KHON-TV

KHON-TV, virtual channel 2 (VHF digital channel 8), is a Fox-affiliated television station located in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. The station is owned by Media General. KHON maintains studios on Piikoi Street in Honolulu; and its main transmitter is also located in the city, just northwest of the Hawaii Convention Center.

KHON also has repeater stations on all the major Hawaiian Islands to rebroadcast programs outside of metropolitan Honolulu: KHAW-TV (channel 11) in Hilo and KAII-TV (channel 7) in Wailuku. KHON can also be seen statewide on both Oceanic Time Warner Cable and Hawaiian Telcom cable analog channel 3.

History

As an NBC affiliate

KHON first signed on the air on December 15, 1952 as a primary NBC affiliate, KONA-TV, occupying the channel 11 position. It also had a secondary affiliation with Dumont (which it later shared with KULA-TV (now KITV) after it signed on in 1954) until its demise in 1955. The station, which is Hawaii's second-oldest television station (behind KGMB, originally on channel 9, now on channel 5), was originally owned by Herbert Richards. Two years later in 1954, the Honolulu Advertiser purchased the station. On October 16, 1955, KONA changed channels from 11 to 2 due to the lower VHF positions (2 to 6) having the most powerful ERPs at the time. In 1956, KONA was sold to Pacific and Southern Broadcasting, the forerunner of Combined Communications. In 1965, the station's call letters were changed to the current KHON-TV. In 1973, Pacific and Southern Broadcasting decided to spin off KHON to the company's president Arthur H. McCoy, in order for the company to be officially merged into Combined Communications (which would itself merge with the Gannett Company six years later) because the merged company was over the legal station ownership limit at the time.