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.
KPHO-TV
KPHO-TV was the sole English-language independent station in Phoenix until 1979, when KNXV-TV (channel 15) signed on with a general entertainment format during the day and subscription-based service ONTV at night (KNXV became a full-time general entertainment station by 1983). Even though channel 5 was the leading independent in the market, the upstart Fox Broadcasting Company opted to affiliate with channel 15 in 1986 after the E. W. Scripps Company purchased the station, promising to upgrade its syndicated programming and to launch a newscast (KPHO's other sister stations, KVVU-TV in Las Vegas and WOFL in Orlando landed affiliations with Fox upon its October 1986 launch, with the latter now owned by the network outright). Although it never did begin a newscast until the final months of its tenure with Fox in 1994, landing the Fox affiliation made KNXV a very strong competitor against KPHO. Early in 1994, KPHO signed a verbal agreement—but not a contractual one—with The WB, which was set to launch the following year in January 1995.