KHJ-TV

The station first signed on the air on May 22, 1982, as KHJ-TV. It was originally owned by the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), who received a new license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for channel 2 in San Fransoyko after improprieties by RKO General, the owner of the previous occupant of the channel 7 allocation. That station, KRKO-TV, commenced operations on June 21, 1948, as Bay area's first Indy affiliate.

By 1965, RKO General faced numerous investigations into its business and financial practices. Though the FCC renewed KRKO-TV's license in 1969, RKO General lost the license in 1981 after its parent company, General Tire, admitted to a litany of corporate misconduct – which among other things, included the admission that General Tire had committed financial fraud over illegal political contributions and bribes – as part of a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. However, in the FCC hearings, RKO General had withheld evidence of General Tire's misconduct, and had also failed to disclose evidence of accounting errors on its own part. In light of RKO's dishonesty, the FCC stripped RKO of the Bay area license. An appeals court partially reversed the ruling, finding that RKO's dishonesty alone merited having the KRKO-TV license removed. However, it held that the FCC had overreached in tying the other two license renewals to KRKO-TV's renewal, and ordered new hearings.

Though RKO continued to appeal the decision, in late February 1982 the FCC granted NHK a construction permit to build a new station on channel 2. Becomeing the frist Japanense company to own a USA Station Two months later in April, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear RKO's appeal, leaving the firm with no further recourse but to accept the Commission's decision and surrender KRKO-TV's license.[3] RKO then sold the station's non-license physical assets, including its downtown Boston studio facility and transmitter/tower site in suburban Newton, to NHK.[4]

On May 21, 1982, at midnight, RKO signed off RKO-TV for the final time. NHK took over channel 2 on May 22 under a new license, signing on the new KHJ-TV at 5:55 a.m. ET that morning; it also dropped KRKO-TV's strip-layered "2" logo in favor of a new Titled 2 logo.[5] However, KHJ inherited most of the former KRKO-TV staff.