T Dog’s Groovy Grab Bag

Back to the future with KOFY

Granite Broadcasting has decided to bring back the KOFY calls to Channel 20 in the Bay Area. The call letters were in use on the frequency between 1986 and 1998.

The independent station, which serves the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose market, was previously known as KBWB-TV, a holdover of when it was a WB affiliate. The WB merged with UPN to become CW, which moved to KBCW-TV (formerly KBHK) in 2006. The station maintained its KBWB calls even after the network folded.

The station plans to air original local programming in prime-time on Monday and Tuesdays, featuring local versions of HGTV programs; hold trivia contests; cruise around in the Bay Area in a KOFY van and asking people what’s on their mind; plus letting viewers vote on what retro shows they want to see in prime-time on Sunday nights. Viewers can also join the KOFY club on the station’s website (kofytv.com) and register to become a guest host and win prizes.

Also, KOFY is taking a page from WCIU’s playbook by featuring dogs in the station’s top and bottom of the hour IDs.

KOFY’s syndicated lineup includes Desperate Housewives, Punk’d, According to Jim, and Tyler Perry’s House of Payne, plus classics like The Munsters and favorite son The Streets of San Francisco. The stations also airs news from ABC-owned KGO-TV at 9 p.m. every weeknight.

The station signed on as KEMO-TV in 1968, and became KTZO in 1980, before assuming the KOFY calls in 1986.

Stations returning to their previous calls isn’t new. In 1985, then-CBS affiliate WJKW-TV in Cleveland returned the calls to WJW-TV after eight years (WJW is now a Fox affiliate.)

– How’s Friday Night Smackdown doing on My Network TV? Quite well, thank you – the program (recently relocated from CW) grew week-to-week from 3.2 to 3.5 million viewers, and beat all networks in the men 18-49 demo. And CW said it wouldn’t miss the show…

– As for the Media Rights Capital block on CW Sunday nights, let’s just say this – these numbers are even worse than those for infomercials at 2 a.m. or for paid religion on Sunday mornings. The good news keeps coming for The CW!

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