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
The station first signed on the air on December 4, 1949 as the first television station in Arizona. It was originally owned by a group of entrepreneurs—one of whom, John Mullins, would later launch KBTV (now KUSA) in Denver. Majority interest was held by Phoenix Broadcasting, owners of KPHO radio (910 AM, now KFYI at 550 AM); the television station, which was originally assigned the call letters KTLX, had its callsign changed to KPHO-TV to match its radio sister shortly before its debut. It originally broadcast from studios at the Hotel Westward Ho in downtown Phoenix. The Meredith Corporation purchased the KPHO stations on June 25, 1952. In April 1950, the Lew King Ranger children's show broadcast live on KPHO with a young Wayne Newton as announcer. In 1954, it began airing "The Wallace and Ladmo Show", a children's program which aired weekday mornings until 1989—one of the longest-running locally produced children's shows in television history.