KPXN-TV (channel 30) is atelevision station licensed toSan Bernardino, California, United States, serving as theIon Television outlet for theLos Angeles area. It isowned and operated by theIon Media subsidiary of theE. W. Scripps Company alongsideInglewood-licensedBounce TV stationKILM (channel 64). KPXN-TV and KILM share offices on West Olive Avenue inBurbank; Through achannel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using KPXN-TV's spectrum from an antenna atopMount Wilson.

Channel 30 first signed on the air as KHOF-TV on October 12, 1969.^[2] It originally operated as aChristian broadcastoutreach of the Faith Center Church inGlendale, of which Reverend Raymond Schoch served as the pastor, withPaul Crouch (who would leave in 1972 in order to begin his ownTrinity Broadcasting Network) as his assistant and general manager. KHOF was the second full-time Christian television station.WYAH inVirginia Beach was the first Christian station in 1961, but beginning in 1967, that station began a very gradual evolution to a conventional commercialindependent television station (which they completed in 1973). KHOF ran a mix of Schoch's own sermons, varioustelevangelists and teaching programs, both local and syndicated. The church already owned and operated KHOF-FM radio (KKLA-FM now transmits on the frequency, but under a different license from KHOF-FM) in Los Angeles. The station began to have competition when their former GM Paul Crouch left in 1972 and acquired newly purchasedKLXA-TV Channel 40 in 1974.

A year later, in 1975, Schoch stepped down for health reasons, and would pass away on September 26, 1977.Gene Scott took over the ministry in 1975 and his Christian views were evolving, as reflected in his sermons. As the decade went on, KHOF gradually shifted away from syndicated Christian shows and local Christian programs to only in-house programming from Scott. Their church broke up as well, and the original Faith Center Church eventually shut down and merged with other churches while Scott had his own congregation. By 1980, the station, along with the radio stations and other TV stations owned by Faith Center, was running only Scott's discussions and sermons full-time. By 1981, the Faith Center was renamed the University Network. In the 1980s, KHOF came under the scrutiny of theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) because of its fundraising operations, as well as Scott's refusal to allow the FCC to examine his station's financial records. The FCC eventually revoked KHOF-TV's license. After losing court challenges to the FCC action, KHOF-TV shut down on May 24, 1983. The final broadcast from Scott's channel 30 consisted of a number ofcymbal-banging monkey toys termed as "The FCC Monkey Band" playing their mini-cymbals as a final attack against the commission.^[3]

In order to keep channel 30 from going dark until a new permanent licensee could be selected from the many applications that the FCC anticipated, they decided to allow an interim broadcaster to operate on the channel. In 1984, Angeles Broadcasting was granted an interim license and in January 1985, returned channel 30 to the air as KAGL. The station continued to broadcast religious programming from Gene Scott as well. Because KAGL utilized the old KHOF transmitter, still owned by Faith Center, KAGL provided Scott four hours of evening time and some daytime hours to continue theFestival of Faith programs he televised on KHOF. In 1992, the FCC shut down KAGL in order to allow new licensee Sandino Communications (an investor group whose name is shorthand for the city of license of San Bernardino) to construct a new transmitter for a planned television station under the KZKI call letters.

The current channel 30 signed on the air on January 7, 1994, as KZKI, airing a mix of religious programs,infomercials, and somemovies in the four years between that time and the launch of Pax TV (later i: Independent Television, now Ion Television) on August 31, 1998. Sandino sold KZKI to Paxson Communications (the forerunner to Ion Media Networks) in 1995 for $18 million in cash and the assumption of debt.

KPXN's analog signal on UHF channel 30 was the last television station to transmit from Sunset Ridge in theMount San Antonio range. At one time,KSCI (channel 18),KDOC-TV (channel 56), andKRCA (channel 62), all three of which now transmit from Mount Wilson, broadcast their signals from Sunset Ridge as well.

Until the expansion of Ion Television's schedule past 1 a.m. in early 2011, KPXN aired one hour of Bible teaching programs nightly at 1 a.m. from theLos Angeles University Cathedral, which is taught by Scott's widow, Melissa Scott. The program was part of Ion's national schedule via a time brokerage agreement.

In the late 1990s, as part of Pax TV's partnership to provide Pax's stations with newscasts from localNBC affiliates, KPXN began airing rebroadcasts of the weekday editions of NBC owned-and-operated stationKNBC (channel 4)'s 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts. KPXN branded the 7 p.m. airing of channel 4's 6 p.m. newscast (which aired on a one-hourtape delay) asThe Channel 4 News at 6 p.m. on Pax 30, and the 11:30 p.m. airing of that station's late newscast (which aired on a half-hour delay) asThe Channel 4 News at 11:30 on Pax 30. KPXN stopped airing the newscasts in 2005, after Pax dissolved its pact with NBC.

KPXN-TV shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 30, on June 12, 2009, as part of thefederally mandated transition from analog to digital television.^[5] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 38, usingvirtual channel 30.

• Eugene Scott

• Official website

• 1969 establishments in California
• Court TV affiliates
• E. W. Scripps Company television stations
• Ion Plus affiliates
• Ion Television affiliates
• Laff (TV network) affiliates
• San Bernardino, California
• Television channels and stations established in 1969
• Television stations in Los Angeles

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