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.
WKHA
The station signed on the air at exactly 3:00 PM Eastern time on the afternoon of September 23, 1968, as one of the ten charter stations of the Kentucky Educational Television network, with Lexington's WKLE acting as the network flagship. WKHA, along with fellow KET satellites WKPI-TV in nearby Pikeville and WKSO-TV of Somerset, were the first television stations to sign on the air in service to the Eastern Kentucky Coalfield and Mountains region. All of the network's satellites were strategically located to serve as much of the state as possible, and by launching three satellites in the same region, it is almost guaranteed that a viewer in this area can receive, at the very least, a KET-aligned signal. Until the network signed on its ten charter satellites, the Eastern Kentucky mountains region was one of the last remaining areas of the United States without a television station, commercial or non-commercial, in the area. The area did not get its first commercial television station until NBC affiliate WKYH-TV signed on the air in Summer 1969. That station, which has since become CBS affiliate WYMT-TV (a semi-satellite of Lexington-based WKYT-TV) in 1985, is the only full-power commercial station based in this region. Cable or satellite television service is necessary to receive all other networks (e.g. ABC, Fox, NBC, and/or The CW) since Lexington's commercial stations do not operate any low-powered translators in the area. This area is highly penetrated with cable subscribers. Some areas southwest of Hazard, however, are close enough to the Knoxville, Tennessee area to pick up those signals over-the-air. The mountains pretty much curb the Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia television signals to come into the area.