WKBF-TV

For the current channel 61 in Cleveland, see WQHS-TV.

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WKBF-TV channel 61 was an Independent television station serving the Cleveland, Ohio market owned by a joint venture between Kaiser Broadcasting and Field Communications (the latter owned a minority stake in the station from 1972 to 1975.

History

1968-1975: As a Kaiser station

Channel 61 began operation on January 19, 1968 as WKBF-TV. It was the first commercial UHF station in Cuyahoga County. Its studios were located on St. Clair Avenue in Euclid. It was part of the Kaiser Broadcasting chain of stations that included WKBD-TV in Detroit, WKBS-TV (now WGTW-TV) in Philadelphia, WKBG-TV (now WLVI-TV) in Boston, KBHK-TV (now KBCW) in San Francisco, and KBSC-TV (now KVEA) In Los Angeles. When WKBF came to the air, its first day of broadcast was delayed due to one of the worst local snow storms that winter. The first video transmitted was a simple sentence on a hand lettered message board "We made it Cleveland", with a 1,000 hertz tone (normally used for system calibration).

WKBF attempted to bring unique programs into the market to gain profitability. Under news director Alan DePetro, the station began a 10 p.m. newscast anchored by John Herrington (who would later move to WKYC). It also ran a children's show named Captain Cleveland, where the viewer never actually saw the captain, only John and his puppet buddy Clem. Additionally, the station aired cartoons, anime (8th Man), syndicated shows, old movies, and public affairs programming. It also attempted to bring special interest programming into the market, such as Canadian Football and Harness Racing. By 1973, Kaiser had sold a 22.5% share of WKBF to Field Communications, but continued with a lion share of the station.

WKBF was one of two independent stations in the market back in the early 1970s, along with WUAB. However, by 1974, United Artists (WUAB's owner) was planning to exit the Cleveland market, and sold a partial stake in WUAB to Kaiser and Field. Kaiser partnered with United Artist operations in the spring of 1975, and merged WUAB's programming assets with the better part of Kaiser's Cleveland assets (mostly programming), after the station went dark.

During WKBF's final moments on the air, the station manager thanked the community for its support, and attributed the decision to fold the WKBF operation to "static market growth" and "the creation of a second (commercial UHF) station in less than a year". The channel 61 license was fully returned to the FCC, which closed the opportunity to transfer the license to another owner. It is here that the history of channel 61 breaks, with WKBF's history considered separate from that of WCLQ/WQHS.

1975 to 1980: The dark years

Rumors abounded concerning potential companies that could file for the Channel 61 license in Cleveland, yet none came forward. In these years the cable companies in the region began to notify the FCC of their need to drop the now vacant channel from their distribution nets.

In 1980, Balaban Communications purchased a new, seperate license for Channel 61. They signed the station on later that year under the call letters WCLQ-TV (the station would later change the call letters to WQHS-TV. The station is now an affiliate of the Spanish language Univision network.