KDOC-TV (channel 56) is a religious television station licensed to Anaheim, California, United States, serving the Los Angeles area as an owned-and-operated station of Tri-State Christian Television (TCT). The station maintains studios on East First Street in Santa Ana, and its transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.
History
Comparative hearing and construction
The story of channel 56 in Anaheim begins with as many as six applications filed before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the late 1960s seeking to build what would have been the first commercial television station in Orange County. What started as a six-way battle had been pared down to three bidders by 1974. Television producer Jack Wrather headlined the Orange County Broadcasting Company; Orange Empire Broadcasting, consisting of more private individuals and known as the "doctor's group" for its shareholdings by doctors and dentists, applied; and so too did Golden Orange Broadcasting. Golden Orange had a consortium studded with Hollywood stars: Pat Boone, Fess Parker, Jimmy Durante, Harry Babbitt, and Vic Mizzy were among the shareholders. The brainchild of the application was Edward J. Kirby, a longtime resident of Santa Ana who felt that Orange County was underserved by broadcasters.
Golden Orange emerged the winner from the commission's comparative hearing process—the FCC examiner finding its programming proposal superior—and was granted a construction permit on October 15, 1975, for a station originally given the call sign KGOF. The transmitter would be located at Sierra Peak in the Cleveland National Forest, just south of the Riverside Freeway. A 1977 start date was promised. However, the lengthy hearing process took its toll on the financial commitments the original stockholders had made. Durante was 75 in 1968 and 83 by 1976, having dropped out. Another owner, former newspaper publisher Walter Burroughs, didn't want to invest in a new business at the age of 75. Others lost interest; Parker moved to Santa Barbara, and Anaheim farmer Bernardo Yorba dropped out.
However, a second and more serious problem became clear to Golden Orange after it got the permit. If the station was constructed at Sierra Peak, viewers in Orange County would have to turn their antennas to the south to receive it. This was an issue because every Los Angeles TV station telecast from Mount Wilson, to the north of the urban area, and it was unclear whether the FCC would allow the station to be built at Mount Wilson in case viewers in the city of license, Anaheim, received a poorer picture. KGOF first entered into negotiations to share the tower of KOCE-TV in Puente Hills.
Early years
It took multiple years and several engineering studies before Sunset Ridge, a site in the San Bernardino Mountains, was identified and approved. A full-time general manager was hired in late 1981, but he was replaced months later by Jack Latham, a former anchorman for KNBC and KESQ-TV in Palm Springs. The station moved into a studio near Disneyland in Anaheim, changed call letters to KDOC-TV ("Dynamic Orange County"), and went on the air October 1, 1982. The lineup consisted of older syndicated shows, college sports, and movies, plus two local programs covering Orange County, a "roving reporter"-type program at noon and an evening magazine show. The station had taken so long to build that Durante had died and was replaced as an investor by his estate.
KDOC-TV made news headlines often in the 1980s, typically for the wrong reasons. The station was sued in late 1983 over charges that its general manager, Michael Volpe, had denied a job to a woman who refused to perform sexual favors for him. That case was settled out of court, but a 1984 lawsuit would expose serious issues at KDOC-TV. In July 1984, Steve Conobre, a former advertising salesman for the station, sued KDOC, Boone, Durante's estate, and conservative commentator Wally George, who aired a program on the station. He alleged that Volpe encouraged sales representatives to make up ratings figures for KDOC and attribute them to a fictitious "Anaheim Research Bureau". Arbitron, one of the main television ratings companies at the time, was also known in the industry as "ARB". Conobre also alleged that Volpe received kickbacks by assigning large advertising accounts to his girlfriend and receiving some of her commission. Former sales manager John Funk brought a similar case in 1985.