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.
KHNL
It was not until September 1993, after King Broadcasting was acquired by the Providence Journal Company, that KHNL adopted the "Fox 13" branding. On May 5 of that year, the station entered into a local marketing agreement with KFVE (then on channel 5), which merged its operations into KHNL's facility. In January 1994, all University of Hawaii sports telecasts were moved to KFVE. In August 1994, Burnham Broadcasting-owned KHON-TV (channel 2) was sold to SF Broadcasting, a joint venture between Savoy Pictures and Fox (the network owning a voting stock in Savoy), in a four-station group deal. As a result of the sale, KHON announced it would drop its affiliation with NBC to become the market's new Fox affiliate through a groupwide affiliation deal with the network. At first, NBC considered affiliating with ABC affiliate KITV. However, after Argyle purchased the station in 1995, KITV renewed its affiliation agreement with ABC instead. NBC later reached an affiliation deal with KHNL.