KWHY-TV
Encyclopedia
KWHY-TV, channel 22, is a Spanish-language independent station located in Los Angeles, California
, USA
. KWHY-TV is owned by the Meruelo Group, a Los Angeles-based real estate
and investment firm. The station's transmitter is on Mount Wilson
.
radio, with a minimal schedule consisting of old movies and syndicated programming. It was sold again in 1966 to the Robert W. Bunn family who changed the call letters to KWHY-TV and was operated by Coast Television Corporation. Together with Quotron, who then provided all brokerage houses with real time stock market information, launched the first business news service for television. (At one time, it grew to a 12-station network, including affiliates in New York
and Chicago
). The tickertape was delayed 15 minutes and airtime was given away to stock brokers while news readers "ripped and read" from the news wires. Although KWHY was not profitable, it was a staple in thousands of offices, restaurants, and homes each trading day. The programing switched to ethnic programming in the afternoon and evening hours, notably in Korean
, Japanese
and Chinese
. Dick "Huggy Boy" Hugg
, a local broadcast personality, hosted his own dance program, The Huggy Boy Show, which aired weekly on KWHY. The show was noted for its prominence in Southern California
Chicano
culture.
In 1978, KWHY-TV received the first subscription television license in the United States from the FCC
and soon thereafter replaced much of the ethnic programming with the pay-TV service SelecTV
. In 1982, Coast Television Corporation sold the station to Harriscope of Los Angeles, Inc.
KWHY-TV took the business news through a number of facelifts and distribution expansions. In the 80's as the cable TV reach expanded beyond Los Angeles and Quotron's technology became obsolete, the business news was reinvented. A complete graphic overhaul was done creating the first multi-element screen. This showed all of the stock and commodity indexes, two rows of stock ticker tapes and over-the-shoulder realtime pricing information. Meanwhile, an anchor read the news live. The service was renamed, "The Business Channel". At the same time, KWHY faced competition from KSCI
, the local affiliate of the Financial News Network
.
In 1989, FNN went off the air. In the meantime, as local stations received FCC protection with must-carry
rules, the name changed to "22 Business News", and then "Business News 22" (or BN 22, for short). And finally, with the internet, it became "BizNews 1" and was streamed on the internet as "BizNews1.com.", and broadcast over KJLA as KWHY went fulltime in Spanish. Sometime in 2001, KJLA cancelled the service.
The growth of cable TV and HBO caused subscription TV to lose audience and SelecTV
cut back its hours in 1984. Infomercials filled many hours, including one which featured live broadcasts from car dealerships. In 1984 KWHY launched Video 22, a 3 hour, weekday afternoon rock video show which had the slogan "We cook for 3 hours before dinner." The show used the first Macintosh computers to inventory the playlists. Video 22 used a stop motion aniamated mascott named VIDEO JOE. Video 22 was cancelled when SelecTV merged with competitor On-TV and expanded their hours. In 1989, SelecTV went out of business. KWHY sold its non-business news airtime to Univisa, a division of Televisa
, who aired Galavision
, the Spanish language cable TV service. In 1991, Televisa became part owner of Univision (KMEX-TV
) and KWHY became the first independent Spanish language TV station in the country. The mix of classic movies, game shows, and newscasts gained one of the biggest audiences for area Spanish-language media.
In 2001, with the FCC allowing duopoly (ownership of two television stations in one TV market) Telemundo (which already owned its West Coast flagship, KVEA
) purchased KWHY and has kept it as a Spanish-language independent station. It has operated out of the KNBC
studios in Burbank since NBC purchased Telemundo in 2002. NBC later became NBC Universal
.
Interestingly, NBC Universal was temporarily allowed to own three stations in the Los Angeles market, while Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) regulations limit ownership to two. KWHY and KVEA were a duopoly before NBC/Telemundo merged and were allowed to remain co-owned by the FCC pending a decision on the ownership caps.
KWHY operates two low-power repeater
s, K46GF in Santa Maria
, and K47GD in San Luis Obispo
http://goodtimesanluisobispo.com/. A third repeater, KWHY-LP in Santa Barbara
, also on channel 22 (formerly channel 65), was destroyed by the Montecito Tea Fire
on November 14, 2008; the license was surrendered a year later. KWHY-TV also provided much of the programming to San Diego
Spanish independent station KBOP-CA; what is now KSEX-CA now operates independently from KWHY. The station also aired on K53GF channel 53 (formerly K67FE channel 67) in Phoenix, Arizona
in the late 1990s and early 2000s; as with the San Diego station, what is now K38IZ-D channel 38 now operates separately.
On September 9, 2007, NBC Universal, announced that it had put KWHY and WKAQ-TV
("Telemundo Puerto Rico") for sale. This came after NBC-U's acquisition of Oxygen Media
. (http://www.nbcumv.com/release_detail.nbc/corporate-20071009000000-nbcuniversaltoacq.html). On December 21, 2007, NBC Universal reversed its decision to sell the stations.
On May 7, 2010 it was reported that NBC Universal was selling KWHY because of their pending merger with Comcast
(http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/nbcu-sell-kwhy-tv-comcast-deal-advances-17110). NBC Universal and Comcast had been hoping the FCC would ease its media ownership rules and allow them to own three stations in major markets, but after the FCC’s first bid to do so was overturned in court, the agency has taken no further steps in that direction.
On January 26, 2011, NBCU announced that it will sell KWHY-TV to an investment firm, The Meruelo Group, subject to FCC approval. The deal was approved by the FCC in April, and it officially closed on July 6, 2011.
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. KWHY-TV is owned by the Meruelo Group, a Los Angeles-based real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
and investment firm. The station's transmitter is on Mount Wilson
Mount Wilson (California)
Mount Wilson is one of the better known peaks in the San Gabriel Mountains, part of the Angeles National Forest in Los Angeles County, California. It is the location of the Mount Wilson Observatory and has become the astronomical center of Southern California with and telescopes, and and tall...
.
History
Channel 22 in Los Angeles started life as KBIC in 1954 (but never aired anything but a test pattern). In 1962, the station changed hands and was known as KIIX, airing a schedule of entirely black-oriented programming, before going off the air on September 22, 1963. On March 21, 1964 the station returned to the air as traditional independent KPOL-TV (John Poole), sister station to KPOLKPOL (AM)
KPOL was a radio station that operated in Los Angeles, California, USA. The station played a number of music formats, including polka, top 40, rock, and beautiful music, from 1952 to 1981....
radio, with a minimal schedule consisting of old movies and syndicated programming. It was sold again in 1966 to the Robert W. Bunn family who changed the call letters to KWHY-TV and was operated by Coast Television Corporation. Together with Quotron, who then provided all brokerage houses with real time stock market information, launched the first business news service for television. (At one time, it grew to a 12-station network, including affiliates in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
). The tickertape was delayed 15 minutes and airtime was given away to stock brokers while news readers "ripped and read" from the news wires. Although KWHY was not profitable, it was a staple in thousands of offices, restaurants, and homes each trading day. The programing switched to ethnic programming in the afternoon and evening hours, notably in Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
and Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
. Dick "Huggy Boy" Hugg
Dick Hugg
Dick "Huggy Boy" Hugg was a radio disc jockey in Los Angeles, California. He was married to Sandy Hugg and had a son and three daughters.-Rock and Roll:...
, a local broadcast personality, hosted his own dance program, The Huggy Boy Show, which aired weekly on KWHY. The show was noted for its prominence in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
Chicano
Chicano
The terms "Chicano" and "Chicana" are used in reference to U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. However, those terms have a wide range of meanings in various parts of the world. The term began to be widely used during the Chicano Movement, mainly among Mexican Americans, especially in the movement's...
culture.
In 1978, KWHY-TV received the first subscription television license in the United States from the FCC
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
and soon thereafter replaced much of the ethnic programming with the pay-TV service SelecTV
SelecTV USA
SelecTV was a subscription television service formed in 1976, and first broadcasting in 1978 The service focused entirely on televising movies, and ended in 1991...
. In 1982, Coast Television Corporation sold the station to Harriscope of Los Angeles, Inc.
KWHY-TV took the business news through a number of facelifts and distribution expansions. In the 80's as the cable TV reach expanded beyond Los Angeles and Quotron's technology became obsolete, the business news was reinvented. A complete graphic overhaul was done creating the first multi-element screen. This showed all of the stock and commodity indexes, two rows of stock ticker tapes and over-the-shoulder realtime pricing information. Meanwhile, an anchor read the news live. The service was renamed, "The Business Channel". At the same time, KWHY faced competition from KSCI
KSCI
KSCI is an independent television station operating in Los Angeles and on KUAN-LP channel 48 in Poway, California, serving the San Diego area. It targets Asian Americans, and most of its programming is in Asian languages....
, the local affiliate of the Financial News Network
Financial News Network
The Financial News Network was a television network that operated throughout the United States during the 1980s.-Founding:Financial News Network was founded in 1981 by two men: Rodney Buchser, who had been general manager of KWHY, Channel 22 in Los Angeles and Glenn Taylor. The concept originated...
.
In 1989, FNN went off the air. In the meantime, as local stations received FCC protection with must-carry
Must-carry
In cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally-licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system.- Canada :...
rules, the name changed to "22 Business News", and then "Business News 22" (or BN 22, for short). And finally, with the internet, it became "BizNews 1" and was streamed on the internet as "BizNews1.com.", and broadcast over KJLA as KWHY went fulltime in Spanish. Sometime in 2001, KJLA cancelled the service.
The growth of cable TV and HBO caused subscription TV to lose audience and SelecTV
SelecTV USA
SelecTV was a subscription television service formed in 1976, and first broadcasting in 1978 The service focused entirely on televising movies, and ended in 1991...
cut back its hours in 1984. Infomercials filled many hours, including one which featured live broadcasts from car dealerships. In 1984 KWHY launched Video 22, a 3 hour, weekday afternoon rock video show which had the slogan "We cook for 3 hours before dinner." The show used the first Macintosh computers to inventory the playlists. Video 22 used a stop motion aniamated mascott named VIDEO JOE. Video 22 was cancelled when SelecTV merged with competitor On-TV and expanded their hours. In 1989, SelecTV went out of business. KWHY sold its non-business news airtime to Univisa, a division of Televisa
Televisa
Televisa is a Mexican multimedia conglomerate, the largest mass media company in Latin America and in the Spanish-speaking world. It is a major international entertainment business, with much of its programming airing in the United States on Univision, with which it has an exclusive contract...
, who aired Galavision
Galavisión
Galavisión is a Miami, Florida based Spanish language cable network owned by Univision Communications, Inc. The station is unrelated to the Mexican channel of the same name, other than sharing the Televisa-produced programming.-History:...
, the Spanish language cable TV service. In 1991, Televisa became part owner of Univision (KMEX-TV
KMEX-TV
KMEX-DT, "Univisión 34 Los Angeles", is the Univision owned-and-operated station in Los Angeles and the network's flagship station for the West Coast. KMEX, first broadcast in 1962, opened the way for other Spanish-language stations and networks in the United States...
) and KWHY became the first independent Spanish language TV station in the country. The mix of classic movies, game shows, and newscasts gained one of the biggest audiences for area Spanish-language media.
In 2001, with the FCC allowing duopoly (ownership of two television stations in one TV market) Telemundo (which already owned its West Coast flagship, KVEA
KVEA
KVEA is a Spanish-language television station in the Los Angeles area owned and operated by NBC Universal and the West Coast flagship station of the Telemundo network. It was the first mainland U.S. station owned by Telemundo at the network's launch in the late 1980's...
) purchased KWHY and has kept it as a Spanish-language independent station. It has operated out of the KNBC
KNBC
KNBC, channel 4, is an owned-and-operated television station of the NBC Television Network, licensed to Los Angeles, California, USA. KNBC's studios and offices are located within the NBC Studios complex in Burbank, California, and its transmitter is located on Mount Wilson...
studios in Burbank since NBC purchased Telemundo in 2002. NBC later became NBC Universal
NBC Universal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...
.
Interestingly, NBC Universal was temporarily allowed to own three stations in the Los Angeles market, while Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC) regulations limit ownership to two. KWHY and KVEA were a duopoly before NBC/Telemundo merged and were allowed to remain co-owned by the FCC pending a decision on the ownership caps.
KWHY operates two low-power repeater
Repeater
A repeater is an electronic device that receives asignal and retransmits it at a higher level and/or higher power, or onto the other side of an obstruction, so that the signal can cover longer distances.-Description:...
s, K46GF in Santa Maria
Santa Maria, California
Santa Maria is a city in Santa Barbara County, on the Central Coast of California. The 2010 census population was 100,062, putting it ahead of Santa Barbara for the first time and making it the largest city in the county...
, and K47GD in San Luis Obispo
San Luis Obispo, California
San Luis Obispo is a city in California, located roughly midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles on the Central Coast. Founded in 1772 by Spanish Fr. Junipero Serra, San Luis Obispo is one of California’s oldest communities...
http://goodtimesanluisobispo.com/. A third repeater, KWHY-LP in Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, also on channel 22 (formerly channel 65), was destroyed by the Montecito Tea Fire
Montecito Tea Fire
The Montecito Tea Fire is a wildfire that began on November 13, 2008, destroying 210 homes in the cities of Montecito and Santa Barbara, California in the United States of America. It was the first of several November 2008 wildfires that burned hundreds of homes November 13–15, 2008...
on November 14, 2008; the license was surrendered a year later. KWHY-TV also provided much of the programming to San Diego
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
Spanish independent station KBOP-CA; what is now KSEX-CA now operates independently from KWHY. The station also aired on K53GF channel 53 (formerly K67FE channel 67) in Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
in the late 1990s and early 2000s; as with the San Diego station, what is now K38IZ-D channel 38 now operates separately.
On September 9, 2007, NBC Universal, announced that it had put KWHY and WKAQ-TV
WKAQ-TV
WKAQ-TV is a full-power television station located in San Juan, Puerto Rico transmitting over digital 2.1. The station is owned and operated by NBCUniversal and is branded simply as Telemundo....
("Telemundo Puerto Rico") for sale. This came after NBC-U's acquisition of Oxygen Media
Oxygen (TV channel)
Oxygen is an American cable television specialty channel with television programming marketed towards women, with a format similar to Lifetime.- History :...
. (http://www.nbcumv.com/release_detail.nbc/corporate-20071009000000-nbcuniversaltoacq.html). On December 21, 2007, NBC Universal reversed its decision to sell the stations.
On May 7, 2010 it was reported that NBC Universal was selling KWHY because of their pending merger with Comcast
Comcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
(http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/nbcu-sell-kwhy-tv-comcast-deal-advances-17110). NBC Universal and Comcast had been hoping the FCC would ease its media ownership rules and allow them to own three stations in major markets, but after the FCC’s first bid to do so was overturned in court, the agency has taken no further steps in that direction.
On January 26, 2011, NBCU announced that it will sell KWHY-TV to an investment firm, The Meruelo Group, subject to FCC approval. The deal was approved by the FCC in April, and it officially closed on July 6, 2011.
Station firsts
- First all-business television station in the United States
- First station in Los Angeles that used news anchor operated TelePrompterTeleprompterAn autocue is a display device that prompts the person speaking with an electronic visual text of a speech or script. Using a teleprompter is similar to the practice of using cue cards...
s for newscasts - First with an automated commercial playback machine
- First with computer animationComputer animationComputer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
from an optical discOptical discIn computing and optical disc recording technologies, an optical disc is a flat, usually circular disc which encodes binary data in the form of pits and lands on a special material on one of its flat surfaces...
player - First to use a news-oriented non-linear editing system (Grass Valley)
- First UHF to have a high definition digital transmitter in L.A.