Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: When did KHON-TV become a CW affiliate?
On October 23, 2006, KHON-TV was announced as the Honolulu affiliate of The CW, carrying the network on its second digital subchannel.[31] Beginning in March 2006 (two months after the network's launch was announced), The CW had struggled to find an affiliate in Honolulu after the market's then-WB affiliate KFVE, which was seen by many as the likeliest candidate to join The CW, signed with competing network MyNetworkTV, and former UPN affiliate KIKU (which aired the network's programming in the afternoons) declined to take the CW affiliation.
In Omaha, Nebraska, KXVO uses the dual brandings of "CW15" and "Omaha's CW". In Honolulu, Hawaii, KHON-DT2 was originally branded as "Hawaii's CW 93" (the "93" refers to the subchannel's cable channel position on Oceanic Time Warner Cable), before it was shortened to "Hawaii's CW" in September 2014. The branding once used by WKRC-DT2/Cincinnati, Ohio was "CinCW", a portmanteau with the common nickname for the city, "Cincy" (it now brands as "The CW Cincinnati"). With the exceptions of WXCW/Fort Myers and (to a somewhat lesser extent) XETV/San Diego, all CW affiliates not owned by Tribune usually brand themselves using a version of the network logo. Mobile, Alabama CW affiliate WBPG, then known as "The Gulf Coast's CW" changed its call letters to WFNA in December 2009 and used a similar approach around their new call letters, before becoming known as "CW 55" in September 2012 and adopting a style reflective of The CW's branding techniques once again. WISH-TV in Indianapolis, as it had during its CBS affiliation, continues to brand solely with its channel number and calls as "WISH-TV 8", with "The CW" appended where appropriate, usually only in print and radio advertising.
As a result, in some markets, the new CW affiliate was a different station than either the former WB and UPN stations. In Helena, Montana, Ion Television affiliate KMTF (channel 10; now PBS member station KUHM-TV) became a CW station. In Las Vegas, Nevada, independent station KFBT (channel 33, now KVCW) chose to affiliate with The CW. In Honolulu, Hawaii, The CW did not become available in the market until early December 2006, where it was carried on a digital subchannel of local Fox affiliate KHON-TV (channel 2). The network also affiliated with some digital channels, mainly newly launched subchannels of a local Big Four affiliate, in several markets.
On September 22, 2006, "Friday Night SmackDown!" debuted on The CW, a joint venture between CBS Corporation (owner of UPN) and Warner Bros. Entertainment (a subsidiary of Time Warner, majority owner of the WB Television Network). For four weeks before the official premiere of "Friday Night SmackDown!" on the CW, Tribune Broadcasting television stations in six major markets (including WPIX in New York City and KTLA in Los Angeles) aired WWE's "Friday Night SmackDown!". This formed part of the preparation for the impending removal of UPN in several markets due to the debut of MyNetworkTV on September 5, 2006. Two other future affiliates of The CW, WCWJ in Jacksonville, Florida and WIWB in Green Bay, Wisconsin, also aired "Friday Night SmackDown!" in early September. The transition to the CW caused an interruption in the broadcast of "Friday Night SmackDown!" in the state of Utah beginning in June when KPNZ in Salt Lake City stopped airing all UPN programs early. As of 2009, KUCW broadcasts the show. In Hawaii, "Friday Night SmackDown!" returned in late 2006, airing on a CW digital subchannel of Honolulu's FOX affiliate KHON-TV (Channel 2), which had received statewide carriage over Oceanic Time Warner Cable. Since the move to CW, "SmackDown!" had shown a major increase in ratings to an average a 3.0 national rating. In addition, "SmackDown!" had become the second-highest-watched program on The CW.
It seemed very likely that KPWB would become The CW's Des Moines affiliate, as NBC affiliate WHO-TV (channel 13) had a secondary affiliation with UPN. On March 16, 2006, Pappas Telecasting signed an affiliation agreement to make KPWB the market's CW affiliate. A few months later, MyNetworkTV announced that it would affiliate with a new station also owned by Pappas, KDMI (then on channel 56), which began broadcasting that network on September 5, 2006. On September 18, 2006, the date that The CW officially launched, KPWB changed its call letters to KCWI-TV to reflect its new affiliation. In 2013, the station's logo switched from the generic version that The CW had used since its inception to a version utilizing the station's call letters (this version is also being used by The CW's San Francisco O&O, KBCW-TV).
KIKU reverted to being a full-time independent station after UPN shut down on September 17, 2006 (UPN and The WB's consolidation and shutdowns that month resulted in the creation of The CW Television Network). After the launch of The CW was announced, KIKU formally announced it would not seek to affiliate with the upstart network; The CW later signed an affiliation deal with KHON-TV, which carries the network on a digital subchannel.
The new combined network would be called The CW. The letters would represent the first initial of its corporate parents, CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. On February 22, News Corporation announced that they would start up another new network called MyNetworkTV. This new service, which would be a sister network to Fox, would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division, Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give UPN and WB stations, not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates, another option besides becoming independent. It was also created to compete against The CW. CBS affiliate WANE-TV aired UPN on a second digital subchannel. The Fort Wayne affiliate of The WB was cable-only "WBFW" which was part of The WB 100+. The station was co-owned with WPTA by Malara Broadcasting. It was announced in March 2006 that WBFW would affiliate with The CW via The CW Plus (a similar operation to The WB 100+). WPTA decided to create a new second digital sub-channel to simulcast WBFW and offer access to CW programming for over-the-air viewers. On September 18, The CW debuted on WBFW (which became officially known as having the WPTA-DT2 calls). The station became known on-air as "Fort Wayne's CW". On September 5, WISE-TV moved NBC Weather Plus from its second digital subchannel in order for it to become the area's affiliate of MyNetworkTV. Weather Plus then began airing on WISE-TV's third digital subchannel.
On November 1, 2018, Nexstar Media Group – which has owned Fox affiliate KHON-TV since January 2017 – announced that it would acquire KFVE and the licenses of satellites KGMD-TV and KGMV from American Spirit Media for $6.5 million. Nexstar concurrently assumed the station's operations through a time brokerage agreement that took effect the day the transaction paperwork was filed with the FCC, under which Raycom forwarded the rights to certain managerial services involving KFVE – not counting certain other services to which Raycom would retain stewardship under the TBA – on a transitional basis. Under the deal, which is expected to receive regulatory approval in the first quarter of 2019, Nexstar also intends to integrate KFVE's operations into KHON's studio facilities at the Haiwaiki Tower on Piikoi and Waimanu Streets. However, Raycom will retain rights to the KFVE intellectual unit (call letters, syndicated and local programming), which will be shifted to a digital subchannel of either KHNL or KGMB as will KFVE-DT2's Bounce TV affiliation (which will be moved to KGMB-DT4); the KFVE calls will also be retained by Raycom for branding continuity. As such, Nexstar will likely assign new call letters to the channel 9 license as well as acquire programming to replace that being maintained by Raycom post-acquisition (which may include shifting the programming on KHON's CW-affiliated DT2 feed to the KFVE license, and/or the retention of the MyNetworkTV affiliation, which Raycom did not include in the KFVE intellectual property transaction.)
In March 2006, The CW announced that "WBFW" would become the network's Fort Wayne affiliate as part of The CW Plus (a similar small-market master feed to The WB 100+). WPTA decided to create a new second digital subchannel to simulcast "WBFW" and offer access to CW programming for over-the-air viewers. Meanwhile, on September 5, WISE-TV moved NBC Weather Plus from its second digital subchannel in order for it to become the area's affiliate of MyNetworkTV. Weather Plus then began airing on WISE-DT3. On September 18, The CW debuted on "WBFW" which officially began using the WPTA-DT2 calls. The move resulted in the deactivation of CBS affiliate WANE-TV (channel 15)'s second digital subchannel, which had been affiliated with UPN prior to the network's shutdown (and remained dark until it affiliated with TheCoolTV in 2011).
On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW. On the day of the announcement, Tribune Broadcasting signed a ten-year agreement to affiliate 16 of its WB affiliates, including WBZL, with The CW. However, it would not have been an upset had WBFS (which is owned by CBS Corporation subsidiary CBS Television Stations) been chosen as Miami's CW station. Representatives for the network were on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN stations to become The CW's charter affiliates, and Miami-Fort Lauderdale was one of the few markets where the WB and UPN stations both had relatively strong viewership. Throughout the summer, WBZL started using the CW logo in station promotions and also began referring to itself as "CW South Florida". On September 17, the station changed its call letters to WSFL-TV, to reference to its geographic location. WSFL became a charter CW affiliate when the network debuted the next day on September 18.
On January 1, 1996, KHON-TV switched its affiliation to Fox (and changed its on-air branding to "Fox 2"); the NBC affiliation moved to former Fox affiliate KHNL (channel 13). Unlike the New World Communications-owned Fox affiliates that joined the network during the previous 18-month span, KHON ran Fox Kids programming on weekdays (until Fox discontinued the weekday block in December 2001,[6] airing weekdays from 1:00 to 4:00p.m. and then from 2:00 to 4:00p.m. until the fall of 2001 when it was moved to 10:00a.m. to noon) and Saturday mornings (until November 2008, when 4Kids Entertainment ceased programming Fox's children's block, with the network discontinuing its children's programming altogether). KHON also expanded its local news programming on weekdays, seeing an increase in newscast ratings with the affiliation switch.[7] KHON currently has the distinction of having the highest-rated local news programming of any Fox affiliate nationwide, and also declares itself as "America's No. 1 Fox affiliate", though the network's Miami affiliate WSVN makes this claim as well.[8] Neither station mentions Fox in its logo or branding; when KHON was rebranded to KHON 2 in 2004, it became the first Fox station to ditch the network's brand standardization for its stations while it was still an affiliate. KHON is now one of only four Fox affiliates that omit network references in their branding (alongside WSVN, WDRB in Louisville, Kentucky—which had branded as "Fox 41" from 1996 to 2011, and KVRR in Fargo, North Dakota—which branded simply as "Fox" from the 1990s until March 2015).
On November 1, 2018, Nexstar Media Group – which has owned Fox affiliate KHON-TV since January 2017 – announced that it would acquire KFVE and the licenses of satellites KGMD-TV and KGMV from American Spirit Media for $6.5 million. Nexstar concurrently assumed the station's operations through a time brokerage agreement that took effect the day the transaction paperwork was filed with the FCC, under which Raycom forwarded the rights to certain managerial services involving KFVE – not counting certain other services to which Raycom would retain stewardship under the TBA – on a transitional basis. Under the deal, which is expected to receive regulatory approval in the first quarter of 2019, Nexstar also intends to integrate KFVE's operations into KHON's studio facilities at the Haiwaiki Tower on Piikoi and Waimanu Streets. However, Raycom will retain rights to the KFVE intellectual unit (call letters, syndicated and local programming), which will be shifted to a digital subchannel of either KHNL or KGMB as will KFVE-DT2's Bounce TV affiliation (which will be moved to KGMB-DT4); the KFVE calls will also be retained by Raycom for branding continuity. As such, Nexstar will likely assign new call letters to the channel 9 license as well as acquire programming to replace that being maintained by Raycom post-acquisition (which may include shifting the programming on KHON's CW-affiliated DT2 feed to the KFVE license, and/or the retention of the MyNetworkTV affiliation, which Raycom did not include in the KFVE intellectual property transaction.)
KCWX's run as a CW affiliate ended on August 28, 2010, with the conclusion of the network's Friday primetime programming (which the station had delayed to Saturday night to accommodate a Major League Baseball game). By that time, The CW had discontinued its Sunday primetime programming. As a result, KCWX's last official day of its CW affiliation—August 29, 2010—featured mostly time-shifted programming from This TV. With the affiliation switch, "WWE SmackDown" briefly returned to KCWX for the first time since 2008 when The CW dropped the program; it moved to the Syfy cable channel one month later. As had been the case during its CW affiliation, KCWX does not serve the Austin market, as KBVO (channel 14) serves as that market's MyNetworkTV affiliate. KCWX is one of fifteen MyNetworkTV affiliates that have not adopted the network's "blue TV" logo and/or "My (channel number/region)" branding scheme (among the others include KPDX in Portland, Oregon, KSMO-TV in Kansas City, WPHL-TV in Philadelphia; KZJO in Seattle; WUAB in Cleveland; subchannel-only affiliates WYTV-TV in Youngstown, Ohio and WISC-TV in Madison, Wisconsin; and former affiliate KAUT-TV in Oklahoma City; KSMO-TV, WPHL-TV and WSTR-TV in Cincinnati each currently use the blue MyNetworkTV logo but not the "My" branding). In early 2011, KCWX launched a new website, www.kcwx.com.
While WGN-TV in Chicago became a charter affiliate of The CW, its former national counterpart WGN America never aired programs from The CW through a formal affiliation when it operated as WGN-TV's out-of-market superstation feed prior to December 2014 (although it did carry reruns of select CW series in marathon form in 2013), as the network has sufficient enough affiliate coverage that The CW did not need to use the national WGN feed to carry its programming; WGN America had previously carried WB programming from that network's January 1995 launch until October 1999, when Tribune Broadcasting and Time Warner mutually decided that The WB's national broadcast coverage had increased to a level that allowed the WGN national feed to discontinue carrying the network.
Nearly all of The CW's affiliates were formerly affiliated with UPN or The WB, with very few having been independent stations or affiliates of other networks prior to joining the network; a notable exception was Las Vegas affiliate KVCW, which had been a fairly successful independent before joining The CW. Although it was generally understood that The CW was a merger of UPN and The WB, the new network's creation was not structured as a merger in the legal sense. Rather, it was one new network launching at the same time that two others shut down, although it did assume certain programming content, operations and management from its predecessors. As such, The CW was not obligated by existing affiliations with The WB and UPN; it had to negotiate from scratch with individual stations. As a result, in several markets, the CW affiliation is on a local station different from either the former WB and UPN stations (for example, the CW affiliation in Las Vegas ended up on KVCW, instead of former WB affiliate KVMY or now-defunct former UPN affiliate KTUD-CA). The network has also affiliated with some digital subchannels, usually those launched by a local Big Four affiliate as a new service, in several other markets – especially if fewer than six commercial television stations existed at the time of affiliation, requiring The CW to carry its programming on a subchannel by default (for example, The CW opted to affiliate with a subchannel of WKRC-TV in Cincinnati – which has only five commercial full-power stations – instead of former WB affiliate WSTR-TV, which instead became an affiliate of MyNetworkTV).
KNVA in Austin, Texas owned by LIN Television and KWKB in Iowa City, Iowa owned by KM Communications were the only two stations at The CW's launch that carried both The CW as a primary and MyNetworkTV as a secondary affiliation (KNVA became a sole CW affiliate on October 21, 2009, while KWKB would drop MyNetworkTV and become a sole CW affiliate in September 2011); currently, locally owned WKTC in Columbia, South Carolina (which added The CW in March 2014), Fox Television Stations-owned WPWR-TV in Chicago, Illinois (which joined The CW in September 2016) and Raycom Media-owned WUAB in Cleveland, Ohio (which added The CW in July 2018) carry both networks on their primary channel. In addition, WTVY in Dothan, Alabama, a CBS affiliate owned by Gray Television, now carries MyNetworkTV on a digital subchannel that was previously affiliated with UPN, and also added a third digital subchannel for the CW. WTOK-TV in Meridian, Mississippi, also owned by Gray, added two more digital subchannels for the CW and MyNetworkTV, in addition to ABC on its main channel and Fox on another subchannel. Also, from October 2010 until November 2014, WLMT in Memphis, Tennessee, owned by the Nexstar Media Group, was the only station in the country carrying The CW as its primary affiliation and MyNetworkTV on a digital subchannel.
KHON-TV, virtual channel 2 (VHF digital channel 8), is a primary Fox/subchannel-only CW-affiliated television station licensed to Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. The station is owned by the Nexstar Media Group, as part of a duopoly with MyNetworkTV affiliate KHII-TV (channel 9). The two stations share studios at the Haiwaiki Tower on Piikoi and Waimanu Streets in downtown Honolulu (between the Kaka'ako and Ala Moana districts); KHON's main transmitter is also located downtown at the Century Center condominium/business complex (near Kalakaua Avenue and Kapiolani Boulevard, just northwest of the Hawaii Convention Center).
The network premiered on KHON's main channel on October 24 and 25 with airings of the regular CW schedule before moving to digital channel 2.2 on October 30; this was possible due to Fox's World Series coverage airing live at 2 p.m. Honolulu time,[32] freeing up prime time. On December 11, 2006, Oceanic Time Warner Cable began offering KHON-TV's CW subchannel on digital cable channel 93; until the fall of 2011, the subchannel used its cable channel position within its branding.[33] The channel is currently available only on cable on Kauai, since KHON's Lihue translator only operates an analog signal.
KHON-DT2 presently clears The CW's entire schedule, including its daytime and Saturday morning blocks. However, the subchannel had aired The CW's Sunday night lineup an hour off-schedule, from 5 to 10 p.m. until the Sunday lineup was dropped and the hours given to its affiliates in September 2009. Syndicated programming on the subchannel includes 'Til Death, The Jerry Springer Show and Maury, along with repeats of some KHON-TV programming. The subchannel is also available locally on DirecTV and Dish Network; the '93' in the subchannel's branding was removed for this reason, as its channel numbers are different on those providers, and was later dropped by KHON across the board on both Oceanic Time Warner and Hawaiian Telcom (on cable channel 3), going with only "Hawaii's CW" for that same reason. On August 20, 2007, "Hawaii's CW" began airing the nationally syndicated morning news program The Daily Buzz.[34] The show's former home in the Honolulu market, KGMB, dropped the show three days earlier on August 17 in favor of a local morning newscast titled Sunrise on KGMB9, which launched on September 17. Unlike KGMB, which only aired the first two hours of The Daily Buzz, "Hawaii's CW" aired the entire three-hour broadcast each weekday from 5 to 8 a.m. Upon the sudden cancellation of The Daily Buzz in mid-April 2015 by its distributor, the channel switched to a simulcast of KHON's morning news in full.
On November 1, 2018, Irving, Texas-based Nexstar Media Group—which has owned Fox affiliate KHON-TV since January 2017—announced that it would acquire KFVE and the licenses of satellites KGMD-TV and KGMV from American Spirit Media for $6.5 million. Nexstar concurrently assumed the station's operations through a time brokerage agreement that took effect the day the transaction paperwork was filed with the FCC, under which Raycom forwarded the rights to certain managerial services involving KFVE – not counting certain other services to which Raycom would retain stewardship under the TBA – on a transitional basis. Under the deal, Nexstar also intends to integrate KFVE's operations into KHON's studio facilities at the Haiwaiki Tower on Piikoi and Waimanu Streets. However, Raycom will retain rights to the KFVE intellectual unit (call letters, syndicated and local programming), which will be shifted to a digital subchannel of either KHNL or KGMB as will KFVE-DT2's Bounce TV affiliation (which will be moved to KGMB-DT4); the KFVE calls will also be retained by Raycom for branding continuity. As such, Nexstar will likely assign new call letters to the channel 9 license as well as acquire programming to replace that being maintained by Raycom post-acquisition (which may include shifting the programming on KHON's CW-affiliated DT2 feed to the KFVE license, and/or the retention of the MyNetworkTV affiliation, which Raycom did not include in the KFVE intellectual property transaction.)
On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV, which would be operated by Fox Television Stations and its syndication division Twentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created to compete against another upstart network that would launch at the same time that September, The CW (an amalgamated network that originally consisted primarily of UPN and The WB's higher-rated programs) as well as to give UPN and WB stations that were not mentioned as becoming CW affiliates another option besides converting to independent stations. KFRE-TV (channel 59, no relation to what is now KFSN-TV) took the CW affiliation; KAIL, meanwhile, signed an affiliation agreement to become MyNetworkTV's Fresno affiliate. The station became a charter affiliate of the network when it launched on September 5, 2006.
KHON-TV presently broadcasts 37 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 7 hours on weekdays, and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays). When it switched to Fox, KHON maintained a news schedule similar to what it offered as an NBC affiliate. This resulted in KHON being the only news-producing Fox affiliate—indeed, the only Fox station that ran any local news programming—that did not air a primetime newscast. Hawaii's local stations use the same primetime scheduling as network-affiliated stations in the Central, Mountain and Alaska time zones in the continental U.S. While most Fox stations in these time zones generally air their late evening newscasts at 9 p.m., instead KHON airs its late newscast at 10 p.m., competing against KITV, KGMB and KHNL instead of only competing with KFVE (whose 9 p.m. newscast is produced by the joint Hawaii News Now operation also involving KFVE sister stations KGMB and KHNL). On September 8, 2014, KHON launched its first 9 p.m. weeknight newscast, which is 30 minutes in length. This marked the first time KHON aired news programming in primetime since it was a NBC affiliate, when its Eyewitness News began its late evening broadcast at 9:30p.m. to accommodate the delayed NBC schedule from 1972 to 1980. KHON's 10 p.m. newscast will continue in the same time slot.
Until September 16, 2011, KWKB aired MyNetworkTV programming from 9 to 11 p.m., immediately following CW programming. The satellite feeds for MyNetworkTV and The CW are actually aired at the same time, so MyNetworkTV programming was recorded and broadcast two hours after it is aired on other MyNetworkTV affiliates. However, as of September 19, 2011, KWKB dropped MyNetworkTV in favor of syndicated fare. This briefly left the Cedar Rapids market one of two markets in Iowa without an affiliate for the network until October 3, when Des Moines's This TV affiliate KDMI re-affiliated with the network (as a secondary affiliation) after it had initially dropped it in 2009. However, as of October 2011, KCRG-TV digital channel 9.2 is carrying the MyNetworkTV programming service on a delayed basis from 12:05 to 2:05 a.m. KWKB was the last CW-affiliated station that carried MyNetworkTV on the same feed as The CW until 2014, when Columbia, South Carolina's existing MyNetworkTV affiliate WKTC, and later in 2016, when Chicago's MyNetworkTV (O&O) affiliate WPWR-TV added a primary CW affiliation while retaining MyNetworkTV as a secondary affiliation on their main channel.
Incidentally, KHON was a secondary affiliate of one of The CW's predecessor networks, UPN, from 2002 to 2004—at a time when secondary affiliations were more common and the advent of digital subchannels was not as widespread as it is today. "Hawaii's CW" does not have its own website; the only mentions of the subchannel on KHON's website are in the station's programming schedule and a link to The CW's website.
On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW. WKRC signed a deal to affiliate with the new network on a new second digital subchannel resulting in UPN affiliate WBQC-CA (channel 25) becoming an independent station. Meanwhile, WB affiliate WSTR-TV joined another new network, News Corporation-owned MyNetworkTV (now owned by 21st Century Fox) which launched on September 5. With the affiliation, WKRC-DT2 became the largest subchannel-only CW affiliate by market size, and was one of the few such stations located in the top 100 markets (most CW-affiliated stations that carry the network via a subchannel are located in the 110 smallest U.S. television markets and carry The CW Plus, an automated feed featuring a pre-packaged schedule of syndicated programs outside CW programming hours; the few that are located among the top 100—such as WTVG-DT2 in Toledo—maintain an independently programmed schedule as their primary channel counterparts do). This distinction ended on May 31, 2017, when San Diego's CBS affiliate, KFMB-TV, affiliated its DT2 subchannel with The CW (which had previously been carried on the primary feed of Tijuana, Mexico-based XETV).