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KPYX (channel 44), branded as KPIX+, is an
independent television station An independent station is a broadcast station, usually a television station, not affiliated with a larger broadcast network. As such, it only broadcasts syndicated programs it has purchased; brokered programming, for which a third party pays t ...
licensed to
San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
, California, United States, serving the
San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...
. It is owned by the
CBS News and Stations CBS News and Stations is a division of the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global that owns and operates a group of United States, American television stations along with CBS News. , the division owns 28 stations: 15 are the core stati ...
group alongside
KPIX-TV KPIX-TV (channel 5), branded on-air as CBS Bay Area, is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the CBS network outlet for the San Francisco Bay Area. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS ...
(channel 5), the market's
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an network af ...
. The two stations share studios at Broadway and Battery Street, just north of San Francisco's
Financial District A financial district is usually a central area in a city where financial services firms such as banks, insurance companies, and other related finance corporations have their headquarters offices. In major cities, financial districts often host ...
; KPYX's transmitter is located atop
Sutro Tower Sutro Tower is a unique three-legged tall TV and radio lattice tower located on the West Side (San Francisco), West Side of San Francisco, California. Rising from a hill between Twin Peaks (San Francisco), Twin Peaks and Mount Sutro near Claren ...
. As KBHK, channel 44 was one of the UHF stations built by
Kaiser Broadcasting The Kaiser Broadcasting Corp. was an American broadcast media company that owned and operated television and radio stations in the United States from 1957 to 1977. History Creating a broadcast chain Kaiser's involvement in broadcasting bega ...
and one of just two commercial UHF stations in the Bay Area to survive a boom-and-bust cycle of new stations in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was acquired by
United Television BHC Communications, Inc. was the holding company for the broadcast property of Chris-Craft Industries. BHC stands for "broadcasting holding company". History The firm was originally incorporated in 1977 as BHC, Incorporated by Chris-Craft Indus ...
in 1982 and was one of the launch owned-and-operated stations for the
United Paramount Network The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that operated from 1995 to 2006. It was originally a joint venture between Chris-Craft Industries (later sold to News Corporation)'s subsidiary, United Television, ...
in 1995. The station has been under its present ownership since 2001 and, as KBCW, was part of
The CW The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...
from its 2006 launch until 2023, when CBS withdrew its eight affiliates from the network after selling its ownership stake to
Nexstar Media Group Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarters in Irving, Texas, Midtown Manhattan, and Chicago. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 television station ...
. Together with a call sign change to KPYX, the station launched prime time and morning local news after leaving The CW.


History


Kaiser, Field, and Chris-Craft ownership

On November 14, 1962,
Kaiser Broadcasting The Kaiser Broadcasting Corp. was an American broadcast media company that owned and operated television and radio stations in the United States from 1957 to 1977. History Creating a broadcast chain Kaiser's involvement in broadcasting bega ...
, a division of Oakland-based
Kaiser Industries Kaiser ( ; ) is the title historically used by German and Austrian emperors. In German, the title in principle applies to rulers anywhere in the world above the rank of king (). In English, the word ''kaiser'' is mainly applied to the emperors ...
and owner of San Francisco radio station KFOG (104.5 FM), obtained a construction permit to build channel 44 in San Francisco. ( Guide to reading History Cards) Before the construction permit bore the call letters KBHK, it was originally KFOG-TV and then KHJK-TV, in honor of Kaiser Industries founder
Henry J. Kaiser Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known for his shipbuilding and construction projects, then later for his involvement in fostering modern American health care. Prior to World War II, ...
. KBHK-TV debuted January 2, 1968. It had been intended that Kaiser sign on two stations at once, with
WKBF-TV WKBF-TV (channel 61) was a television station in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, which broadcast from January 1968 to April 1975. Owned by Kaiser Broadcasting as one of an eventual group of six stations, it was the first ultra high frequency ( ...
in
Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
also planned to launch the same day (weather delays in Cleveland pushed back its launch). Channel 44's flagship local program was ''Tonight in San Francisco''. The studios at 420 Taylor Street had a broadcasting heritage that predated channel 44 by decades; the facility was built for
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
and its San Francisco station, KPO/KNBC/KNBR, and was also used for a time by KGO. KGO moved to new radio and television quarters in the 1950s and KNBR to Fox Plaza in 1967, leaving the facility vacant. With channel 44, Kaiser became the latest broadcaster to enter what was then a crowded, meager existence on the UHF dial in the Bay Area. By 1968, three other UHF stations operated in San Francisco itself alongside one in San Jose ( KGSC) and one educational outlet in San Mateo, the underpowered
KCSM-TV KPJK (channel 60) is a non-commercial independent television station licensed to San Mateo, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area. Owned by Northern California Public Media (not to be confused with Northern California P ...
. In 1966,
Concord Concord may refer to: Meaning "agreement" * Harmony, in music * Agreement (linguistics), a change in the form of a word depending on grammatical features of other words Arts and media * ''Concord'' (video game), a defunct 2024 first-person sh ...
's KCFT-TV channel 42 had existed for all of seven months. With signals that were often hindered by the region's hilly terrain, ratings were low, and all but children and sports fans were hard gets for the stations. KBHK-TV was no exception; three live entertainment programs had failed by 1969, as had a live 10 p.m. newscast, but ratings were increasing. However, as channels 20, 32 and 38 all sank under the weight of financial losses, it was Kaiser's station that remained afloat and operating. Originally broadcasting from
San Bruno Mountain San Bruno Mountain is a fault block, fault-block Horst (geology), horst in northern San Mateo County, California. Rising to a quarter-mile high peak directly out of San Francisco Bay, it also includes a smaller ridge in San Francisco. Viewed f ...
, KBHK-TV moved to Sutro Tower upon its completion, with the San Bruno mast used to broadcast
KDTV KDTV-DT (channel 14) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area outlet for the Spanish-language network Univision. It is owned and operated by TelevisaUnivision alongside Un ...
on channel 60 when it started in 1975. Kaiser Broadcasting merged with Chicago-based
Field Communications Field Communications was an American broadcast media company and a wholly owned division of Field Enterprises, which owned the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' and the ''Chicago Daily News''. Based in Chicago, Illinois, the company had owned UHF indepen ...
in 1973 as part of a joint venture between the companies. In 1977, Kaiser sold its interest in the stations to Field for $42.625 million, making Field the sole owner of KBHK. Field also retained the headquarters of its broadcast division in San Francisco. After Field put its stations up for sale in 1982, KBHK was sold to
United Television BHC Communications, Inc. was the holding company for the broadcast property of Chris-Craft Industries. BHC stands for "broadcasting holding company". History The firm was originally incorporated in 1977 as BHC, Incorporated by Chris-Craft Indus ...
, a division of
Chris-Craft Industries Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., formerly National Automotive Fibers, Inc., was a publicly held American corporation that was traded on the New York and Pacific Stock Exchanges. In 1962, the company adopted the name of one of its acquisitions, Chris ...
, in 1983. United offered $50 million to KQED to switch channel 9 and 44, moving the commercial station to VHF, in 1984; the offer was rejected as too low. After nearly 25 years at 420 Taylor Street, KBHK moved to 650 California Street in 1992. The station had been looking to move out for some time; in 1988, it had reached a deal with KQED to purchase its former studios when it relocated, but it changed its mind and opted to default on the purchase. The station's traditional focus on prime time movies waned in the early 1990s as channel 44 acquired more first-run syndication, as a new crop of higher-budget shows appeared on the market.


As a UPN affiliate

In 1993, Chris-Craft/United Television partnered with
Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...
(which would merge with
Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2005), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Pa ...
in 1994) to launch the United Paramount Network (
UPN The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that operated from 1995 to 2006. It was originally a joint venture between Chris-Craft Industries (later sold to News Corporation)'s subsidiary, United Television, ...
), with the United Television independent stations becoming charter outlets of the network when it launched on January 16, 1995. In 2000, Viacom bought Chris-Craft's 50% ownership interest in UPN (which Chris-Craft had wholly owned, until Viacom acquired a stake in the network in 1996). On August 12 of that year, Chris-Craft sold its UPN stations to the
Fox Television Stations Fox Television Stations, LLC (stylized as FOX TV STATIONS; also known as FTS) is a group of television stations in the United States owned-and-operated by Fox Corporation. It owns LiveNOW from Fox, Fox Local, and Fox Soul. It also oversees ...
subsidiary of
News Corporation The original incarnation of News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp. and also variously known as News Corporation Limited) was an American Multinational corporation, multinational mass media corporation founded and controlled by media mogul Ru ...
for $5.5 billion; the deal was finalized on July 31, 2001. The deal created immediate ownership cap problems for Fox, which sought to have duopolies in markets where it already owned Fox stations; further, Fox could not convert KBHK to the Fox network because KTVU had a long-term affiliation agreement. Similarly, Viacom, which had purchased CBS and KPIX a year earlier, wanted to have duopolies in more markets. As a result, Fox traded KBHK-TV to Viacom in exchange for
KTXH KTXH (channel 20), branded as My20 Vision, is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States, serving as the market's local outlet for the MyNetworkTV programming service. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox ...
in
Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...
and
WDCA WDCA (channel 20), branded Fox 5 Plus, is a television station in Washington, D.C., serving as the local outlet for the MyNetworkTV programming service. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox outlet WTTG (channel 5) ...
in Washington, D.C., which gave Fox duopolies in those markets. The FCC approved the deal in August 2001 on the condition that Viacom sell one of its San Francisco radio stations. After the sale was consummated, KBHK moved from California Street to Grey Rock, the KPIX studios on Battery Street.


As a CW affiliate

On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of
Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( doing business as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned by AT&T. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City. It was established as Time Warne ...
and
CBS Corporation CBS Corporation was an American multinational media company with interests primarily in commercial broadcasting, publishing and television production. It was split from Viacom on December 31, 2005, alongside an entirely new Viacom; both ...
(which had been created as a result of the split of Viacom on December 31, 2005) announced that the two companies would shut down
The WB The WB Television Network (shortened to The WB, stylized as "THE WB", and nicknamed the "Frog Network" and/or "The Frog" for its former mascot Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network that ran from 1995 to 2006. It launched on ter ...
and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called
The CW The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...
; the day of the announcement, it was revealed that 11 of CBS Corporation's 15 UPN affiliates, including KBHK, would become CW stations. To reflect the new affiliation, the call letters were changed from KBHK to KBCW on July 1, 2006. On December 4, 2019, CBS Corporation and
Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2005), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Pa ...
remerged into ViacomCBS (now
Paramount Global Paramount Global (Trade name, d/b/a Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment Conglomerate (company), conglomerate controlled by National Amusements and Headquarters, headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Times Square, ...
).


Return to independence

Nexstar Media Group Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarters in Irving, Texas, Midtown Manhattan, and Chicago. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 television station ...
acquired majority ownership of The CW on October 3, 2022. Under the agreement, CBS was given the right to pull its affiliations from KBCW and its seven other CW stations. CBS announced it would exercise that right on May 5, 2023, disaffiliating KBCW from the network at the end of August and returning the station to independent status, instigating a series of network affiliation changes nationwide. The CW affiliation was moved to
KRON-TV KRON-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving as the San Francisco Bay Area's outlet for The CW. Owned and operated by The CW's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, KRON-TV has studios ...
, itself owned by Nexstar. On July 18, 2023, CBS News and Stations filed a request to change KBCW's call letters to KPYX as of September 1, 2023. The new call sign serves as a
brand extension Brand extension or brand stretching is a marketing strategy in which a firm marketing a product with a well-developed image uses the same brand name in a different product category. The new product is called a spin-off. Organizations use this ...
of KPIX-TV, with KPYX concurrently rebranded as "KPIX+".


Local programming


Sports

When channel 44 launched, it was the home of the
Golden State Warriors The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. Founded in 1946 i ...
and
Oakland Athletics The Oakland Athletics (frequently referred to as the Oakland A's) were an American Major League Baseball (MLB) team based in Oakland, California from 1968 to 2024. The Athletics were a member club of the American League (AL) American League We ...
. The A's aired on KBHK from 1968 to 1972 and again from 1982 to 1984, while the Warriors broadcast on channel 44 from 1968 to and again from 1981 to 1984. The station also aired three televised games in the last season of the
National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; , ''LNH'') is a professional ice hockey league in North America composed of 32 teams25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. The NHL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Cana ...
's
California Golden Seals The California Golden Seals were a professional ice hockey club that competed in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1967–68 NHL season, 1967 to 1975–76 NHL season, 1976. Based in Oakland, California, they played their home games at the Oa ...
in 1976, preseason games from the
NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The N ...
's
San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners and nicknamed the Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member ...
in 1973, and the
United States Football League The United States Football League (USFL) was a professional American football league that played for three seasons, 1983 through 1985. The league played a spring/summer schedule in each of its active seasons. The 1986 season was scheduled to be ...
's
Oakland Invaders The Oakland Invaders were a professional American football team that played in the United States Football League (USFL) from 1983 through 1985. Based in Oakland, California, they played at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum. The team can t ...
. From 2022 to 2023, the station aired
Bay Area Panthers The Bay Area Panthers are a professional indoor football team based in San Jose, California, that competes in the Indoor Football League (IFL). The team was to begin play in 2020 at Oakland Arena as the Oakland Panthers. Due the onset of the CO ...
indoor football home games. In
2025 So far, the year has seen the continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudanese civil war, and the Gaza war. Internal crises in Bangladesh post-resignation v ...
, KPIX announced an agreement with the
Golden State Valkyries The Golden State Valkyries are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Valkyries compete in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member of the Western Conference. The team began play in the 2025 se ...
of the WNBA, in its inaguaral season, to become the teams first broadcast partner. Games will be shared between KPYX and KPIX-TV.


Newscasts

KBHK briefly produced a nightly newscast in the late 1960s, which was canceled due to low ratings. On March 3, 2008, KPIX began producing a nightly half-hour prime time newscast at 10 p.m. for KBCW; this program competed against KTVU's longer-established, hour-long newscast. In July 2014, the weeknight newscasts were renamed ''Bay Area Nightbeat''. While the newscast came to an end on December 6, 2019, the station provided an hour of
CBSN CBS News 24/7 (formerly known as CBSN and the CBS News Streaming Network) is an American streaming video news channel operated by the CBS News and Paramount Streaming divisions of Paramount Global. Launched on November 6, 2014, it features block ...
Bay Area weeknights at 10 until cancelling it in June 2020. In January 2012, KPIX-TV started a short-lived hour-long extension of its weekend morning newscast for KBCW airing on Sundays at 8:30 am, which ended in 2015. A 10 p.m. newscast was reintroduced in July 2022 as part of the launch of the ''
CBS News Now ''CBS News Now'' was the ''de facto'' umbrella title for a set of hybrid local/national newscasts produced by CBS News and Stations and aired on most of the group's CW affiliates or independent stations, with production led by the CBS Local New ...
'' format. Coinciding with the relaunch as an independent station in 2023, this was replaced with prime time news at 8 and 9 p.m., and the station launched a morning newscast from 7 to 9 a.m.


Technical information


Subchannels

The station's 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— ...
:


Analog-to-digital conversion

KBHK-DT began broadcasting on channel 45 on April 15, 1999. KBCW shut down its analog signal, over
UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...
channel 44, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. In 2019, KBCW relocated to digital channel 28 as part of the FCC's spectrum reallocation.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kbcw (Tv) 1968 establishments in California CBS News and Stations Field Communications Independent television stations in the United States Kaiser Broadcasting MeTV affiliates The Nest (TV network) affiliates Roar (TV network) affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1968 PYX