The station first signed on the air on January 2, 1968, as KBHK-TV (standing for Kaiser Broadcasting/Henry Kaiser); it was originally owned by Kaiser Broadcasting (established by steel/aluminum and shipbuilding industrialist Henry J. Kaiser [1882-1967]) and which owned other UHF independent stations in Los Angeles, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and Cleveland. KBHK-TV was the third independent station in the San Francisco Bay area behind San Jose-based KGSC-TV (channel 36, now KICU-TV) and Oakland-based KTVU (channel 2), and the first independent licensed to San Francisco.