KICU-TV
Encyclopedia
KICU-TV, known as TV36, is an independent television station
in the San Francisco Bay Area
market. It shares its broadcast facility with sister station KTVU in Oakland
but it is licensed to San Jose
, where KICU was formerly located. It is owned by Cox Enterprises
. It runs an independent schedule of classic sitcoms, talk shows, reality shows, movies, and some kids shows on weekends. KICU broadcasts from a transmitter site on Mission Peak
in nearby Fremont
; its signal covers most of the entire Bay Area with some difficulty covering the North Bay over the air.
with the callsign KTVU (not related to the Oakland station) in the mid-1950's as a short-lived UHF station. It has since been reallocated to the Bay Area television market, and Stockton became part of the Sacramento
television market.
On the current incarnation of channel 36, the station began as KGSC-TV in early October 1967. It is the Bay Area's longest continuously running commercial UHF television station. In the 1970s the station promoted itself as "The Perfect 36" and employed as spokesmodel busty San Francisco stripper–entertainer Carol Doda
. In addition to breathing the station IDs, Doda would also do the station's editorials, which like the IDs were laced with double entendre
s. The first take was always broadcast, mistakes and allhttp://www.uhfnocturne.com/36KGSC_index.html. KGSC was also notable for the all-night movies, hosted for a long time by the Old Sourdough and Wachikanokahttp://www.ga3ry.com/show.html. While there were several sets of hosts for the all-night movies, most versions were known as Movies 'Til Dawn, and sponsored by a local carpet retailer. KGSC was purchased by Ralph Wilson in the early 1980s changing the call letters to KICU.
KICU produced a half-hour 10 p.m. newscast in the 1980s and '90s. Jan Hutchins, formerly a sportscaster at KPIX, was a longtime anchor. In the late 1980s, KICU ran INN News at 10:30 p.m. INN News
, also known as Independent Network News, was produced by WPIX-TV in New York City. Previously, from 1995 to 2000, KICU broadcast several Golden State Warriors
basketball games each season. The station also was a longtime broadcaster of San Jose Sharks
games. Over the years, the station ran a number of drama shows and older movies. It added more classic sitcoms and children's shows by the mid-1990s. However, the station gradually phased out children's programming between 1998 and 2002.
In 2000, the station was sold to Cox, meaning that the station moved from its original studios in San Jose to KTVU's Jack London Square
facilities in Oakland, becoming the first Bay Area television duopoly
. The station aired a rebroadcast of KTVU's Ten O'Clock News at 11 pm from January 2000 until September 14, 2001 under the titling The Eleven O'Clock Edition of the Original Ten O'Clock News (the "Original" branding used to stand out from 10 pm newscasts airing on KRON and KPIX at the time, which pushed their network primetime schedules back an hour for viewership concerns and to compete with KTVU). KICU also simulcast
the 7 am–9 am block of Mornings on 2 in the early 2000s with a South Bay traffic–weather ticker and news briefs and breaking news specific to that area. On April 5, 2010, KICU has once again rebroadcast KTVU's 10 o'clock news at 11:30 PM Monday thru Friday.
The station resumed airing a newscast from KTVU on January 21, 2008 with the weeknight Bay Area News at 7 on TV 36, which is anchored by Gasia Mikaelian; the station had previously aired a newscast at 7 pm called Action 36 Prime News from 1992 to 1994.
Due to being co-owned with KTVU, KICU airs any prime-time programming from Fox in lieu of KTVU if that station is preempting the network for local programming, or in the past, San Francisco Giants
baseball until 2007. With NBC
O&O KNTV
becoming the broadcast home of the Giants in 2008, KICU also has taken the role of airing preempted NBC programming in lieu of KNTV. As of 2010, KRON-TV
-- originally NBC's primary Bay Area affiliate until the network bought KNTV in December 2001 -- has taken the duties of a secondary NBC affiliation as it airs NBC programs in case KNTV cannot air them.
KICU was the broadcast television flagship for Oakland Athletics
games until 2009, when the A's signed an exclusive TV deal with CSN California. Since KTVU had the Giants, the Cox duopoly essentially had exclusive control of the local broadcast television rights for a short while until the end of the 2007 season. The station aired High School Sports Focus on Friday nights at 11 pm with a 4 pm Sunday rebroadcast; the show also won regional Emmy awards. It was canceled in 2008.
KICU also offers Korean language programming from Korean Broadcasting System, 24 hours a day on digital subchannel 36-2.
began rallying to bring horror movie TV host Mr. Lobo
to KICU to host a Saturday Night Horror show on KICU to compete against the successful Creepy KOFY Movietime on KOFY TV 20 and bring back a quality hosted horror show to the Bay Area. Unfortunately it was unsuccessful.
}
}
}
}
Television station
A television station is a business, organisation or other such as an amateur television operator that transmits content over terrestrial television. A television transmission can be by analog television signals or, more recently, by digital television. Broadcast television systems standards are...
in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
market. It shares its broadcast facility with sister station KTVU in Oakland
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
but it is licensed to San Jose
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
, where KICU was formerly located. It is owned by Cox Enterprises
Cox Enterprises
Cox Enterprises is the successor to the publishing company founded in Dayton, Ohio, United States, by James Middleton Cox, who began with the Dayton Daily News. He was the Democratic candidate for the President of the United States in the election of 1920...
. It runs an independent schedule of classic sitcoms, talk shows, reality shows, movies, and some kids shows on weekends. KICU broadcasts from a transmitter site on Mission Peak
Mission Peak
Mission Peak is a peak east of Fremont, California. It is part of a ridge that includes Mount Allison and Monument Peak. Mission Peak is located in the Mission Peak Regional Preserve and is a part of the East Bay Regional Park District. There is regular snowfall every winter, but it is typically...
in nearby Fremont
Fremont, California
Fremont is a city in Alameda County, California. It was incorporated on January 23, 1956, from the merger of five smaller communities: Centerville, Niles, Irvington, Mission San Jose, and Warm Springs...
; its signal covers most of the entire Bay Area with some difficulty covering the North Bay over the air.
History
The channel 36 allocation was originally based in Stockton, CaliforniaStockton, California
Stockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city...
with the callsign KTVU (not related to the Oakland station) in the mid-1950's as a short-lived UHF station. It has since been reallocated to the Bay Area television market, and Stockton became part of the Sacramento
Sacramento
Sacramento is the capital of the state of California, in the United States of America.Sacramento may also refer to:- United States :*Sacramento County, California*Sacramento, Kentucky*Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta...
television market.
On the current incarnation of channel 36, the station began as KGSC-TV in early October 1967. It is the Bay Area's longest continuously running commercial UHF television station. In the 1970s the station promoted itself as "The Perfect 36" and employed as spokesmodel busty San Francisco stripper–entertainer Carol Doda
Carol Doda
Carol Ann Doda was a topless stripper in San Francisco, California in the 1960s through 1980s, one of the first of the era....
. In addition to breathing the station IDs, Doda would also do the station's editorials, which like the IDs were laced with double entendre
Double entendre
A double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
s. The first take was always broadcast, mistakes and allhttp://www.uhfnocturne.com/36KGSC_index.html. KGSC was also notable for the all-night movies, hosted for a long time by the Old Sourdough and Wachikanokahttp://www.ga3ry.com/show.html. While there were several sets of hosts for the all-night movies, most versions were known as Movies 'Til Dawn, and sponsored by a local carpet retailer. KGSC was purchased by Ralph Wilson in the early 1980s changing the call letters to KICU.
KICU produced a half-hour 10 p.m. newscast in the 1980s and '90s. Jan Hutchins, formerly a sportscaster at KPIX, was a longtime anchor. In the late 1980s, KICU ran INN News at 10:30 p.m. INN News
Independent Network News (US)
The Independent Network News was a nationally-syndicated nightly news program, seen from June 1980 until June 1990. The newscast was designed to serve the same purpose as the nightly network news programs, and was produced by Tribune Company-owned station WPIX in New York...
, also known as Independent Network News, was produced by WPIX-TV in New York City. Previously, from 1995 to 2000, KICU broadcast several Golden State Warriors
Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in Oakland, California. They are part of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
basketball games each season. The station also was a longtime broadcaster of San Jose Sharks
San Jose Sharks
The San Jose Sharks are a professional ice hockey team based in San Jose, California, United States. They are members of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League...
games. Over the years, the station ran a number of drama shows and older movies. It added more classic sitcoms and children's shows by the mid-1990s. However, the station gradually phased out children's programming between 1998 and 2002.
In 2000, the station was sold to Cox, meaning that the station moved from its original studios in San Jose to KTVU's Jack London Square
Jack London Square
Jack London Square is a popular tourist attraction on the waterfront of Oakland, California. Named after the author Jack London and owned by the Port of Oakland, it is the home of stores, restaurants, hotels, an Amtrak station, a ferry dock, the historic Saloon, the cabin Jack London lived in the...
facilities in Oakland, becoming the first Bay Area television duopoly
Duopoly (broadcasting)
In United States broadcast television and radio, duopoly is a term used to describe a single company which owns two or more stations in the same city or community....
. The station aired a rebroadcast of KTVU's Ten O'Clock News at 11 pm from January 2000 until September 14, 2001 under the titling The Eleven O'Clock Edition of the Original Ten O'Clock News (the "Original" branding used to stand out from 10 pm newscasts airing on KRON and KPIX at the time, which pushed their network primetime schedules back an hour for viewership concerns and to compete with KTVU). KICU also simulcast
Simulcast
Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...
the 7 am–9 am block of Mornings on 2 in the early 2000s with a South Bay traffic–weather ticker and news briefs and breaking news specific to that area. On April 5, 2010, KICU has once again rebroadcast KTVU's 10 o'clock news at 11:30 PM Monday thru Friday.
The station resumed airing a newscast from KTVU on January 21, 2008 with the weeknight Bay Area News at 7 on TV 36, which is anchored by Gasia Mikaelian; the station had previously aired a newscast at 7 pm called Action 36 Prime News from 1992 to 1994.
Due to being co-owned with KTVU, KICU airs any prime-time programming from Fox in lieu of KTVU if that station is preempting the network for local programming, or in the past, San Francisco Giants
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are a Major League Baseball team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the National League West Division....
baseball until 2007. With NBC
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
O&O KNTV
KNTV
KNTV, channel 11, is the NBC owned-and-operated television station in the Bay Area market. It is licensed to San Jose, with its transmitter located on San Bruno Mountain, just south of San Francisco. It shares facilities in San Jose with NBC Universal sister station KSTS and CNBC's Silicon...
becoming the broadcast home of the Giants in 2008, KICU also has taken the role of airing preempted NBC programming in lieu of KNTV. As of 2010, KRON-TV
KRON-TV
KRON-TV, virtual channel 4 , is a television station in San Francisco, California, serving as the Bay Area affiliate of the MyNetworkTV programming service; the station is owned by Young Broadcasting...
-- originally NBC's primary Bay Area affiliate until the network bought KNTV in December 2001 -- has taken the duties of a secondary NBC affiliation as it airs NBC programs in case KNTV cannot air them.
KICU was the broadcast television flagship for Oakland Athletics
Oakland Athletics
The Oakland Athletics are a Major League Baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. From to the present, the Athletics have played in the O.co Coliseum....
games until 2009, when the A's signed an exclusive TV deal with CSN California. Since KTVU had the Giants, the Cox duopoly essentially had exclusive control of the local broadcast television rights for a short while until the end of the 2007 season. The station aired High School Sports Focus on Friday nights at 11 pm with a 4 pm Sunday rebroadcast; the show also won regional Emmy awards. It was canceled in 2008.
KICU also offers Korean language programming from Korean Broadcasting System, 24 hours a day on digital subchannel 36-2.
Cinema Insomnia
In 2009 fans of Cinema InsomniaCinema Insomnia
Cinema Insomnia is a nationally syndicated American television series presented by horror host Mr. Lobo.- Format :Typically, Mr. Lobo opens each episode by promising to screen a well-known horror or science fiction classic ; however budgetary limitations, acts of God or other circumstances...
began rallying to bring horror movie TV host Mr. Lobo
Mr. Lobo
Erik Lobo better known by his stage name Mr. Lobo is an American artist and comedic actor best known as the horror host of the nationally syndicated American television series Cinema Insomnia.-Career :...
to KICU to host a Saturday Night Horror show on KICU to compete against the successful Creepy KOFY Movietime on KOFY TV 20 and bring back a quality hosted horror show to the Bay Area. Unfortunately it was unsuccessful.
Slogans
- "I see you TV 36!" - 1980s slogan displayed before KICU programs. It was usually followed with the line, "And you should see us now!," or the corresponding music. This was a play off of the call letters I-C-U.
- "You're watching the Perfect 36 in San Jose." was cooed by busty stripperStripperA stripper is a professional erotic dancer who performs a contemporary form of striptease at strip club establishments, public exhibitions, and private engagements. Unlike in burlesque, the performer in the modern Americanized form of stripping minimizes the interaction of customer and dancer,...
Carol DodaCarol DodaCarol Ann Doda was a topless stripper in San Francisco, California in the 1960s through 1980s, one of the first of the era....
in the late-1960s through the late-1970s, pictured from the waist up and wearing clothes which amplified her most prominent physical attributes. - "Action 36 Cable 6" - Slogan used from 1992-1995 and then again from July, 2001 until October 28, 2007.
- On October 29, 2007, KICU-TV rebranded themselves from Action 36, Cable 6 to TV 36 as part of their new campaign slogan, "Fun For You".
External links
- KICU's official site
- Cinema Insomnia
- UHF Nocturne: Channel 36
- Korean Television Network - Northern California (airs on digital channel 36.2)
}
}
}
}