KICU-TV, known as TV36, is an independent television station in the San Francisco Bay Area market. It shares its broadcast facility with sister station KTVU in Oakland but it is licensed to San Jose, where KICU was formerly located. It is owned by Cox Enterprises. It runs an independent schedule of classic sitcoms, talk shows, reality shows, movies, and some kids shows on weekends. KICU broadcasts from a transmitter site on Mission Peak in nearby Fremont; its signal covers most of the entire Bay Area with some difficulty covering the North Bay over the air.

History[link]

The channel 36 allocation was originally based in Stockton, California with the callsign KTVU (not related to the Oakland station) in the mid-1950s as a short-lived UHF station. It has since been reallocated to the Bay Area television market, and Stockton became part of the Sacramento television market.

On the current incarnation of channel 36, the station began as KGSC-TV in early October 1967. It is the Bay Area's longest continuously running commercial UHF television station. In the 1970s the station promoted itself as "The Perfect 36" and employed as spokesmodel busty San Francisco stripper–entertainer Carol Doda. In addition to breathing the station IDs, Doda would also do the station's editorials, which like the IDs were laced with double entendres. The first take was always broadcast, mistakes and all [1]. KGSC was also notable for the all-night movies, hosted for a long time by the Old Sourdough and Chief Wachikanoka [2]. While there were several sets of hosts for the all-night movies, most versions were known as Movies 'Til Dawn, and sponsored by MMM Carpets, a local retailer. KGSC was purchased by Ralph Wilson in the early 1980s changing the call letters to KICU.

KICU produced a half-hour newscast in the 1980s and 1990s. It began airing at 7:30 p.m. but soon moved to 10 p.m. Jan Hutchins, formerly a sportscaster at KPIX, was a longtime anchor, along with Ysabel Duron. Reporters included Bill Buckmaster, Tony Russomanno and Melanie Morgan. In the late 1980s, KICU ran INN News at 10:30 p.m. INN News, also known as Independent Network News, was produced by WPIX-TV in New York City. Previously, from 1995 to 2000, KICU broadcast several Golden State Warriors basketball games each season. The station also was a longtime broadcaster of San Jose Sharks games. Over the years, the station ran a number of drama shows and older movies. It added more classic sitcoms and children's shows by the mid-1990s. However, the station gradually phased out children's programming between 1998 and 2002.

In 2000, the station was sold to Cox, meaning that the station moved from its original studios in San Jose to KTVU's Jack London Square facilities in Oakland, becoming the first Bay Area television duopoly. The station aired a rebroadcast of KTVU's Ten O'Clock News at 11 pm from January 2000 until September 14, 2001 under the titling The Eleven O'Clock Edition of the Original Ten O'Clock News (the "Original" branding used to stand out from 10 pm newscasts airing on KRON and KPIX at the time, which pushed their network primetime schedules back an hour for viewership concerns and to compete with KTVU). KICU also simulcast the 7 am–9 am block of Mornings on 2 in the early 2000s (decade) with a South Bay traffic–weather ticker and news briefs and breaking news specific to that area. On April 5, 2010, KICU has once again rebroadcast KTVU's 10 o'clock news at 11:30 PM Monday thru Friday.

The station resumed airing a newscast from KTVU on January 21, 2008 with the weeknight Bay Area News at 7 on TV 36, which is anchored by Gasia Mikaelian; the station had previously aired a newscast at 7 pm called Action 36 Prime News from 1992 to 1994.

Due to being co-owned with KTVU, KICU airs any prime-time programming from Fox in lieu of KTVU if that station is preempting the network for local programming, or in the past, San Francisco Giants baseball until 2007. With NBC O&O KNTV becoming the broadcast home of the Giants in 2008, KICU also has taken the role of airing preempted NBC programming in lieu of KNTV. As of 2010, KRON-TV -- originally NBC's primary Bay Area affiliate until the network bought KNTV in December 2001—has taken the duties of a secondary NBC affiliation as it airs NBC programs in case KNTV cannot air them.

KICU was the broadcast television flagship for Oakland Athletics games until 2009, when the A's signed an exclusive TV deal with CSN California. Since KTVU had the Giants, the Cox duopoly essentially had exclusive control of the local broadcast television rights for a short while until the end of the 2007 season. The station aired High School Sports Focus on Friday nights at 11 pm with a 4 pm Sunday rebroadcast; the show also won regional Emmy awards. It was canceled in 2008.

KICU also offers Korean language programming from Korean Broadcasting System, 24 hours a day on digital subchannel 36-2.

Slogans[link]

• "I see you TV 36!" - 1980s slogan displayed before KICU programs. It was usually followed with the line, "And you should see us now!," or the corresponding music. This was a play off of the call letters I-C-U.
• "You're watching the Perfect 36 in San Jose." was cooed by busty stripper Carol Doda in the late-1960s through the late-1970s, pictured from the waist up and wearing clothes which amplified her most prominent physical attributes.
• "Action 36 Cable 6" - Slogan used from 1992–1995 and then again from July, 2001 until October 28, 2007.
• On October 29, 2007, KICU-TV rebranded themselves from Action 36, Cable 6 to TV 36 as part of their new campaign slogan, "Fun For You".

External links[link]

• KICU's official site
• Cinema Insomnia
• UHF Nocturne: Channel 36
• Korean Television Network - Northern California (airs on digital channel 36.2)
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KICU-TV
  • Query the FCC's TV station database for K29AB
  • Query the FCC's TV station database for K31GK
  • Query the FCC's TV station database for K33CH
  • Query the FCC's TV station database for K64AZ
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KICU-TV