xoaqwepo: kcal 9 evelyn taft

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KCAL-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 9, on June 12, 2009 at 1:10 p.m., as part of the DTV transition in the United States. The station had been broadcasting its pre-transition digital signal over UHF channel 43, but returned to channel 9 for its post-transition operations. KCAL broadcasts in 1080i high definition on virtual channel 9.1.

Channel 9 went on the air as KFI-TV on August 25, 1948, owned by Earle C. Anthony, along with KFI radio (640 AM). KFI had long been affiliated with NBC and KFI-TV served for a brief period as Los Angeles' first NBC television affiliate. Channel 9 lost its NBC affiliation in January 1949 when the network launched its own station, KNBH (now KNBC). KFI-TV then became an independent station, a status it has retained to this day (though it carried DuMont programming from 1954 up to the network's demise in 1956).

By the mid 1960s, channel 9 offered a standard independent schedule of movies, off-network reruns, children's shows like "The Pancake Man" hosted by Hal Smith (actor) who showed educational shorts like The Space Explorers, syndicated fare, and locally-produced programs such as news, sports, and public-affairs shows. In the late 1960s KHJ embarked on a novel, groundbreaking (and inexpensive) experiment, called Tempo. Daytime programming was divided into 3 three-hour blocks, called Tempo I, Tempo II, and Tempo III. They borrowed heavily from the talk-radio craze on local radio stations and basically ported that format over to television. The middle 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 (the wife of Nat King Cole). Guests ranged from William F. Buckley 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. Bohrman came back to the program and was joined by a new co-host, Regis Philbin. They became a very popular fixture in Los Angeles television. In fact in his book about those days, Regis credits the chemistry with Stan and the format of the program as forerunners of much of what would become cable tv news 20 years later.

The hearings dragged on until 1987. That year, an administrative law judge found RKO unfit to be a broadcast licensee due to numerous cases of dishonesty by RKO, including fraudulent billing and lying about its ratings. The FCC advised RKO that it would almost certainly deny any appeals, and persuaded RKO to sell its stations to avoid the indignity of having their licenses taken away.