KNSD (channel 39, cable channel 7), branded as NBC 7 San Diego, is a television station in San Diego, California, United States. It is owned and operated by the NBC television network via its NBC Owned Television Stations division. Under common ownership with Poway-licensed Telemundo station KUAN-LD (channel 48), both stations share studio facilities on Granite Ridge Drive in the Kearny Mesa section of San Diego and are broadcast from the same transmitter on San Miguel Mountain, southeast of Spring Valley.
Channel 39 began broadcasting November 14, 1965, as KAAR from studios in Kearny Mesa. Owned by locally based San Diego Telecasters, it was the third television station in San Diego and its first independent station. As the first ultra high frequency (UHF) station in San Diego, it struggled to attract viewers and advertisers; at one point, it cut back its schedule to two hours a night, and when it was sold to Bass Brothers Enterprises in 1967, it went off the air for nearly six months, returning as KCST with an emphasis on local sports coverage.
Shortly after the relaunch, ownership began a quest to force ABC to affiliate with channel 39. This was possible because ABC needed annual FCC approval to feed network programming to XETV, across the Mexican border in Tijuana, and the FCC had provided this because San Diego lacked a third commercial station. A multi-year legal battle ended in 1972 with the FCC directing ABC to affiliate with KCST, which it did in 1973. Concurrent with the new network affiliation, the station launched a local news department and was sold to Storer Broadcasting. In 1976, after finding itself suddenly in first place in the national ratings, ABC sought an upgrade and agreed to move its programming to KGTV; channel 39 affiliated with NBC instead. KCST remained mired in third place in the local news ratings throughout this time period.
In 1988, after being purchased by Gillett Communications, KCST was relaunched with new KNSD call letters and an overhauled news department. The changes did not have an immediate ratings impact, but as the 1990s wore on, KNSD became more competitive particularly in late news ratings. NBC acquired KNSD from New World Communications in 1996. In 2001, KNSD moved its studios to the downtown 225 Broadway office tower, returning to Kearny Mesa in 2016. NBC brought the Telemundo affiliation in San Diego in-house in 2017, resulting in a further expansion to the news department.
Early history KAAR: Construction and early years
San Diego Telecasters, Inc., filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on June 17, 1963, to build a new television station on ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 39 in San Diego. The applicant was owned by Larry Shushan and Leon Kahn, the president and co-owner of San Diego radio station KPRI-FM. Shushan and Kahn proposed to build channel 39 on San Miguel Mountain. The FCC approved this application on June 25, 1964, by which time preparations were under way on the transmitter site. Construction required building a road to the mountain's summit, a task that delayed the planned sign-on for the new station. A late delivery of an antenna from General Electric also set back work. In October 1965, the antenna was installed, and the station formally opened its studios on Engineer Road in Kearny Mesa.
KAAR began broadcasting on November 14, 1965. It was an independent station, San Diego's first, with a 12-hour broadcast day featuring color movies in prime time, shows for children (Suzy Mallery's Kaartoon-O-Rama) and teenagers (Kaar A Go Go). This format was not a success. In August 1966, citing a lack of advertising, KAAR cut its broadcast day to 7 to 9 p.m. from Monday to Saturday, carrying the same movie every night in the first week of its curtailed operation. The station later moved to a 7 to 10 p.m. schedule.
On January 16, 1967, educational television came to the San Diego area with the launch of instructional programming from the San Diego Instructional Television Authority, a consortium of 26 local school districts. The educational station in San Diego, KEBS-TV (channel 15), was not yet in operation, so the programs were aired by channel 39 during daytime hours under a contract with KEBS-TV's owner, San Diego State College. KAAR restored much of its lost broadcast day after the shift, instituting a late-afternoon children's block, a nightly talk show covering local issues, and a 9:30 p.m. newscast. KEBS-TV began test broadcasting on June 12 and supplanted KAAR as the broadcaster of educational television programming.
KCST: Bass Brothers ownership and sports format San Diego Telecasters filed to sell KAAR to Bass Brothers Enterprises on June 23, 1967, for $1.1 million. The sale was approved and the station authorized to go silent effective August 31. The station was placed under a Bass subsidiary, Western Telecasters. During this time, the new owners recast the station with new KCST call letters and a format heavy on sports. KCST returned to air on February 2, 1968; the highlight of its first day on air was live coverage of a game between the San Diego Rockets and San Francisco Warriors. The station had a package of six total Rockets games as well as 13 San Diego Gulls games. Former KOGO-TV (channel 10) sports director Bob Chandler, former KOGO-TV newscaster Bill Fouch, and Mike Smith served as the announcers for a wide slate of sports events. Chandler and Fouch hosted two sports and news updates at 7 and 10 p.m. nightly; the station built a large scoreboard to present half-hourly score updates. In addition to sports, the station had a nightly interview show and teen dance program.
Within three months of signing on, the new KCST secured rights to three more San Diego sports teams, including eight games of the Pacific Coast League San Diego Padres baseball team and San Diego State Aztecs football replays. That March, channel 39 signed a deal to become the official station of the San Diego Chargers football team, airing live preseason road games, a weekly coaches' show, and highlight packages. The relationship with the Chargers extended beyond sports broadcasts. When the Chargers drafted cornerback Jim Hill that year, he was assigned number 39 on account of the KCST pact; he hosted a variety show, Mr. 39 Talent Time, and conducted interviews. Between February 1968 and March 1969, KCST grew from having just eight to ten employees to a staff of 45, and Bass's broadcasting division moved its corporate office from Texas to San Diego.
The San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball were established in 1969 and had no local television broadcasts that first season. For 1970, KCST purchased rights to 20 road game telecasts from KOGO. That July, it increased its effective radiated power to 4.2 million watts, increasing signal quality. To address one remaining area shaded by terrain, a translator was built at La Jolla.
ABC affiliation dispute and sale to Storer In November 1968, Western Telecasters petitioned the FCC, starting a quest to force ABC to affiliate with it. At the time, there were three commercial stations licensed to San Diego: KCST and two very high frequency (VHF) stations, KFMB-TV (channel 8) and KOGO-TV, affiliated with CBS and NBC, respectively. However, a fourth station served San Diego from across the Mexican border: XETV (channel 6). Beginning in 1955, the FCC annually granted ABC permission to feed network programming to XETV. This grant was made at the time, per the FCC, because at the time there was "no operating or authorized third television station in the San Diego area" to provide a third major network even though XETV had minimal local programming for San Diego audiences. KCST argued that it was the third station, it would do a better job than XETV at providing local programming, and it was available to become the ABC affiliate, rendering the reason for the original grants moot. In the petition, Western Telecasters revealed that it had lost $650,000 running KCST between February and November 1968 in spite of a $1.36 million expenditure on improvements to the station. By 1970, its losses had widened to $1 million a year. ABC had argued, for its part, that it was already losing money and could not afford an additional $1 million in annual projected losses from a forced affiliation switch.
After the matter was designated for hearing in 1969, FCC hearing examiner James F. Tierney ruled in an initial decision in May 1971 that the ABC affiliation with XETV was in the public interest because of XETV's superior technical facility compared with KCST. Tierney found that, were ABC to move from channel 6 to channel 39, the network—already in third place in ratings—would lose coverage in 26,000 to 29,000 television households and advertising revenue, impairing its competitive standing. He ruled in favor of preserving the ABC network service and its benefits to San Diego over local service improvements that KCST could make over XETV. Western Telecasters appealed Tierney's ruling to the full FCC, which reversed the initial decision on May 30, 1972, and ruled against renewing ABC's ability to provide network programming to XETV. The commission agreed with KCST's contention that the initial rationale for the annual authorization no longer existed with a third commercial TV station in San Diego itself and found that "as an ABC affiliate, KCST's programming would meet the needs and interests of the community more effectively than the existing ABC affiliate", XETV, which had "not produced a local news program since 1967, does not contemplate resumption of one, and has never interrupted its broadcast schedule for a bulletin of local interest". It also found that the network would lose 22,500 homes as compared to a previous figure of 29,000—a figure the commission deemed "minimal"—and noted that XETV was subject to potential Mexican censorship. The effect of this ruling was to essentially force ABC to affiliate with KCST.
A challenge in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by ABC and XETV was denied in January 1973; the Court of Appeals found that the FCC had acted within its authority. ABC and XETV then signed a memorandum of understanding and proposed to the FCC that the network continue with the Tijuana station until July 1, subject to negotiating an affiliation agreement with KCST. Just after prevailing in its fight for the ABC affiliation, Western Telecasters agreed in March 1973 to sell KCST to Storer Broadcasting for $12 million after Storer unexpectedly made an offer for the station. Mel Wheeler, president of Western Telecasters, noted "mixed feelings" on the sale but found the offer "difficult to resist". The deal would make Storer the first group to own the then-maximum complement of five VHF and two UHF television stations. News of the transaction prompted XETV to declare the previously agreed memorandum of understanding void and resume its affiliation fight, which ended when the Supreme Court of the United States rejected XETV's final appeal in June 1973.