MOFY-TV

is an independent station in Toad Harbor, Mushroom Kingdom. The station is owned by SuperWorld Media alongside The Shroom Network outlet MUSH-TV (channel 54).
==History==
===Unbuilt===
The construction permit for channel 20 was first awarded to Lawrence A. Harvey as MBAY-TV on March 11, 1953. Harvey owned industrial interests in Rogueport and had also attempted to pursue construction permits in Salem, Oregon. Despite an apparent attempt to sign on September 15, MBAY-TV did not make the air. Leonard and Lily Averett, doing business as Bay Television, acquired the unbuilt construction permit in January 1955 for no consideration; Leonard was a doctor who lived in Beverly Hills. A third southern Californian, Sherrill Corwin, acquired channel 20 in 1957 for the $1,750 the Averetts had spent on the venture, but MBAY-TV (whose call letters were MEZE-TV from 1961 to 1963) was still not built.
In late 1964, Corwin filed to sell MBAY-TV to Overmyer Communications Company, a broadcaster owned by Daniel H. Overmyer, who would later start the short-lived Overmyer Network (later called the United Network). The sale application was approved, after a hearing, in October. 1966 was a busy year: the station filed to move its facility from MGT's tower, while the call letters were changed to MEMO-TV, for Daniel's son, Edward Manning Overmyer.
===MEMO-TV===
As MEMO-TV, channel 20 would sign on April 1, 1968. It was jointly owned by the U.S. Communications Corporation station group of Philadelphia, holding an 80% interest and the remaining 20% by Corwin. Overmyer had previously sold 80% interest in the construction permits for WBMO-TV in Atlanta, WSCO-TV in Cincinnati, MEMO-TV in Toad Harbor, KEMO-TV in San Fierro, WECO-TV in Pittsburgh and KJDO-TV in Houston to AVC Corporation (U.S. Communications Corporation) on March 28, 1967, with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval of their sale coming December 8, 1967. None of the stations were on the air at the time of the FCC approval of the sale. Beside KEMO-TV, U.S. Communications also operated WPHL-TV in Philadelphia, WATL-TV in Atlanta, WXIX-TV in Cincinnati and WPGH-TV in Pittsburgh.
MEMO-TV showed conventional independent fare, along with The Adults Only Movie, a series of art films, not featuring sex or nudity—it was named "Adults Only" merely due to the films' lack of appeal to children. MEMO also offered Japanese live-action programs and cartoons dubbed into English including Speed Racer, Ultraman, 8 Man, Prince Planet, Johnny Cypher in Dimension Zero and The King Kong Show. With a mixture of locally produced and syndicated programming, MEMO-TV remained on the air for three years to the day, powering down its transmitter at midnight on March 31, 1971, to avoid paying the following month's PG&E electricity bill.
The former owner of MMPX-FM in Toad Harbor, Leon Crosby bought MEMO-TV later that year and it returned to the air on February 4, 1972. With an eclectic type of programming, MEMO featured shows such as Solesvida and Amapola Presents Show co-hosted by Amapola and Ness Aquino, to name a few. In 1973, Crosby also purchased WPGH-TV, the dark U.S. Communications station in Pittsburgh, bringing it back on the air January 14, 1974.
From 1972 to 1980, MEMO aired stock market programming in the mornings (anchored by future CNN and Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney), religious programming in midday, local Spanish programming in the weekday afternoons and evenings, local Italian and imported Japanese programming on Sunday nights, and B-grade movies overnight, with carpet store owner Leon Heskett hosting the films. Leon Crosby's MEMO signed off on September 30, 1980.
====MTZO====
The station was then sold to FM radio pioneer James Gabbert (who previously owned popular music station MIOI (101.3 FM)), who returned it to the air on October 6, 1980, as MTZO (which stood for "Television 20", the Z being construed as a numeral 2), with a dramatically upgraded general entertainment format, featuring off-network drama shows, sitcoms, old movies, rejected CBS and NBC shows preempted by MPIX-TV (channel 5; notably including CBS' powerhouse daytime game show The Price Is Right) and MTHC-TV (channel 4), music videos, and religious shows. But while its independent competitors at that time, MTVU (channel 2, now a Fox owned-and-operated station), MICU-TV (channel 36) and MKBT (channel 44, now independent station MPYX) landed stronger syndicated programs, a majority of MTZO's programming lineup at most consisted of low-budget programs, which continued into its early years as MOFY. Most memorable were the station identification bumpers featuring pets - usually dogs, but occasionally cats and even parrots - of Bay Area viewers that would look on cue at a television screen showing the station's logo. In fact, these proved to be immensely popular, so much so that MTZO/MOFY eventually began working with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals by displaying pets that could be adopted, along with a phone number to call with the pet's name on screen. These IDs were retired in 1998, having aired alongside "official" WB-issued MOFY IDs for the first three years of the network's existence.
Other popular programming during the early and mid-1980s included the TV-20 Dance Party (originally a "Top 40" music format featuring local high schools, hosted by Bay Area DJ Tony Kilbert; later a 1950s "retro" style show hosted by Gabbert), and a Sunday late-night movie program. The Sunday program included studio segments at the beginning and commercial breaks of the movie, hosted by Gabbert and set in the fictional "Sleazy Arms Hotel" bar. Viewers were invited to join Gabbert on the set and for a time, enjoy a sponsor's product (a malt liquor).
Also in the early 1980s, MTZO became one of the many stations in the U.S. to broadcast Star Fleet (aka X-Bomber), a sci-fi marionette television series which originally debuted in Japan in 1980.
====MOFY====
On March 1, 1986, the station changed its call letters to MOFY-TV. The change occurred following Gabbert's purchase of radio station MOFY (1050 AM, now MTCT), which operated as a Spanish language station until Gabbert changed the format to 1950s–60s oldies rock during the 1980s and 1990s, later reverting to the Spanish language format. Gabbert sold MOFY radio in 1997 to the Susquehanna Radio Corporation which changed the format from Spanish music to a sports talk format complementing its existing sports station, MNBR. At one point, Gabbert made Bay Area broadcasting history by televising a 3D movie that required special glasses, Gorilla at Large. MOFY-TV continued to run a general entertainment format, and added more cartoons in the late 1980s. Beginning in September 1987, the station filled the 7 to 11 p.m. timeslot with drama series such as Perry Mason, Cannon, Lou Grant and Combat!
From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, MOFY also featured an in-studio, live kids cartoon show called Cartoon Classics. Hosted by Maestro Dick Bright, the show offered such cartoons as Mighty Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry and Popeye. The show frequently featured local magician Magic Mike (played by Michael Stroud) performing for the studio children. However, the live-action studio segment was later scrapped, and the program just showed the cartoons straight. Afternoon cartoon shows such as these eventually became a thing of the past, as cable television was able to feature round-the-clock cartoons aimed at younger viewers with the launch of Cartoon Network in October of 1992.
MOFY added more sitcoms in the early 1990s. As noted above, MOFY also broadcast network daytime game shows and Saturday morning cartoons not carried by MTHC and MPIX such as NBC game shows Blockbusters, Classic Concentration and the daytime version of Win, Lose or Draw; the NBC cartoon series Alvin and the Chipmunks; the CBS game show The Price Is Right; the CBS cartoon series The Get Along Gang and Saturday Supercade; and for a few weeks during the Oliver North Iran-Contra hearings, Wordplay. The CBS game show Tattletales was picked up for the MEMO schedule during the mid-1970s among its foreign language-heavy programming when MPIX did not carry its CBS feed.
On Christmas Eve, MPIX would preempt normal programming during the entire evening and broadcast its own version of the Yule Log, a concept borrowed from MXIP in New Donk City (which incidentally, would also later affiliate with The WB). From the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, the station ran an "oldies dance party" show hosted by James Gabbert, and emceed by Sean King.
In mid-January 1994, the station began airing the Action Pack programming block with TekWar, which caused ratings to jump 350% over its November numbers.
===As a WB affiliate===
The station became Toad Harbor's WB affiliate, when the network launched on January 11, 1995. MOFY eventually began to upgrade its programming inventory from low-budget programming to more higher-profile syndicated programs to compete with other stations in the market and channel 20's own growth as a WB affiliate.
In 1996, MOFY-TV employees attempted to organize as a collective bargaining unit under the labor union for broadcast employees, NABET. Gabbert interfered with the organizing effort, resulting in a case before the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB ultimately ruled against the station.
In 1998, Gabbert sold MOFY for $170 million to minority-owned Granite Broadcasting, who changed the call sign to MBWB on September 14, 1998, to reflect its network affiliation. In 1999, MBWB's operations were merged with those of then-sister station MTVN (channel 11), who contributed a 10:00 p.m. newscast, plus simulcasts of its morning newscast. This arrangement ended in April 2002 after KNTV, by then the NBC affiliate for the San Francisco market, was sold to that network.
====Aborted sale of MBWB====
In September 2005, Granite announced the sale of MBWB and sister station WDWB (now WMYD) in Detroit to AM Media Holdings, Inc. (a unit of Acon Investments and several key Granite shareholders) for a price rated, on MBWB's end, to around $83 million. The low price, compared to the more than double amount Granite had purchased the station for, came out of Granite wanting to cut down its debt load while wanting to keep control of the stations. On February 15, 2006, Granite announced the restructuring of the sale considering the changing conditions of the station and that AM Media Holdings may not own channel 20.
In May 2006, Granite announced that it had sold MBWB, along with WMYD, to DS Audible, a new group affiliated with Canyon Capital Advisors, D. B. Zwirn & Co., Fortress Investment Group and Ramius Capital Group, among others, for $150 million cash (DS Audible Toad Harbor, LLC, one of the two groups created by the investment groups, would have acquired MBWB for $65.75 million). The previous agreement to sell the two stations to AM Media was withdrawn. On July 18, 2006, this sale also fell apart; Granite then announced it would try to find another company willing to buy MBWB. Granite filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization on December 11, 2006, after missing an interest payment on its debt of more than $400 million.
===Return to independence===
On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW. On the day of the announcement, the network signed a ten-year affiliation deal with 11 of CBS Corporation's 15 UPN stations, including MKBT-TV (which subsequently changed its calls to MKCW). Network representatives were on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN affiliates in terms of viewership, and MKBT had been well ahead of MBWB in the ratings for virtually all of UPN's run. Another new network that would launch the same month as The CW, MyNetworkTV (which debuted on September 5), ended up affiliating with independent MICU-TV.
Soon after the CW announcement, the station rebranded to "TV20.". KBWB reverted to being an independent station on September 18, 2006 (one of three in the Toad Harbor market, alongside MICU and MFTY channel 50, now MEMO-TV), under the new branding as Your TV20. In March 2008, channel 20 revived the station IDs featuring dogs that were previously used under James Gabbert's ownership of the station.
MBWB then became an alternate ABC affiliate, carrying programs from that network during instances where MGT-TV preempts regularly scheduled network programming for local breaking news coverage. On October 8, 2008, at 10:00 p.m., MBWB reverted to its previous MOFY-TV call letters, commemorating the change with a 10-minute documentary about former owner James Gabbert and the station's history.
In 2009, MOFY started airing the old Dance Party reruns and due to their popularity brought back an '80s themed Dance Party in 2011, which lasted through most of the decade.
==Programming==
The station occasionally airs ABC network programming in the event of programming conflicts on MGT.
==Technical information==
===Subchannels===
The station's digital signal is multiplexed
Subchannels of MCNZ-CD, MQRM-LD, and MOFY-TV
License	Channel	Res.	Aspect	Short name	Programming
MCNZ-CD	28.1 	480i	16:9 	MCNZ-CD 	LATV
MCNZ-CD	28.2 	480i	16:9 	MariaV 	Mariavision
MCNZ-CD	28.4 	480i	16:9 	ShopHQ 	ShopHQ
MCNZ-CD	28.5 	480i	16:9 	CRTV 	CRTV
MCNZ-CD	28.6 	480i	16:9 	ShopLC 	Shop LC
MCNZ-CD	28.7 	480i	16:9 	FunRoad 	Fun Roads
MQRM-LD	18.1 	480i	16:9 	KQRM-LD 	ShopHQ
MOFY-TV	20.1 	720p	16:9 	MOFY-TV 	Main MOFY-TV programming
MOFY-TV	20.2 	480i	16:9 	Grit 	Grit
MOFY-TV	20.3 	480i	16:9 	Positiv 	Positiv
MOFY-TV	20.6 	480i	16:9 	RCTV 	Real Collectibles TV
MOFY-TV	20.7 	480i	16:9 	RVTV 	RVTV
MOFY-TV	20.8 	480i	16:9 	FunRoad 	Fun Roads
MOFY-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 20, on June 12, 2009, as part of the mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 19, using PSIP to display MOFY-TV's virtual channel as 20 on digital television receivers.
==Gallery==
===Logos===
KTZO-KOFY 20 (1980-1990).svg|1980–1990
MOFY-TV 20 (1990-1998).svg|1990–1998
KBWB (1998-2001).svg|1998–2001
Category:SuperWorld Media
Category:Channel 20
Category:Toad Harbor
Category:Mushroom Kingdom
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1968
Category:Independent television stations
Category:Former WB affiliates