KCET's Moving Day

And then there was one. Now that KCET has officially moved to Burbank -- today is day one for the entire station to be in its new headquarters -- KTLA is the last L.A. TV station to be physically based in Hollywood.

When I moved to L.A. 16 years ago, KTLA, KCBS, KTTV, KWHY and KCET (which back then still aired business programming during the day and Spanish in the evening) were all on Sunset; KCOP was on La Brea; KABC was in Los Feliz; KCAL was on the Paramount lot. All were pretty much in the same Hollywood-ish region.

But slowly, the stations all moved to newer digs: KTTV moved to West L.A., and eventually merged with KCOP (which moved there as well), while the old Fox TV Center became a high school; KABC left for Glendale; KCBS and KCAL vacated Columbia Square for Studio City; KWHY was purchased by NBC and moved to Burbank; and now, KCET is moving into The Pointe building in Burbank.

Rumors abounded a few years ago that KTLA might move to the Los Angeles Times' downtown building, now that Tribune doesn't own that Hollywood lot anymore. But no movement so far. But much of that L.A. Times HQ is now vacant -- so who knows.

What's Next for KWHY?

In Tuesday's story that NBC Universal would acquire Oxygen Media for $925 million, the conglom announced that it would partly fund the purchase by selling two stations: A Telemundo affiliate in Puerto Rico, and Los Angeles independent Spanish outlet KWHY.

NBC has run three TV stations in Los Angeles -- KNBC, KVEA and KWHY -- for several years, getting waivers to do so on a temporary basis (as companies are still allowed to run a max of 2 stations in a market). Ultimately, NBC might have had to divest of KWHY anyway, so this decision made a lot of sense.

So what happens to KWHY? One possibility: Azteca America, which is about to lose its L.A. affiliate (as KAZA-Channel 54 dumps the Spanish-language network at the end of the year) may see the station as crucial to stay in the game. Or, Disney could go after it, realizing that it's the only major TV station group in L.A. without a duopoly.



I do think it's safe to say that the new owners won't try to reinstate KWHY's old business news format. Channel 22 aired a business news format during the day from 1966 to 2001, when it moved over to Channel 57 (and then disappeared altogether). In an age of cable business news and the internet, it no longer made sense; KWHY has been 24/7 Spanish since then.



In the early 1980s, KWHY also shut off in the evening in order to switch over to the subscription TV service SelecTV. Yeah, don't think that's coming back either.