KHON-TV
KHON-TV first signed on the air on December 15, 1952 as a primary NBC affiliate, KONA-TV, occupying the channel 11 position. It also had a secondary affiliation with DuMont (which it later shared with KULA-TV, now KITV, after it signed on in 1954) until its demise in 1955. The station, which is Hawaii's second-oldest television station (behind KGMB, originally on channel 9, now on channel 5), was originally owned by Herbert Richards. Two years later in 1954, the "Honolulu Advertiser" purchased the station. On October 16, 1955, KONA changed channels from 11 to 2 due to the lower VHF positions (2 to 6) having the most powerful ERPs at the time. The channel 11 frequency now belongs to PBS member station KHET. In 1956, KONA was sold to Pacific and Southern Broadcasting, the forerunner of Combined Communications. KAII signed on in 1958, with KHAW following in 1961. In 1965, the station's call letters were changed to the current KHON-TV.
Nebraska Educational Telecommunications
Meanwhile, broadcasting pioneer John Fetzer purchased Lincoln's two commercial TV stations, KOLN-TV (channel 12) in August 1953 and KFOR-TV (channel 10) in February 1954. In order to avoid running afoul of Federal Communications Commission ownership regulations and to create a commercial broadcast monopoly for himself in the Lincoln market, Fetzer moved KOLN from its sign-on channel 12 to KFOR's channel 10 and offered to donate the channel 12 license to UNL. Since this would allow UNL to use more signal at less cost, the school quickly jumped at this proposal. KUON-TV went on the air on November 1, 1954, from KOLN-TV's studios, where the stations had to take turns using studio space; when KOLN was live, KUON had to broadcast a film, and vice versa. It was operated in trust for UNL until 1956, when the FCC granted the channel 12 license to the school's Board of Regents. In 1957, KUON moved to its own studios in the Temple Building on the UNL campus. In 1960, the Nebraska Council for Educational Television was created by six school districts in Nebraska. By 1961, 5 VHF and 3 UHF channels were allocated for educational use in Nebraska—the largest set ever approved for educational use in a single state. In 1963, the state legislature, per a committee's recommendation, approved plans for a statewide educational television network under the control of the Nebraska Educational Television Commission. A deal was quickly reached in which Lincoln's KUON-TV would remain under NU's ownership, but serve as the new state network's flagship.