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KOFY-TV (channel 20) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area as an affiliate of Merit TV. It is owned by CNZ Communications, LLC, alongside Class A station KCNZ-CD (virtual channel 28) and low-power station KMPX-LD (virtual channel 18). The three stations share transmitter facilities atop San Bruno Mountain. KOFY-TV's studios were previously located on Marin Street in the Bayview–Hunters Point neighborhood of San Francisco until 2018; the station has since maintained space at KGO-TV's studios in the city's North Waterfront district.
In late 1964, Corwin filed to sell KBAY-TV to Overmyer Communications Company, a broadcaster owned by Daniel H. Overmyer, who would later start the short-lived Overmyer Network (later called the United Network). The sale application was approved, after a hearing, in October 1965. The following year was a busy one: the station filed to move its facility from KGO's tower on Avanzada Street to Mount Sutro, while the call letters were changed to KEMO-TV, for Daniel's son, Edward Manning Overmyer.
KEMO-TV showed conventional independent fare, along with The Adults Only Movie, a series of , not featuring sex or nudity—it was named "Adults Only" merely due to the films' lack of appeal to children. KEMO also offered live-action programs and animated cartoon dubbed into English including Speed Racer, Ultraman, 8 Man, Prince Planet, Johnny Cypher in Dimension Zero and The King Kong Show. With a mixture of locally produced and syndicated programming, KEMO-TV remained on the air for three years to the day, powering down its transmitter at midnight on March 31, 1971, to avoid paying the following month's PG&E electricity bill.
The former owner of KMPX-FM in San Francisco, Leon Crosby bought KEMO-TV later that year and it returned to the air on February 4, 1972. With an eclectic type of programming, KEMO featured shows such as Solesvida and Amapola Presents Show co-hosted by Amapola and Ness Aquino, to name a few. In 1973, Crosby also purchased WPGH-TV, the dark U.S. Communications station in Pittsburgh, bringing it back on the air January 14, 1974.
From 1972 to 1980, KEMO aired stock market programming in the mornings (anchored by future CNN and Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney), religious programming in midday, local Spanish programming in the weekday afternoons and evenings, local Italian language and imported Japanese programming on Sunday nights, and B-grade movies overnight, with Oakland carpet store owner Leon Heskett hosting the films. Leon Crosby's KEMO signed off on September 30, 1980.
Other popular programming during the early and mid-1980s included the TV-20 Dance Party — originally a "Top 40" music format featuring local high schools, hosted by Bay Area DJ Tony Kilbert; later a 1950s "retro" style show hosted by Gabbert — and a Sunday late-night movie program. The Sunday program included studio segments at the beginning and commercial breaks of the movie, hosted by Gabbert and set in the fictional "Sleazy Arms Hotel" bar. Viewers were invited to join Gabbert on the set and for a time, enjoy a sponsor's product, a malt liquor.
Also in the early 1980s, KTZO became one of the many stations in the U.S. to broadcast Star Fleet, a.k.a. X-Bomber, a sci-fi marionette television series that originally debuted in Japan in 1980.
From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, KOFY also featured an in-studio, live kids cartoon show called Cartoon Classics. Hosted by Maestro Dick Bright, the show offered such cartoons as Mighty Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry and Popeye. The show frequently featured local magician Magic Mike (played by Michael Stroud) performing for the studio children. However, the live-action studio segment was later scrapped, and the program just showed the cartoons straight. Afternoon cartoon shows such as these eventually became a thing of the past, as cable television was able to feature round-the-clock cartoons aimed at younger viewers with the launch of Cartoon Network in October 1992.
KOFY added more sitcoms in the early 1990s. As noted above, KOFY also broadcast network daytime and Saturday morning cartoons not carried by KRON and KPIX such as NBC game shows Blockbusters, Classic Concentration and the daytime version of Win, Lose or Draw; the NBC cartoon series Alvin and the Chipmunks; the CBS game show The Price Is Right; the CBS cartoon series The Get Along Gang and Saturday Supercade; and for a few weeks during the Oliver North Iran-Contra hearings, Wordplay. The CBS game show Tattletales was picked up for the KEMO schedule during the mid-1970s among its foreign language-heavy programming when KPIX did not carry its CBS feed.
On Christmas Eve, KOFY would preempt normal programming during the entire evening and broadcast its own version of the Yule Log, a concept borrowed from WPIX in New York City (which incidentally, would also later affiliate with The WB). From the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, the station ran an "oldies dance party" show hosted by James Gabbert, and emceed by Sean King.
In mid-January 1994, the station began airing the Action Pack programming block with TekWar, which caused ratings to jump 350% over its November numbers.
In 1996, KOFY-TV employees attempted to organize as a collective bargaining unit under the labor union for broadcast employees, NABET. Gabbert interfered with the organizing effort, resulting in a case before the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB ultimately ruled against the station. In 1998, Gabbert sold KOFY for $170 million to minority-owned Granite Broadcasting, who changed the call sign to KBWB on September 14, 1998, to reflect its network affiliation. In 1999, KBWB's operations were merged with those of then-sister station KNTV (channel 11) in San Jose, who contributed a 10 p.m. newscast, plus simulcasts of its morning newscast, and, in return, received a temporary WB affiliation for 18 months after KNTV voluntarily dropped its ABC affiliation at the behest of network-owned KGO-TV (channel 7; KGO served most of the Bay Area, while KNTV served as the ABC affiliate for the South Bay). This arrangement ended in April 2002 after KNTV, by then the NBC affiliate for the San Francisco market, was sold to that network.
In May 2006, Granite announced that it had sold KBWB, along with WMYD, to DS Audible, a new group affiliated with Canyon Capital Advisors, D. B. Zwirn & Co., Fortress Investment Group and Ramius Capital Group, among others, for $150 million cash (DS Audible San Francisco, LLC, one of the two groups created by the investment groups, would have acquired KBWB for $65.75 million). The previous agreement to sell the two stations to AM Media was withdrawn. On July 18, 2006, this sale also fell apart; Granite then announced it would try to find another company willing to buy KBWB. Granite filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization on December 11, 2006, after missing an interest payment on its debt of more than $400 million.
Soon after the CW announcement, the station rebranded to "TV20" (following the lead of Detroit's future MyNetworkTV affiliate and sister station WMYD, formerly WDWB, which also branded as "TV20"). KBWB reverted to being an independent station on September 18, 2006 (one of three in the San Francisco market, alongside KICU and KFTY channel 50, now KEMO-TV), under the new branding as Your TV20 (a parallel of sorts to "My TV20", the branding of sister station WMYD, which affiliated with MyNetworkTV). In March 2008, channel 20 revived the station IDs featuring dogs that were previously used under James Gabbert's ownership of the station.
KBWB then became an alternate ABC affiliate, carrying programs from that network during instances where KGO-TV preempts regularly scheduled network programming for local breaking news coverage. On October 8, 2008, at 10 p.m., KBWB reverted to its previous KOFY-TV call letters, commemorating the change with a 10-minute documentary about former owner James Gabbert and the station's history.
In 2009, KOFY started airing the old Dance Party reruns and due to their popularity brought back an '80s themed Dance Party in 2011, which lasted through most of the decade.
In the FCC's incentive auction, KOFY-TV sold its spectrum for $88,357,227 and indicated that it would enter into a post-auction channel sharing agreement. On October 30, 2017, the station entered into a channel sharing agreement with KCNZ-CD (channel 28); concurrently, Granite Broadcasting agreed to sell the KOFY-TV license to Stryker Media 2, a sister company to KCNZ-CD owner Poquito Mas Communications, for $6 million; Stryker Media 2 is a subsidiary of CNZ Communications. The sale was completed on October 15, 2018.
In addition, the station occasionally aired ABC network programming in the event of programming conflicts on KGO.
The program was hosted by local radio personality No Name, and Balrok, a demon, who claimed to broadcast from caves under the KOFY studios. The hosts had a snarky frat-boy style and had many off-color guests, including local comedians, burlesque performers, and adult film actresses. The broadcast featured an in-house band, the surf/punk band The Deadlies, and the hosts were often flanked during the broadcast by a variety of comely bikini clad models/actresses/fans, one being Shotzi Blackheart. Beginning with its third season in 2010, the program added two regular go-go dancers known as the Cave Girls whom often performed with the Deadlies. On July 24, 2010, Creepy KOFY Movie Time was moved to 11 p.m. The show aired its last new regular episode on October 31, 2014.West, B.J. A Freak's Guide to Creepy Koffee Movie Time. Kelp, 2024. Its timeslot on KOFY was ultimately taken over by a new version of Creature Features. A one-off revival of Creepy KOFY Movie Time, featuring the 1976 film Último deseo, aired on April 9, 2022, just six days before the KOFY studio was shut down.
KOFY-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 20, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 19, using virtual channel 20.
On July 28, 2011, High Plains Broadcasting (a partner company used by Newport Television to absolve ownership conflicts between certain stations owned by the Providence Equity Partners-backed group and Univision, which Providence holds an equity interest in) announced plans to sell Santa Rosa-based KFTY (channel 50) to Una Vez Más Holdings, with the intent to affiliate that station with Azteca América. Una Vez Mas Buys KFTY San Francisco, TVNewsCheck, July 28, 2011. On September 29, 2011, KFTY's affiliation with MeTV was discontinued and became KEMO-TV, adopting the callsign once used by KOFY-TV. KEMO-TV briefly mirrored the Azteca América programming that was still seen on KOFY 20.4; this ended shortly afterward, when KOFY discontinued the Azteca América feed.
On October 17, 2011, KOFY announced that it signed an affiliation agreement with MeTV; the station would carry the network on a new digital subchannel 20.2. Me-TV Signs With KOFY San Francisco, TVNewsCheck, October 17, 2011.
In July 2017, with the spectrum move, VieTV was moved to KCNS 38.3, replacing Comet, at this point; 20.3 was removed.
On March 22, 2018, MeTV was dropped from 20.2 and replaced with GetTV from 20.4.
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