broadcasting Inc. and was the outgr ...

(which Disney owned a stake in at the time) on May 14, 1996, for $385 million. The afternoon children's program block would remain until 1999, when KCOP began airing a block of animated series that

UPN The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which pr ...

contracted Disney to produce. By 2000, children's programs that aired during the morning hours were dropped as well under the ownership of Young Broadcasting.

CBS ownership (2002–present)

As a result of a massive debt load that the company had accrued from its 2000 purchase of its

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

station,

KRON-TV KRON-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area as an affiliate of MyNetworkTV. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, KRON-TV maintains studios on Front Street in the c ...

(which lost its NBC affiliation in January 2002 due to a dispute between Young and the network), Young Broadcasting put KCAL up for sale in 2002. The station was purchased by CBS, then a subsidiary of Viacom, on February 14, 2002; the deal was finalized on June 1, 2002. KCAL's operations were merged with those of KCBS-TV, and channel 9 moved from its longtime headquarters at the Viacom-owned

Paramount Studios Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-oldest ...

Melrose Avenue Melrose Avenue is a shopping, dining and entertainment destination in Los Angeles that starts at Santa Monica Boulevard, at the border between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. It ends at Lucile Avenue in Silver Lake. Melrose runs north of Bev ...

in Hollywood to

CBS Columbia Square CBS Columbia Square (also called Columbia Studio) was the home of CBS's Los Angeles radio and television operations from 1938 until 2007. Located at 6121 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, the building housed the CBS Radio Network's West Coast facil ...

, located north of the studio lot; the Melrose Avenue facility was subsequently occupied by then-sister station

(which had previously been based out of the Columbia Square facility), and is currently used by the Paramount studio tour. The sale reunited the station with fellow former RKO General property KRTH-FM, which CBS had acquired in 1997. The properties were split again when CBS spun off its radio division to Entercom (now

Audacy, Inc. Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corporation, it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning 235 radio stations across 48 media ...

) in 2017. When CBS/Viacom bought KCAL-TV, broadcasting industry observers speculated that UPN's programming would move to KCAL from KCOP-TV. KCOP's previous owners, Chris-Craft Industries, had co-founded UPN with Viacom in 1995, and owned 50% of the network before selling its stake in UPN to Viacom in 2000.

Fox Television Stations Fox Television Stations, LLC (FTS; alternately Fox Television Stations Group, LLC), is a group of television stations located within the United States, which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Co ...

purchased KCOP and most of Chris-Craft's UPN stations in 2001. However, CBS continued to operate channel 9 as an independent station, as Fox renewed its affiliation agreement for its UPN affiliates; it is widely believed that Fox used KCOP as leverage to keep UPN on Fox-owned stations in New York City (WWOR-TV, KCAL's former sister station) and

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

(

WPWR-TV WPWR-TV (channel 50) is a television station licensed to Gary, Indiana, United States, broadcasting the MyNetworkTV programming service to the Chicago area. It is one of two commercial television stations in the Chicago market to be licensed in ...

), threatening to drop the network in those markets should Viacom move the UPN affiliation in Los Angeles to KCAL. This issue became moot with the January 2006 announcement of the merger of UPN and

The WB The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on terrestrial television, broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture be ...

into

The CW Television Network ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

. The new network launched on September 18, 2006, with former WB affiliate KTLA as its Los Angeles outlet, due to an affiliation agreement with owner

Tribune Broadcasting Tribune Broadcasting Company, LLC was an American media company which operated as a subsidiary of Tribune Media, a media conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois. The group owned and operated television and radio stations throughout the United St ...

that resulted in 16 of Tribune's WB affiliates joining the network. KCAL-TV remains an independent station, and is currently one of five such stations owned by CBS (the others are

KTXA KTXA (channel 21) is an independent television station in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside Fort Worth–based CBS station KTVT (channel 11). B ...

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

– Fort Worth,

WLNY-TV WLNY-TV (channel 55) is an independent television station licensed to Riverhead, New York, United States, serving the New York City television market. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS flagship WCBS-TV (channel 2). ...

WSBK-TV WSBK-TV (channel 38) is an independent television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS owned-and-operated station WBZ-TV (channel 4). Both stations share studios on So ...

, and

WBFS-TV WBFS-TV (channel 33) is an independent television station in Miami, Florida, United States. It is owned by the CBS News and Stations group alongside CBS owned-and-operated station WFOR-TV (channel 4). Both stations share studios on Northwest 1 ...

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

–

Fort Lauderdale A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

). On April 21, 2007, KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV moved from Columbia Square to an all-digital facility at the CBS Studio Center in Studio City. The move allowed both stations to begin broadcasting all locally produced programs in high definition, and in addition, the two stations operate in a completely tapeless newsroom. This newsroom is named in honor newscaster Jerry Dunphy, who worked at both stations during his career. With the move to Studio City and KCET's later move to Burbank, KTLA is currently the only remaining station in Los Angeles (either in radio or television) whose studios are operated out of Hollywood. KCAL-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 9, at 1:10 p.m. on June 12, 2009, and converted its broadcasts exclusively to digital television as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.List of Digital Full-Power Stations
The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 43 to VHF channel 9.FCC DTV status report for KCAL
/ref> Sister station KCBS-TV took over the channel 43 allocation as it moved its digital signal from channel 60 as a result of the phaseout of channels 52–69. On December 4, 2019, CBS Corporation and Viacom remerged into ViacomCBS (now

Paramount Global Paramount Global ( doing business as Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned and operated by National Amusements (79.4%) and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York. ...

Programming

Although KCAL-TV is an independent station, it will occasionally air CBS network programming due to extended breaking news coverage or special events that may result in programs being unable to air on KCBS-TV. Syndicated programs on KCAL-TV (as of November 2022) include ''

Hot Bench ''Hot Bench'' is a nontraditional panel-based court show that made its debut in first-run syndication on September 15, 2014. The series is produced by ''Judge Judy''s Judge Judy Sheindlin, who also created the program and concept with executi ...

'', ''

Judge Mathis ''Judge Mathis'' is an American syndicated arbitration-based reality court show presided over by Judge Greg Mathis, a former judge of Michigan's 36th District Court and Black-interests motivational speaker/activist. The courtroom series prem ...

'', ''

The People's Court ''The People's Court'' is an American arbitration-based reality court show, featuring an arbitrator handling small claims disputes in a simulated courtroom set. Within the court show genre, it is the first of all arbitration-based reality sty ...

'', '' Funny You Should Ask'', ''

Family Feud ''Family Feud'' is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson. It features two families who compete to name the most popular answers to survey questions in order to win cash and prizes. The show has had three separate runs, th ...

'', and '' The Neighborhood''. For E/I programming, KCAL has the '' Go Time'' syndicated block. KCAL was the Southern California home of the annual ''

MDA Labor Day Telethon The ''MDA Labor Day Telethon'' was an annual telethon held on (starting the night before and throughout) Labor Day in the United States to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). The Muscular Dystrophy Association was founded i ...

'' between 1997 and 2011. In June 1979, KHJ-TV aired "Thames on 9", a week-long prime time programming stunt that featured programs from

Thames Television Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a franchise holder for a region of the British ITV television network serving London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992. Thames Television broa ...

, then a member of the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

ITV network. Shows that aired during that week included ''

Man About the House ''Man About the House'' is a British sitcom created by Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer that starred Richard O'Sullivan, Paula Wilcox, Sally Thomsett, Yootha Joyce and Brian Murphy. Six series were broadcast on ITV from 15 August 1973 to 7 A ...

'' (on which the American sitcom ''

Three's Company ''Three's Company'' is an American sitcom television series that aired for eight seasons on ABC from March 15, 1977, to September 18, 1984. It is based on the British sitcom '' Man About the House''. The story revolves around three single room ...

'' was based) and ''

The Benny Hill Show ''The Benny Hill Show'' is a British comedy television show starring Benny Hill that aired on the BBC and ITV (from 1969) between 15 January 1955 and 1 May 1989. The show consisted mainly of sketches that were full of slapstick, mime, parody ...

''; a similar stunt had aired on KHJ-TV's former New York City sister station WOR-TV two years earlier. From 1981 to 1985, KHJ-TV was home to ''

Elvira's Movie Macabre ''Elvira's Movie Macabre'' (titled on-screen as ''Movie Macabre with Elvira, Mistress of the Dark'' in its original run), or simply ''Movie Macabre'', is an American hosted horror movie television program that originally aired locally from 1981 ...

''. KHJ-TV was home to the live broadcast of the Strawberry Festival Parade in Garden Grove, California, from 1986 until 1989.

Sports programming

For much of its history overall, sports have been a part of channel 9's identity. Indeed, during the station's two-decade licensing dispute, its large slate of sports programming was essentially the only thing that kept it as part of the Southern California television landscape. KCAL-TV previously held the broadcast television rights to the

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...

baseball team, carrying a slate of games from 2006 to 2013, televising at least 50 games each year, with all telecasts being broadcast in high definition. In 2014, KCAL lost rights to the Dodger telecasts to the cable-exclusive

regional sports network In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region. ...

SportsNet LA Spectrum SportsNet LA and Spectrum Deportes LA (otherwise known as simply SportsNet LA and Deportes LA and originally known as Time Warner Cable SportsNet LA) is an American regional sports network jointly owned by the Los Angeles Dodgers Major L ...

, which is co-owned by the team and

Charter Communications Charter Communications, Inc., is an American telecommunications and mass media company with services branded as Spectrum. With over 32 million customers in 41 states, it is the second-largest cable operator in the United States by subscribe ...

. Channel 9 is best known as the longtime broadcast home of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers. The station carried Lakers games from

1961 Events January * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and consular relations with Cuba (Cuba–United States relations are restored in 2015). ** Aero Flight 311 (K ...

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...

(as KHJ-TV), and again from

1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democrat ...

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...

. The latter 35 years were the NBA's longest consecutive station-team broadcast partnership, and coincided with the Lakers' golden eras of the 1980s and early 2000s. For most of channel 9's second stint with the Lakers, it aired road games only. In 2012, KCAL lost rights to the Lakers telecasts to the cable-exclusive regional sports network Spectrum SportsNet and Spectrum Deportes which was renamed in 2016 after the merger of

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...

and Charter Communications. From 1961 to 1963, KHJ-TV was the first television home of the

Los Angeles Angels The Los Angeles Angels are an American professional baseball team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Angels compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. Since 1966, the team h ...

; the baseball team's telecasts moved to KTLA in 1964, when then-Angels owner Gene Autry's Golden West Broadcasters purchased that station. The television rights to Angels games returned to KCAL-TV in 1996 (The Walt Disney Company's ownership interest in the Angels briefly overlapped its stewardship of the station), and added more basketball coverage that same year with the

Los Angeles Clippers The Los Angeles Clippers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Clippers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division in the league's Western Conference. The Clipper ...

, in addition to its Lakers telecasts. The station and the Clippers parted ways in 2001 as they eventually moved their over-the-air telecasts to KTLA, while the Angels left KCAL after the 2005 season, moving to KCOP the following year. In addition, KCAL had broadcast select weekend

Mighty Ducks of Anaheim Mighty may refer to: * ''Mighty'' (The Planet Smashers album) * ''Mighty'' (Kristene DiMarco album) * ''The Mighty'' (1929 film), a 1929 American action film *'' The Mighty'', a 1998 comedy-drama film * ''The Mighty'' (comics), a DC Comics title * ...

games from the

NHL The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

team's inaugural season in

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peacefu ...

(both the team and KCAL were Disney properties until 1996) until 2006, when the Ducks moved their over-the-air broadcasts to Anaheim-based independent station

KDOC-TV KDOC-TV (channel 56) is a religious television station licensed to Anaheim, California, United States, serving the Los Angeles area as an owned-and-operated station of Tri-State Christian Television (TCT). The station maintains studios on East F ...

. Also, at the end of the 2013 season, the Dodgers would part ways with KCAL-TV (becoming cable-exclusive on SportsNet LA, although a few games per season have been seen on KTLA since 2016), thus ending the station's 36-year run of local sports coverage. KCAL was also home to the NHL's

Los Angeles Kings The Los Angeles Kings are a professional ice hockey team based in Los Angeles. The team competes in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Pacific Division in the Western Conference and was founded on June 5, 1967, after Jack Kent ...

in the early 1980s and again during the mid-to-late 1990s. KCAL also carried select

Los Angeles Galaxy LA Galaxy, also known as the Los Angeles Galaxy, are an American professional soccer club based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Galaxy competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), as a member of the Western Conference. The club began pla ...

Major League Soccer games until 2005, when the games became cable-exclusive to

Fox Sports West Bally Sports West is an American regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group, a joint venture between Sinclair Broadcast Group and Entertainment Studios, and operated as part of Bally Sports, along with its sister network Bally Spor ...

. In 1997, KCAL premiered the first fifteen-minute weekday sports report ''Final Quarter'', the show was an expansion of the typical five-minute sports report seen towards the end of a newscast. Several years later, the show was renamed ''KCAL 9 Sports News'' and with the purchase by CBS and the formation of the duopoly between KCAL and KCBS-TV, was renamed ''Sports Central''; the show has since expanded to a half-hour broadcast on Friday through Sunday evenings. Channel 9 has aired preseason coverage of the NFL's

Chargers The Los Angeles Chargers are a professional American football team based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Chargers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) West division, and ...

(then based in San Diego) from 2005 to

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...

, and aired games from the Chargers'

AFC West The American Football Conference – Western Division or AFC West is one of the four divisions of the American Football Conference (AFC) in the National Football League (NFL). The division comprises the Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs, Las ...

Division rival, the Raiders (then based in Oakland) in 2006 (whose preseason games also aired on the station during the mid-1990s). Although Los Angeles returned to the NFL in the 2016 season via the

Rams In engineering, RAMS (reliability, availability, maintainability and safety)2017 season. KCAL broadcast two ''

NFL on CBS The ''NFL on CBS'' is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that are produced by CBS Sports, the sports division of the CBS television network in the United States. The network has aired NFL game telecasts sin ...

'' games during the 2017 regular season as part of an arrangement with the NFL that saw CBS get both a Rams and Chargers game on weeks when

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

had the doubleheader. Since its founding in 1994 until 2008, KCAL was the originating station of the annual John R. Wooden Classic

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

game.

Newscasts

KCAL-TV presently broadcasts a total of 32¾ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 4¾ hours each weekday and 4½ hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); in regards to the number of hours devoted to news programming, it is the fifth-highest local newscast output of any television station in the Los Angeles market (behind KTLA, which runs 89 hours, 20 minutes of newscasts each week; ABC-owned KABC-TV, which runs 51 hours, 25 minutes each week;

-owned KTTV, which runs 49 hours each week, and

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

-owned KNBC, which runs 39 hours, 25 minutes each week). Because of the amount of news programming on the station, channel 9 is known for showing the most police chases among the Los Angeles market's news-producing stations. Often regular news programming on KCAL is suspended to cover a police chase, and programs that follow the newscast are sometimes preempted to show the chase's conclusion. In 2003, KCAL reported a quadrupling of ratings every time a police chase was shown, with up to 1.6 million viewers watching at a given time during such events. Between 2012 and 2020 (when he moved to KTTV), chases were often shown with the voice and in-air helicopter camera work of Stu Mundel; since 2021, former KNX pilot Desmond Shaw took over Mundel's role as the duopoly's chief helicopter reporter. In the 1970s, KHJ-TV aired a prime time newscast at 10 p.m., which was moved to 9 p.m. during the 1980s; the station subsequently added a half-hour 8 p.m. newscast during the late 1980s, and also carried afternoon newscasts throughout this time. Some of its most notable personalities included anchors George Putnam, Chris Harris, Stan Bohrman, Tom Lawrence, Nathan Roberts, Lonnie Lardner, Linda Edwards and weather personality Andrew Amador. Shortly after taking over, Disney invested $30 million on upgrading the station's news department, tripling the number of staff and investing on electronic news equipment, including expanding the stations' studio facility at Paramount Studios to house a new newsroom and studio; the station also hired veteran newscasters Jerry Dunphy, Pat Harvey, Larry Carroll and Jane Velez-Mitchell. After retaining, in the interim, the existing 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. newcasts, and a delay on its launch from January 15, in March 5, 1990, Disney implemented the concept of a prime time news block, with the three-hour long ''Prime 9 News'' airing from 8 to 11 p.m. A few years later in the early 1990s, KCAL added a short-lived half-hour newscast at 6:30 p.m. called ''First 9 News'', which focused primarily on local news and competed against the national network newscasts aired on KCBS-TV, KNBC and KABC-TV (KCBS also aired a 6:30 p.m. newscast during the mid to late 1990s, while the ''

CBS Evening News The ''CBS Evening News'' is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The ''CBS Evening News'' is a daily evening broadcast featuring news reports, feature st ...

'' aired at 5:30 p.m.). Under Disney ownership, more daytime newscasts were added to channel 9 weekdays at 2 and 3 p.m., and the 6:30 p.m. newscast was discontinued (a local newscast returned to that timeslot in the market in January 2009, when KTLA launched its own 6:30 p.m. newscast). KCAL is notable for airing newscasts during unconventional time periods; the station maintains the large amount of local newscasts that it presently does (which is far more than what is typical of most stations involved in a duopoly with a major network station) simply due to the fact that KCAL and KCBS-TV's newscasts air in timeslots that do not compete against one another, as a result, the station's newscast schedule remained unchanged after KCAL merged its operations with KCBS. Along with newscasts at noon (where it competes against KTTV), 4 p.m. (where it competes against KABC and KNBC) and 10 p.m. (where it competes against KTLA and KTTV), and seven nights a week at 8 and 9 p.m. KCAL's newscasts are variable in tone, depending on the timeslot. Its 8 p.m. newscast is generally an update on the day's news, which largely features stories focusing on California and the Los Angeles area (and was previously branded as the ''California Report'' during the ''Prime 9 News'' era). Its 9 p.m. newscast is generally the most serious in format (and was branded in previous years as the ''Prime 9 News World Report''), that newscast prominently features political, business and international news. The noon newscast, on the other hand, features lighter stories, including features on food, health and the entertainment industry. The 4 p.m. newscast was essentially a repurposed KCBS-TV newscast and was presented by former channel 2 anchors Harold Greene and Ann Martin, who did not appear recently elsewhere on KCAL. The 4 p.m. newscast moved to KCAL from KCBS-TV in 2002 to make room for '' Dr. Phil'', which by contractual stipulations was not allowed to air opposite ''

The Oprah Winfrey Show ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', often referred to as ''The Oprah Show'' or simply ''Oprah'', is an American daytime syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in Chicago, Illinois. Produced ...

'' (which aired in Los Angeles on KABC-TV at 3 p.m., until its syndication run ended in September 2011). Its 10 p.m. newscast is simply more of an update of the 8 p.m. news (and during the ''Prime 9 News'' era, was simply branded as the ''10 O'Clock Report''), as it competes with KTTV and KTLA (and in the past, KCOP), though in recent years, it has been shortened to 30 minutes, in order to make way for the local sports news program ''Sports Central''. On April 1, 2008, CBS Television Stations ordered widespread budget cuts and staff layoffs from its stations. As a result of the budget cuts, roughly 10 to 15 staffers were released from KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV, including reporters Jennifer Sabih, Greg Phillips and Jennifer Davis. 4 p.m. co-anchors Greene and Martin, who were then also the 6 p.m. anchors on KCBS-TV, were also said to have been on the layoff list, but both decided to retire from television upon the June 2009 expiration of their contracts. On April 23, 2009, former KTTV anchor Rick Garcia joined KCAL, and was paired with Pat Harvey as co-anchor of the station's weeknight 8 and 10 p.m. newscasts (Garcia is now paired with Sharon Tay, as Harvey moved to sister station KCBS-TV to co-anchor that station's 5 and 11 p.m. newscasts).

NewsCentral era

On September 19, 2009, KCBS and KCAL rebranded the newscasts on both stations to the unified ''NewsCentral'' branding (unrelated to

Sinclair Broadcast Group Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...

's now-defunct national news division of the same name; CBS coincidentally owns former Sinclair station

KOVR KOVR (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Stockton, California, United States, broadcasting the CBS network to the Sacramento area. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside CW affiliate ...

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

). The newscasts were refocused to cover more community news, including stories from outlying communities. Local news headlines from the

Los Angeles Newspaper Group The Southern California News Group (SCNG), formerly the San Gabriel Valley News Group and the Los Angeles News Group, is an umbrella group of local daily newspapers published in the greater Los Angeles area by Digital First Media, which is owned ...

and MediaNews Group newspapers were displayed on a ticker, "street team" submissions of video and photos from viewers were featured, reporters ended stories with ''NewsCentral'' rather than the individual station brands, and microphone flags and news vehicles were branded to show both stations' logos at once (previously, the KCBS and KCAL logos were displayed on alternating sides). Under the ''NewsCentral'' format, the two stations claimed that they covered more local news than any other television station in the country (with reporters in

Ventura County Ventura County () is a County (United States), county in Southern California, the southern part of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 843,843. The largest city is Oxnard, California ...

, the Inland Empire and

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

), and the only Los Angeles television station with two helicopters (subcontracted to Angel City Air, owned by reporter Larry Welk).

Ed Asner Eddie Asner (; November 15, 1929 – August 29, 2021) was an American actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild. He is best remembered for portraying Lou Grant during the 1970s and early 1980s, on both ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show'' a ...

was used to introduce the new newscast. CBS denies this move was made in response to other stations pooling newsgathering resources. On December 10, 2009, CBS Television Stations hired Steve Mauldin to replace Patrick McClenahan as president and general manager of the KCBS-KCAL duopoly. That week, the duopoly ultimately rescinded the ''NewsCentral'' branding, reverting to the "CBS2" and "KCAL9" news identities. The ''NewsCentral'' graphics, mic flags and logos remained in use during the interim, though on-air staff no longer used the ''NewsCentral'' identity.

Recent history

On January 14, 2012, KCAL debuted two-hour-long weekend morning newscasts (airing at 7 a.m. on Saturdays and on Sundays, which follow one-hour newscasts on KCBS); the programs are KCAL's first morning newscasts—ironically though, channel 9 is the only news-producing station in the market that does not have a news program on weekday mornings. On December 10, 2014, KCAL announced it would be dropping its hour long 2 p.m. and half hour 3 p.m. newscasts before the end of the year to be replaced by ''

'' and ''

''. As a result, the 4 p.m. newscast was truncated from an hour to 30 minutes, and ''Inside Edition'' moved from 3:30 p.m. to the 4:30 p.m. slot previously occupied by the other half of the 4 p.m. newscast. As of September 11, 2017, KCAL has reinstated the second half-hour of the 4 p.m. newscast and making the news a full hour. On July 12, 2022, KCAL announced that it would launch a seven-hour morning newscast from 4 to 11 a.m. in the fall of that year, marking the first-ever weekday morning newscast in the station's history. KCBS airs the live East Coast edition of ''

CBS Mornings ''CBS Mornings'' is an American morning television program which is broadcast on CBS. The program debuted on September 7, 2021, and airs live every weekday from 7:00a.m. to 9:00a.m. It is hosted by Gayle King, Tony Dokoupil, and Nate Burleso ...

'' from 4 to 6 a.m., simulcasts one hour of KCAL's morning newscast at 6 a.m., then airs the West Coast edition of the former show in its traditional 7–9 a.m. slot.

Notable alumni

* Andrew Amador *

(died 2002) * Mike Emanuel *

Carter Evans Carter Evans is an American journalist who is CBS News' Los Angeles-based correspondent. Biography Carter Evans was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. In 1998, he graduated with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism and a minor in Philosophy from Ithaca Colleg ...

(now Los Angeles correspondent for CBS News) *

Rich Fields Richard Wayne Fields (born November 30, 1960) is an American broadcaster, spokesman, announcer, and meteorologist. He is best known for a seven-season stint in which he announced for the American version of ''The Price Is Right''. Early life and ...

* Hal Fishman (died 2007) * Harold Greene (retired) *

(now with KCBS-TV) * Jim Hill (now with KCBS-TV) * Sharon Ito *

Lisa Joyner Lisa Marie Joyner (born December 31, 1966) is an American entertainment reporter and television host. Life and career Joyner has reported on celebrity news in the Los Angeles area for KTTV and KCBS-TV. She first gained national recognition for h ...

* Kristine Leahy *

Tawny Little Tawny Little (née Godin; born September 15, 1956), Miss America 1976 and Miss New York 1975, is an American television personality. Early life and education Godin was born in Portland, Maine. She was raised in Yonkers, New York and Toronto, Ont ...

Dave Malkoff Dave Malkoff (born March 1, 1976) is an American television journalist working for The Weather Channel. He has covered some of the most destructive hurricanes in US history. Dave has hosted more than a dozen documentaries that air on the networ ...

(now with

The Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather foreca ...

) * Ann Martin (retired) * Byron Miranda (now with

WPIX WPIX (channel 11) is a television station in New York City. Owned by Mission Broadcasting, it is operated under a local marketing agreement (LMA) by Nexstar Media Group, making it a ''de facto'' owned-and-operated station and flagship of Th ...

) *

Leyna Nguyen Leyna Nguyen (born December 13, 1969)First Viet-Am wins two ...

* Charles Perez * Cassandra Peterson (host of ''

'', retained full rights to the Elvira character after departing KHJ-TV) * Hank Plante (retired from

KPIX-TV KPIX-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's CBS network outlet. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside C ...

in San Francisco) * George Putnam (died 2008) * Bill Ritter – Reporter (Now at WABC) *

Tracie Savage Tracie Savage is an American actress and journalist. She has starred in movies and on television. Life and career Savage was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan and raised in the Detroit area. Shortly after her brother, fellow actor Brad Savage (Danny G ...

* David Sheehan *

Kent Shocknek Kent Shocknek is an American television and film personality who branched into acting toward the end of a successful career as a TV newscaster. Because of the length of his journalism career, duration of his broadcasts, and breaking news events, ...

(retired) *

Don Steele Don Steele (born Donald Steele Revert; April 1, 1936 – August 5, 1997) was one of the most popular disc jockeys in the United States from the middle of the 1960s until his retirement (for health reasons) in May 1997. He was better known as ...

(host of ''The Real Don Steele Show''; died 1997) *

Mark Steines Mark Anthony Steines (born June 7, 1964) is an American broadcast journalist and actor who was host of the syndicated gossip and entertainment round-up program '' Entertainment Tonight'' from 2004 to 2012, joining the program on August 24, 1995. ...

(later co-host of '' Entertainment Tonight'') *

(later host of ''

'' on HLN)

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

Translators

References

External links

*
KHJ-KCAL-TV logos and screenshots from 1950s to the present day
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kcal-Tv CBS News and Stations Independent television stations in the United States Stadium (sports network) affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1948 1948 establishments in California CAL-TV RKO General National Hockey League over-the-air television broadcasters Major League Soccer over-the-air television broadcasters Former subsidiaries of The Walt Disney Company