KFMB-TV, virtual and VHF digital channel 8, is a dual CBS/CW-affiliated television station licensed to San Diego, California, United States. The station is owned by Tegna Inc., and is sister to radio stations KFMB (760 AM) and KFMB-FM (100.7 FM). The television and radio stations share studios on Engineer Road in the Kearny Mesa section of San Diego; KFMB-TV's transmitter is located on Mount Soledad in La Jolla.
History[]
The station first signed on the air on May 16, 1949; it was the first television station to sign on in the San Diego market. The station was founded by Jack O. Gross, who also owned local radio station KFMB (760 AM). San Diego Mayor Harley E. Knox was present at the station's first broadcast. The station cost Gross $300,000 to build. KFMB-TV has been a primary CBS affiliate since its sign-on (and is the only television station in the market that has never changed its network affiliation), however in its early years, channel 8 also maintained secondary affiliations with ABC, NBC and the DuMont Television Network.
In October 1949, KFMB-TV signed an affiliation agreement with the short-lived Paramount Television Network; upon affiliating with Paramount, channel 8 quickly became that network's strongest affiliate. The station received a network feed of Paramount programs that included among others, Hollywood Opportunity, Meet Me in Hollywood, Magazine of the Week, Time For Beany and Your Old Buddy; the station aired six hours of Paramount programs each week. Since there was no technical transmission network to distribute Paramount programs to its affiliates, KFMB instead carried the network's programming via a transmitter link from the broadcast tower of Paramount's Los Angeles affiliate KTLA atop Mount Wilson, 90 miles (140 km) from the KFMB-TV transmitter site on Mount Soledad.
In November 1950, Gross sold the KFMB stations to John A. Kennedy, a former publisher of the San Diego Daily Journal newspaper. Three years later, Kennedy divested KFMB to a partnership of television producer Jack Wrather and industry executive Helen Alvarez. That same year, channel 8 lost its television monopoly in San Diego when the market received two new stations, Tijuana-based XETV (channel 6) and San Diego-licensed KFSD-TV (channel 10, now KGTV), the latter of which assumed the NBC affiliation from channel 8. KFMB-TV continued to air ABC programs until 1956, when XETV was granted permission to take the ABC affiliation under a special agreement between the FCC and Mexican authorities, most notably the Secretariat of Communications and Public Works.
After the Wrather-Alvarez partnership broke up in 1957, Wrather kept the San Diego outlets and KERO-TV in upstate Bakersfield for his renamed broadcasting company, Marietta Broadcasting. In 1959, Wrather merged Marietta Broadcasting with Buffalo, New York-based Transcontinent Television Corporation. In 1964, as part of Transcontinent's exit from broadcasting, the KFMB stations were sold to Midwest Television, controlled by the family of Champaign, Illinois banker August Meyer.[10] In 1999, Midwest Television divested its other outlets, WCIA in Champaign and WMBD-AM-TV and WPBG in Peoria, Illinois, leaving the KFMB stations as the company's only remaining properties.
In 2005, Midwest Television signed a ten-year affiliation contract extension for KFMB-TV to remain a CBS affiliate through 2015. The station restored its on-air branding to News 8 on September 19, 2005, after four years of using the "Local 8" brand. In early 2007, the station began to phase in a new branding as CBS 8, although newscasts maintained their previous title until 2013, when the station introduced a new logo similar to Miami's CBS O&O WFOR-TV and renamed its newscasts (CBS) News 8.
KFMB-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 8, on February 17, 2009, the original target date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 55, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era VHF channel 8.
On December 18, 2017, Tegna Inc. announced that it would acquire the KFMB stations for $325 million. The sale was completed on February 15, 2018, ending the Meyer family's stewardship of the stations after 53 years.
Gallery[]
| TV stations in California |
|---|
| KCBS, Los Angeles KCOY, Santa Barbara/Santa Maria/San Luis Obispo |
| TV stations in California |
|---|
| KTLA, Los Angeles KSBY-DT2, Santa Barbara/Santa Maria/San Luis Obispo |
| TV stations in California |
|---|
| KCOP, Los Angeles KEYT-DT2, Santa Barbara/Santa Maria/San Luis Obispo |
| TV Stations in the San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area | |
|---|---|
| English stations | Spanish stations |
| KZTC-LP 7 (SBN) | XHJK-TDT 1 (A1) |
| KFMB 8 (CBS) | XHCTTI-TDT 3 (Imagen) |
| KGTV/KZSD-LP 10 (ABC) | XETV-TDT 6 (Canal 5) |
| KPBS 15 (PBS) | XHTJB-TDT 11 (Once) |
| KVSD-LD 26 (Ind) | XEWT-TDT 12 (Televisa Regional) |
| KNSD 39 (NBC) | KBNT-CD 17 (UNI) |
| KSKT-CD 43 (Ind) | XHUAA-TDT 19 (Las Estrellas) |
| KUSI 51 (Ind) | XHTIT-TDT 21 (A7) |
| KSWB 69 (Fox) | KSDX-LD 29 (ESTRELLA) |
| XHAS-TDT 33 (AZA) | |
| KDTF-LD 36 (UMas) | |
| XHBJ-TDT 45 (Nu9ve) | |
| KUAN-LD 48 (TLM) | |
| XHDTV-TDT 49 (Milenio) | |
| KSDY-LD 50 (Nuestra Vision) | |
| Defunct stations | |
| K09YL-D 9 (Multimedios/Tr3s) | |
| K35DG-D 35 (UCSD TV) | |
| KSEX-CD 42 (Info) | |