KCOP-TV (channel 13), branded as Fox Los Angeles Plus, is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, owned by the Fox Television Stations group. It is programmed primarily as an independent station, with MyNetworkTV airing in late night (as the service's West Coast flagship). Under common ownership with Fox outlet KTTV (channel 11), the two stations share studios at the Fox Television Center on South Bundy Drive in West Los Angeles; KCOP-TV's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.
History Early history Channel 13 first signed on the air on September 17, 1948, as KLAC-TV (standing for Los Angeles, California), and adopted the moniker "Lucky 13". It was originally co-owned with local radio station KLAC (570 AM). Operating as an independent station early on, it began running some programming from the DuMont Television Network in 1949 after KTLA (channel 5) ended its affiliation with the network after a one-year tenure. One of KLAC-TV's earlier stars was veteran actress Betty White, who starred in Al Jarvis's Make-Believe Ballroom (later Hollywood on Television) from 1949 to 1952, and then her own sitcom, Life with Elizabeth from 1952 to 1956. Television personality Regis Philbin and actor/director Leonard Nimoy once worked behind the scenes at channel 13, and Oscar Levant had his own show on the station from 1958 to 1960.
On December 23, 1953, Copley Press (publishers of the San Diego Union-Tribune) purchased KLAC-TV. The station then changed its call letters to KCOP, which reflected their ownership. A Bing Crosby-led group purchased the station in June 1957. In 1959, the NAFI Corporation, which would later merge with Chris-Craft Boats to become Chris-Craft Industries, bought channel 13. NAFI/Chris-Craft would be channel 13's longest-tenured owner, running it for over 40 years.
For most of its first 46 years on the air, channel 13 was a typical general entertainment independent station. It was usually the third or fourth highest-rated independent in Southern California, trading the No. 3 spot with KHJ-TV (channel 9, now KCAL-TV). The station carried Operation Prime Time programming at least in 1978.
In the early 1980s, KCOP became one of the many stations in the U.S. to broadcast Star Fleet (aka X-Bomber), a science-fiction marionette series which originally debuted in Japan in 1980.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, it was the Los Angeles home of Star Trek: The Next Generation (as well as The Original Series before it, as early as 1970), The Arsenio Hall Show and Baywatch. KCOP was the original Los Angeles home of the syndicated version of Wheel of Fortune (its longtime announcer until his death in 2010, Charlie O'Donnell, was a former staff announcer and news anchor at KCOP). The station had also picked up Jeopardy! from KCBS-TV (channel 2) in 1985. Both game shows moved to KCBS-TV in 1989, and later to current home KABC-TV (channel 7) in 1992. Channel 13 aired select episodes of the Australian soap opera Neighbours from early June to late August 1991. The station tried airing movies six nights a week in 1992; however, they fared poorly.
KCOP partnered with WWOR-TV and MCA TV Entertainment on a two night programming block, Hollywood Premiere Network starting in October 1990. KCOP carried the Prime Time Entertainment Network programming service from 1993 to 1995. KCOP carried Spelling Premiere Network at its launch in August 1994 on Thursday nights.
UPN affiliation (1993–2006) On October 27, 1993, Chris-Craft and its broadcasting subsidiary, United Television, partnered with Viacom's newly acquired subsidiary Paramount Pictures to form the United Paramount Network (UPN), making KCOP the network's Los Angeles affiliate. UPN debuted on January 16, 1995. In 1996, Viacom bought 50% of UPN from Chris-Craft. At the network's launch, which also served to launch Paramount's Star Trek: Voyager, KCOP served as UPN's West Coast "flagship" station under the "UPN Thirteen" branding. During the late 1990s, the station began carrying a large number of younger-leaning talk shows (such as The Ricki Lake Show, The Jenny Jones Show, and The Montel Williams Show), reality series, some sitcoms during the evening, and syndicated cartoons (such as Double Dragon) in the morning, as well as the popular anime series Sailor Moon.
In 2000, Viacom bought CBS and Chris-Craft's 50% ownership interest in UPN. On August 12, 2000, Chris-Craft agreed to sell its television stations to the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of News Corporation for $5.5 billion; a deal that was finalized on July 31, 2001, creating a duopoly with Fox O&O KTTV. Upon being sold to Fox, the Fox Kids weekday block moved to KCOP in the mid-afternoons, only for it to be discontinued nationwide in January 2002. KCOP still ran UPN's Disney's One Too block during the morning until the network ended the block's run in 2003. Soon after, the station ran an hour-long morning cartoon block (supplied by DIC Entertainment), but dropped cartoons entirely in September 2006. Channel 13 was the last local television station to air cartoons on weekdays; like the other local stations, the cartoons were replaced with infomercials. In a separate transaction from its purchase of UPN, Viacom purchased KCOP's rival, KCAL-TV, from Young Broadcasting on June 1, 2002. Rumors persisted that UPN would move to the higher-rated KCAL, reverting KCOP to independent station status. However, Viacom decided to continue operating KCAL as an independent, as Fox renewed affiliation agreements for its UPN-affiliated stations for four years, keeping the network's programming on KCOP.
From UPN onto MNTV With Fox's acquisition of KCOP, the station abandoned its longtime Hollywood studios at 915 North La Brea Avenue (once home to the classic Barry & Enright-produced game shows The Joker's Wild and Tic-Tac-Dough, and short-lived B&E entry Play the Percentages) with KCOP's news and technical operations being moved into KTTV's facilities at the Fox Television Center in West Los Angeles in 2003. The La Brea Avenue studio was put up for sale, with Fox electing to keep the facility, remodeling it to house the first two seasons of the reality series Hell's Kitchen.Kaplan, Don. New York Post. June 29, 2005 (TV Wednesday section). "DRESSED TO GRILL; 'HELL' ISN'T A REAL RESTAURANT". It was eventually abandoned with fixtures in place, and became a haven for squatters who were evicted by police in May 2009. The studio was eventually torn down, and currently the site is now a Sprouts store, with a large apartment complex that opened November 2015.
On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down UPN and The WB and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW.'Gilmore Girls' meet 'Smackdown'; CW Network to combine WB, UPN in CBS-Warner venture beginning in September, CNNMoney.com, January 24, 2006.UPN and WB to Combine, Forming New TV Network, The New York Times, January 24, 2006. KTLA, which had been the market's WB affiliate since the network's January 1995 launch, became The CW's Los Angeles affiliate as part of a 10-year affiliation deal between the new network and KTLA's owner, Tribune Broadcasting.
MyNetworkTV affiliation (2006–present)
The CW's initial affiliate list did not include any of Fox's UPN stations, but even without the Tribune affiliation deal, it is unlikely that KCOP would have been picked over KTLA as The CW's management was on record as preferring The WB and UPN's "strongest" affiliates—KTLA had led KCOP in the ratings dating back to when they were both independent stations. The day after the announcement of The CW's pending launch, on January 25, 2006, Fox dropped all network references from its UPN stations' on-air branding, and stopped promoting UPN's programs altogether. Accordingly, KCOP changed its branding from "UPN 13" to "Channel 13", and amended the station's 2002 logo to omit the UPN logo and just feature the boxed "13". On February 22, 2006, News Corporation announced the launch of a new "sixth" network called MyNetworkTV, which would have KCOP and the other Fox-owned UPN stations (plus independent station KDFI in Dallas–Fort Worth) as the core group of stations.News Corp. Unveils MyNetworkTV, Broadcasting & Cable, February 22, 2006.
UPN continued to broadcast on stations across the country until September 15, 2006. While some of the network's affiliates that switched to MyNetworkTV (which commenced operations on September 5, 2006) aired the final two weeks of UPN programs outside of its recommended prime time slot, the Fox-owned stations, including KCOP, dropped UPN entirely on August 31, 2006. In September 2006, the station began identifying itself as "MyNetworkTV, Channel 13"; the branding changed again in May 2007, simplified to "My13 Los Angeles".
Rebranding to KCOP 13 and Fox 11 Plus; timeshifting of MyNetworkTV programming
On July 12, 2021, KCOP-TV changed its on-air branding to KCOP 13, dropping the MyNetworkTV branding. The change of branding was accompanied by a move of MyNetworkTV programming to late night (see below) and carrying Decades (now Catchy Comedy) programming on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 2 pm, simulcasting the programming on sister KTTV's 11.4 subchannel.
As of September 14, 2015, the station began airing other programming in MyNetworkTV's traditional 8–10 p.m. timeslot, including TMZ Live and Hollywood Today Live; MyNetworkTV's schedule was thus carried out of prime time in late night from 11:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. on weeknights. This made KCOP the most high-profile station carrying MyNetworkTV to move it out of prime time, along with the first Fox-owned station to do so (Chicago-based WPWR-TV, licensed to Gary, Indiana, moved MyNetworkTV programming to 10 p.m.–midnight on September 1, 2016, after assuming that market's CW affiliation from Tribune-owned WGN-TV, taking The CW as its primary affiliation; WPWR would later move MyNetworkTV programming to 9–11 p.m. CT).
A year later, with the failure of Hollywood Today Live and KCOP's other alternate programming, KCOP returned MyNetworkTV back to the 8–10 p.m. slot. On July 12, 2021, MyNetworkTV's programming was again moved to late-nights (midnight to 2 a.m.), with off-network sitcoms filling prime time. As part of this, the station rebranded itself from "My13" to "KCOP 13".
In January 2023, KCOP rebranded as "Fox 11 Plus", a branding scheme used by other Fox-owned MyNetworkTV stations that aligns them as a companion to their parent Fox station. On July 3, 2023, KCOP replaced the simulcast of Catchy Comedy programming with airings of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit from 10 a.m. to noon, followed by the syndicated Dateline and TMZ Live. The schedule change also eliminated airings of Fox Soul's Black Report and the Fox Weather programming segments. At some point between then and September, the MyNetworkTV schedule was moved to earlier in the day, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. However, starting the week of December 11, it was moved back to the traditional 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. slot, but eventually shifted to the 12 a.m. to 2 a.m. slot at some point later.
Rebranding to Fox Los Angeles + Around July or August 2026, KCOP-TV was once again rebranded to Fox Los Angeles +.
Programming KCOP-TV may air Fox network programming should it be preempted by KTTV for long-form breaking news or severe weather coverage or other special programming.
Sports coverage Channel 13 served as the broadcast home of the Los Angeles Marathon from its inception in 1986 until 2001, the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers from 1991 to 1996, MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers from 2002 to 2005, MLB's Los Angeles Angels from 2006 to 2019 and since 2021, MLS's Los Angeles FC from 2021 to 2022 and the NHL's Anaheim Ducks since 2024.