KFVE

KFVE

Honolulu, Hawaii United States
Branding	KFVE (general) (Pronounced as K-5) Hawaii News Now (newscasts)
Slogan	The Home Team
Channels	Digital: 22 (UHF) Virtual: 9 (PSIP)
Subchannels	9.1 MyNetworkTV
Owner	MCG Capital Corporation (operated through SSA by Raycom Media; sale to American Spirit Media pending, will remain operated by Raycom thereafter) (HITV License Subsidiary, Inc.)
First air date	February 7, 1988
Call letters' meaning	channel FiVE (former analog channel and current cable channel)
Sister station(s)	KHNL KGMB
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 5 (VHF, 1988–2009) Digital: 23 (UHF, until October 2009) Virtual: 5 (PSIP, until 2009)
Former affiliations	Independent (1988–1995) UPN (1995–2002) The WB (secondary, 1999–2002; primary, 2002–2006)
Transmitter power	40 kW
Height	629 m
Facility ID	36917
Transmitter coordinates	21°23′52″N 158°6′0″W / 21.39778°N 158.10000°W / 21.39778; -158.10000
Website	www.k5thehometeam.com

KFVE, virtual channel 9 (UHF digital channel 22), is a MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station located in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. The station is owned by MCG Capital Corporation; Raycom Media, which owns CBS affiliate KGMB (channel 5) and NBC affiliate KHNL (channel 13), operates KFVE under a shared services agreement. All three stations share studios on Waiakamilo Road in downtown Honolulu, KFVE's transmitter is located in Palehua. Syndicated programming on KFVE includes Family Guy, Law & Order, The King of Queens and Access Hollywood.

Digital television

Digital channels

Analog-to-digital conversion

KFVE shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 5, on January 15, 2009, the date in which full-power television stations in Hawaii transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts (six months earlier than the June 12 transition date for stations on the U.S. mainland). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 23.^[2] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers displayed the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 5. Following the channel swap with KGMB, the station's digital channel switched to UHF channel 22 and its virtual channel to 9.

History

KFVE signed on the air on February 7, 1988, broadcasting on channel 5, as the final VHF station in the market. Originally, KFVE focused on low-budget programming such as Hawaii Five-O repeats. Later under the moniker "Hawaii is Watching us Grow", it focused on movies and syndicated fare, and by 1990 acquired programs from KMGT (channel 26, now KAAH) before its format switch to religious programming. As a small-time independent station, it had to rely on low-budget programming and Japanese television dramas (most of which were later carried on independent station KIKU, channel 20) through much of its early existence. That all changed in 1993 when another local station, KHNL (then a Fox affiliate owned by the Providence Journal Company), took over management of KFVE through a local marketing agreement (LMA). KFVE then merged its operations into KHNL's facility. It was the first such local market sharing organization in the country. After KHNL took over oversight of the station in the mid-1990s, coverage of University of Hawaii athletics moved over to KFVE, which rebranded as "The Home Team". The "K-5" logo and the slogan were borrowed from KHNL's sister station in Seattle, WA, KING-TV.

On January 16, 1995, the station became a charter affiliate of UPN under the brand name "K-5 UPN Hawaii". On December 28, 1998, it became a secondary WB affiliate with the addition of programming from that network. Previously, The WB was carried throughout Hawaii on KWHE (channel 14). KFVE was acquired outright by Raycom Media on December 31, 1999. Raycom had purchased KHNL and the LMA with KFVE from Belo Corporation two months earlier, but acquired KFVE's license as well after the Federal Communications Commission began permitting duopolies between television stations. On September 2, 2002, the station dropped its affiliation with UPN and became a primary WB affiliate. The station rebranded itself as "K-5, The Home Team: Hawaii's WB". In the Honolulu market, UPN programming moved to KHON-TV (channel 2) and KGMB (then on channel 9), which both carried secondary affiliations with the network from 2002 to 2004.

On March 7, 2006, Raycom Media announced that KFVE would affiliate with MyNetworkTV as part of a group deal involving many of Raycom-owned affiliates of The WB and UPN (whose consolidation and shutdowns the following September resulted in the birth of The CW Television Network,^[3][4] which would affiliate in Hawaii with a digital subchannel of KHON-TV). KFVE officially joined MyNetworkTV on September 5 and did not air The WB's final two weeks of prime-time programming (though it did air WB daytime and Saturday morning programming until end of the network's existence).

On January 15, 2009, DirecTV transferred KFVE from analog to its digital and high definition signals due to the analog shutdown. The HD feed of KFVE was pulled off DirecTV on January 16 for unknown reasons. A standard definition digital feed of the station was restored on the satellite provider on January 17. On February 29, 2012, KFVE's HD feed was restored on DirecTV.

On August 18, 2009, Raycom Media announced that it would enter into a shared services agreement with MCG Capital Corporation (owner of CBS affiliate KGMB), in which the operations of that station, KFVE and KHNL would be combined. The SSA also moved KFVE and its programming from PSIP channel 5 to channel 9 under MCG ownership, while KGMB moved from 9 to 5 and fell under Raycom's ownership (the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) only recognizes ownership of facility ID's and not station call signs or intellectual property, allowing MCG Capital to gain ownership of KFVE and Raycom ownership of KGMB during the swap; the overall viewership of KFVE, while on channel 5, fell outside the criteria (which restricts ownership of two stations in the same market to one of the four highest-rated stations and one not among the top four) that would have otherwise barred a duopoly between KHNL and KGMB if facility IDs were traded as well).^[5][6] The channel swap took effect with the SSA on October 26, 2009, as KFVE moved from 5 to 9 and changed its on-air branding from "K-5" to simply "KFVE."

On November 20, 2013, MCG Capital filed to sell KFVE and its satellites to American Spirit Media, a company owned by Thomas B. Henson, for $22 million. ^[7] Since nearly all of American Spirit Media's stations have management agreements with Raycom-owned stations in those markets where the two companies each own a station, Raycom will continue to operate KFVE.

Programming

KFVE clears all MyNetworkTV programming, except for the occasional pre-emption in order to broadcast local sports or other special events. As the station once did with UPN and WB programs, KFVE will delay MyNetworkTV programming until the weekend in order to broadcast these sporting events. Because MyNetworkTV airs ten hours of programming per week, syndicated programming makes up a vast portion of KFVE's weekday schedule, especially during the daytime. Until the 2009 channel swap, KFVE, unlike most affiliates, only used the MyNetworkTV logo to promote its programming in a similar way to WXSP-CA in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which uses the branding "The X" and a "MyNetworkTV WXSP" logo. KFVE's local logo was used at all other times such as when promoting sitcom repeats or news.

Movies are also a regular part of its weekend afternoon schedule; late night and early morning timeslots on KFVE primarily feature infomercials. KFVE was also home to the most complete and comprehensive college sports package in the country as the station showcased more than 100 University of Hawaii sports events annually. Sports covered on KFVE included football, men's and women's volleyball, men's and women's basketball, baseball, softball, and women's soccer. KFVE (since 1994) and sister station KHNL (from 1984 to 1993) had been the home of University of Hawaii sports in the islands for over two decades. KFVE broadcast home games in high definition beginning in August 2009 on pay-per-view, with Wahine Volleyball, Warrior Basketball and Warrior Football televised in HD. Events that were not aired on pay-per-view were broadcast in standard definition.

KFVE broadcast its last University of Hawaii sports event on May 15, 2011 with a baseball game against the San Jose State Spartans. In August 2011, Oceanic Cable began carrying University of Hawaii sports evening on a new regional sports network OC Sports Channel (which is carried on channel 12). In January 2012, KFVE broadcast two Pac-West Conference basketball games in HD, featuring Hawaii Pacific University as the home team in both contests.

KFVE currently airs the MyNetworkTV primetime programming block weekday afternoons from 3 to 5 p.m., instead of the usual scheduled time period of 7 to 9 p.m., which is reserved for local and syndicated programming (KFVE produces in-house shows that air during the 7 p.m. hour).^[8]

In January 2015, KFVE added Korean dramas to its weekend lineup, airing Sundays from 2 to 5 p.m. They became the second station in Hawaii to feature Korean programming, after KBFD.

Newscasts

On April 17, 1995, KHNL began producing a primetime newscast at 9 p.m. that was simulcast on KFVE; this newscast, by then a standalone program as KHNL dropped its 9 p.m. newscast after switching from NBC to Fox, was dropped on August 3, 1997. On October 18, 2004, KHNL began producing a primetime newscast for KFVE once more, this time airing exclusively on the station; KFVE is the only station in the market to carry its late evening newscast at 9 p.m. as Fox affiliate KHON-TV airs its late newscast at 10 p.m. in line with its "Big Three" competitors (atypical as most Fox stations run their late evening newscast in the hour immediately following network primetime, either as a standalone program or preceding a newscast in the traditional late news timeslot). KHNL's production of KFVE's newscasts expanded on January 7, 2008, when the then-channel 5 began carrying an early evening newscast at 6:30. Later that year on December 22, KHNL began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition; KFVE's newscasts were included in the upgrade.

The shared services agreement resulted in the termination of all but four members of KHNL's on-air staff and all of the technicians for KHNL's morning show when its newsroom merged with KGMB and the two began simulcasting newscasts on October 26, 2009.^[9] KFVE maintains its 6:30 and 9:00 p.m. newscasts that it had prior to the formation of the SSA between KHNL and KGMB; however, the SSA resulted in the addition of an hour-long weekday morning newscast from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m., which airs in that timeslot and for only one hour due to KGMB continuing to run an hour-long extension of Hawaii News Now: Sunrise from 7:00 to 8:00 a.m. There are no simulcasts of any newscasts from either of its two major network sister stations.^[10]

Notable current on-air staff

• Augie T.

References

External links

• K5TheHomeTeam.com - KFVE-TV official website
• HawaiiNewsNow.com - Hawaii News Now official website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KFVE