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.
KOTA-TV
Until 2016, the KOTA-TV call sign, along with the virtual channel 3 assignment and the ABC affiliation, were associated with the station now known as KHME (channel 23). KOTA-TV had gone on the air in 1955 as a CBS affiliate owned by Helen Duhamel along with KOTA radio (1380 AM). The station also had secondary affiliations with NBC (until 1958) and ABC; it took on a joint-primary affiliation with both CBS and ABC in 1965, dropped CBS for NBC in 1970, lost ABC in 1976, and carried a secondary CBS affiliation from 1976 until 1981. KOTA became an ABC affiliate in 1984, and also carried some Fox programming from 1994 to 1996. The KHSD-TV call letters and virtual channel 11 were previously associated with the station now known as KQME (channel 5), which had been a KOTA-TV satellite since 1966.