KHON-TV
On October 23, 2006, KHON-TV was announced as the Honolulu affiliate of The CW, carrying the network on its second digital subchannel. Beginning in March 2006 (two months after the network's launch was announced), The CW had struggled to find an affiliate in Honolulu after the market's then-WB affiliate KFVE, which was seen by many as the likeliest candidate to join The CW, signed with competing network MyNetworkTV, and former UPN affiliate KIKU (which aired the network's programming in the afternoons) declined to take the CW affiliation.
KDFI
On January 24, 2006, UPN parent company CBS Corporation and WB network parent Warner Bros. Entertainment announced that they would dissolve the two networks to create The CW, a joint network venture that initially featured a mix of original first-run series and programs that originated on The WB and UPN. On that date, The CW also signed a ten-year affiliation agreement with Tribune Broadcasting, under which sixteen of the group's eighteen WB-affiliated stations – including KDAF, which Tribune acquired as part of its July 1996 acquisition of Renaissance Broadcasting – would serve as the network's charter stations. In response to having its UPN affiliates be passed over for affiliations with The CW, Fox Television Stations stripped all network branding from and ceased promoting the network's programming on its UPN-affiliated stations. However, it is very unlikely that KDFI would have been selected as The CW's Metroplex area affiliate in any event. Representatives for The CW were on record as preferring to align with UPN and The WB's "strongest" affiliates; KDAF had been ahead of KDFI in the ratings since shortly after channel 33 became the market's original Fox owned-and-operated station in October 1986.