KCOP-TV

Channel 13 first signed on the air on September 17, 1948 as KLAC-TV (standing for Los Angeles, California), and adopted the moniker "Lucky 13". It was originally co-owned with local radio station KLAC (570 AM). Operating as an independent station early on, it began running some programming from the DuMont Television Network[1] in 1949 after KTLA (channel 5) disaffiliated from the network after a one-year tenure. One of KLAC-TV's earlier stars was veteran actress Betty White, who starred in Al Jarvis's Make-Believe Ballroom (later Hollywood on Television) from 1949 to 1952, and then her own sitcom, Life with Elizabeth from 1952 to 1956. Television personality Regis Philbin and actor/director Leonard Nimoy once worked behind the scenes at channel 13, and Oscar Levant had his own show on the station from 1958 to 1960.

On December 23, 1953, the now-defunct Copley Press (publishers of the San Diego Union-Tribune) purchased KLAC-TV and changed its call letters to the current KCOP, which reflected their ownership.[2] A Bing Crosby-led group purchased the station in June 1957.[3] In 1959, the NAFI Corporation, which would later merge with Chris-Craft Boats to become Chris-Craft Industries, bought channel 13.[4] NAFI/Chris-Craft would be channel 13's longest-tenured owner, running it for over 40 years.[5]

For most of its first 46 years on the air, channel 13 was a typical general entertainment independent station. It was usually the third or fourth highest-rated independent in Southern California, trading the #3 spot with KHJ-TV (channel 9, now KCAL-TV). The station carried Operation Prime Time programming at least in 1978.[6]

In the 1970s, KCOP was one of the earliest of many independents nationwide to schedule re-runs of the original Star Trek series (Monday-Friday at the dinner hour), thereby becoming instrumental in the eventual rebirth of Star Trek as a "franchise" which is alive and well 50+ years later.

In the early 1980s, KCOP became one of the many stations in the U.S. to broadcast Star Fleet (aka X-Bomber), a science-fiction marionette series which originally debuted in Japan in 1980.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, it was the Los Angeles home of Star Trek: The Next Generation (as well as the Original Series before it), The Arsenio Hall Show and Baywatch.[7] KCOP was the original Los Angeles home of the syndicated version of Wheel of Fortune (its longtime announcer until his death in 2010, Charlie O'Donnell, was a former staff announcer and news anchor at KCOP). The station had also picked up Jeopardy! from KCBS-TV (channel 2) in 1985. Both game shows moved to KCBS-TV in 1989, and later to current home KABC-TV (channel 7) in 1992. Channel 13 aired select episodes of the Australian soap opera Neighbours from early June to late August 1991. The station tried airing movies six nights a week in 1992; however, they fared poorly.

KCOP partnered with WWOR-TV and MCA TV Entertainment on a two night programming block, Hollywood Premiere Network starting in October 1990.[8] KCOP carried the Prime Time Entertainment Network programming service from 1993 to 1995.[9] KCOP carried Spelling Premiere Network at its launch in August 1994 on Thursday nights.[10]

On October 27, 1993, Chris-Craft and its broadcasting subsidiary, United Television, partnered with Viacom's newly acquired subsidiary Paramount Pictures to form the United Paramount Network (UPN). KCOP became the network's Los Angeles station, which debuted on January 16, 1995 (this made channel 13 a UPN owned-and-operated station through Chris-Craft's ownership of the network – later part-ownership once Viacom bought 50% of UPN from Chris-Craft in 1996). At the network's launch, which also served to launch Paramount's Star Trek: Voyager, KCOP served as UPN's West Coast "flagship" station. During the late 1990s, the station began carrying a large amount of younger leaning talk shows (such as The Ricki Lake Show, The Jenny Jones Show, and The Montel Williams Show), reality series, some sitcoms during the evening hours, and syndicated cartoons (such as Double Dragon) in the morning well as the popular anime series Sailor Moon.

In 2000, Viacom bought Chris-Craft's 50% ownership interest in UPN; the deal effectively stripped KCOP of its status as one of the network's O&Os in the process (and making UPN the first major broadcast network to not have an O&O in the Los Angeles market, unless one counts KTLA's designation as an O&O by the Federal Communications Commission – ironically due to that station's founding owner Paramount's relations with DuMont – in the early 1950s after having already disaffiliated from the network). On August 12, 2000, Chris-Craft sold its UPN stations to the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of News Corporation for $5.5 billion;[11] a deal that was finalized on July 31, 2001, creating a duopoly with Fox O&O KTTV. Upon being sold to Fox, the Fox Kids weekday block moved to KCOP in the mid-afternoons, only for it to be discontinued nationwide in January 2002.[12] Soon after, the station ran an hour-long morning cartoon block (supplied by DIC Entertainment), but dropped cartoons entirely in September 2006. Channel 13 was the last local television station to air cartoons on weekdays; like the other local stations, the cartoons were replaced with informercials. In a separate transaction from its purchase of UPN, Viacom purchased KCOP's rival, KCAL-TV, from Young Broadcasting on June 1, 2002. Rumors persisted that UPN would move to the higher-rated KCAL, reverting KCOP to independent station status. However, Viacom decided to continue operating KCAL as an independent, as Fox renewed affiliation agreements for its UPN-affiliated stations for four years, keeping the network's programming on KCOP.

With Fox's acquisition of KCOP, the station abandoned its longtime Hollywood studios at 915 North La Brea Avenue (once home to the classic Barry & Enright-produced game shows The Joker's Wild and Tic-Tac-Dough, and short-lived B&E entry Play the Percentages) with KCOP's news and technical operations being moved into KTTV's facilities at the Fox Television Center in West Los Angeles in 2003.[13] The La Brea Avenue studio was put up for sale, with Fox electing to keep the facility, remodeling it to house the first two seasons of the reality series Hell's Kitchen.[14] It was eventually abandoned with fixtures in place, and became a haven for squatters who were evicted by police in May 2009.[15] The studio was eventually torn down, and currently the site is now a Sprouts store, with a large apartment complex that opened November 2015.[16]

First logo under MNTV affiliation, used from September 2006 to 2013.

On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down UPN and The WB and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW.[17][18] KTLA, which had been the market's WB affiliate since the network's January 1995 launch, became The CW's Los Angeles affiliate as part of a 10-year affiliation deal between the new network and KTLA's owner, Tribune Broadcasting.

The CW's initial affiliate list did not include any of Fox's UPN stations, but even without the Tribune affiliation deal, it is unlikely that KCOP would have been picked over KTLA as The CW's management was on record as preferring The WB and UPN's "strongest" affiliates – KTLA had led KCOP in the ratings dating back to when they were both independent stations. The day after the announcement of The CW's pending launch, on January 25, 2006, Fox dropped all network references from its UPN stations' on-air branding, and stopped promoting UPN's programs altogether. Accordingly, KCOP changed its branding from "UPN 13" to "Channel 13", and amended the station's 2002 logo to omit the UPN logo and just feature the boxed "13". On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV, which would have KCOP and the other Fox-owned UPN stations (plus an independent station in Dallas–Fort Worth) serve as the nuclei.[19][20]

UPN continued to broadcast on stations across the country until September 15, 2006. While some of the network's affiliates that switched to MyNetworkTV (which commenced operations on September 5, 2006) aired the final two weeks of UPN programs outside of its recommended primetime slot, the Fox-owned stations, including KCOP, dropped UPN entirely on August 31, 2006. In September 2006, the station began identifying itself as "MyNetworkTV, Channel 13"; the branding changed again in May 2007, simplified to "My13 Los Angeles".

As of September 14, 2015, the station began airing other programming in MyNetworkTV's traditional 8 p.m.-10 p.m. timeslot, including TMZ Live and Hollywood Today Live; MyNetworkTV's schedule is now carried out of primetime in late night from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. on weeknights. This makes KCOP the most high-profile station carrying MyNetworkTV to move it out of primetime, along with the first Fox-owned station to do so (Gary, Indiana (in the Chicago media market)-licensed WPWR-TV moved MyNetworkTV programming to 10 p.m.-midnight on September 1, 2016 after assuming that market's The CW affiliation from Tribune-owned WGN-TV, taking The CW as its primary affiliation; WPWR would later move MyNetworkTV programming to 9:00 to 11:00 PM Central Time). At some point in time, KCOP moved MNTV back to the 8-10pm slot.

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

On November 4, 2011, Fox Television Stations signed an affiliation agreement with Bounce TV for KCOP and its New York City-area sister station WWOR-TV.[25] KCOP began carrying Bounce TV on digital subchannel 13.2 on March 8, 2012 (WWOR added the network on its 9.3 subchannel two weeks earlier on February 24). The network has also been added to the subchannels of Fox-owned MyNetworkTV stations in five other markets: Baltimore, Phoenix, Orlando, Dallas and Minneapolis; the Baltimore affiliation had since moved to a subchannel of ABC affiliate WMAR-TV, soon after Fox sold-off MyNetworkTV outlet WUTB to Deerfield Media. In three other markets where Fox owns MyNetworkTV stations (Chicago, Houston and Washington, D.C.), Bounce TV is carried on the subchannel space of other competing stations in those markets.

As a result of Bounce TV signing a new carriage agreement with Univision Communications in 2014, the network moved to the third subchannel of Univision owned & operated station KMEX (channel 34) on March 9, 2015. Buzzr, a new digital multicast network focusing on classic game shows, which is a joint venture of FremantleMedia (most notably, the owners of the Mark Goodson and Reg Grundy libraries among others) and KCOP's parent company, Fox Television Stations, debuted on channel 13.2 on June 1, 2015.

On September 18, 2015, Weigel Broadcasting and Fox Television Stations announced an affiliation agreement to carry diginet Heroes & Icons on subchannels of Fox-owned stations in New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Phoenix, Detroit, Tampa, Orlando and Charlotte beginning October 1, 2015.

KCOP-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 13, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[26] The station's digital signal relocated from its transition period UHF channel 66, which was among the high band UHF channels (52–69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era VHF channel 13.[27]

Syndicated programs on KCOP-TV (as of September 2020) include Justice with Judge Mablean, Divorce Court, The Real, Seinfeld and The Simpsons.

Channel 13 served as the broadcast home of the Los Angeles Marathon from its inception in 1986 until 2001, the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers from 1991 to 1996 and currently since 2012,[28] and the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2002 to 2005 and two Los Angeles Chargers games in 2017.

Like many local stations in the earlier years of television, KCOP hosted its own weekly Studio Wrestling show for many years during the 1970s. Stars such as Freddie Blassie, John Tolos, Rocky Johnson, André the Giant and The Sheik headlined the shows, with longtime local announcer Dick Lane behind the microphone calling the action.[29] In later years, pro wrestling returned to KCOP by way of the World Wrestling Entertainment program Smackdown, which aired on the station from 1999 to 2006 (as a UPN affiliate) and again from 2008 to 2010 (as a MyNetworkTV affiliate). In the past, Channel 13 also aired other wrestling programs, including World Class Championship Wrestling and the NWA. Channel 13 also televised live boxing matches, originating from the Grand Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles, on and off from the late 1960s until as recently as the mid-1990s, with legendary Los Angeles sportscaster Jim Healy calling the action in the early years.[30]

From 2005 to 2007, KCOP carried St. Louis Rams preseason games produced by now-former corporate siblings Fox Sports Midwest and KTVI. Back in the 1950s during the team's early years in Los Angeles, the station broadcast many Rams regular season games before NFL games became more exclusive to the major broadcast networks (such as CBS, NBC and DuMont). However, in July 2008, the NFL's broadcast committee decided to no longer allow teams to broadcast preseason games beyond even their secondary markets. This was done more so to protect the league's broadcast partners, including KCBS-TV and KTLA, the respective local broadcasters of San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders preseason games.[31]

From 2006 to 2011, KCOP held the broadcast television rights to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim baseball; the team and Fox Sports West signed a 20-year broadcast deal beginning with the 2012 season, making 150 annual Angels telecasts exclusive to Fox Sports West, with a selected portion of that schedule airing on Prime Ticket, although KCOP aired a game between the Angels and the Minnesota Twins on May 9, 2012 due to scheduling conflicts with other sports events on Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket. Due to its relationship with their corporate sibling regional sports networks, KCOP serves as an overflow channel for Fox Sports West and Prime Ticket, as it aired five Los Angeles Kings hockey games during the 2010–11 season,[32] as well as televising selected late-season games from the 2011–12 season, plus the first two games of the Kings' first-round playoff series against the Vancouver Canucks. In the time since, KCOP will occasionally air selected Kings games, as well as those of the team's crosstown rival, the Anaheim Ducks. The Ducks discontinued their over-the-air partnership with KDOC-TV after the 2013–14 season, as the team elected to take its local television schedule exclusively on cable to Prime Ticket, with occasional games on KCOP and Fox Sports West, as part of a new broadcast agreement signed in October 2014[33]

On April 8, 2011, KCOP televised its first Clippers game since 1996 (a road game versus the Dallas Mavericks), as a last-minute scheduling addition to the team's television schedule. During the 2011–12 season, also as a last-minute addition, the station televised two Clipper games; a road contest versus the Denver Nuggets on April 18, and game six of their playoff series versus the Memphis Grizzlies on May 11.[34]

As a Fox-owned station, KCOP was granted special rights to two Fox NFL games during the 2017 regular season, both home contests featuring the Chargers, newly relocated to Los Angeles from San Diego. The broadcasts occurred on weekends when CBS had the doubleheader, but the Rams were on KTTV.[35]