The following article appeared in Broadcasting's September 1, 1969 issue.
There's little left to say beyond that article. KKOG-TV ceased operations at about 11:10pm on September 13, 1969 following a 10:30pm newscast in which every person who had ever anchored the news there (excepting those who refused to come back for the last night) read one story each, followed by a brief on-camera speech by Julian Myers thanking those who had watched, advertised, or otherwise supported the station.
True to form, he refused to say anything negative about those who had chosen to leave, those who pressured the station for money it didn't have, or local businesses who essentially slammed their collective doors in his face when he approached them to buy air time.
At left, Broadcasting's report of KKOG-TV going dark. In his column the day afterward, Bob Holt, who admitted that the last hour of broadcasting “represented the only sustained viewing that [he] ever did of channel 16” due to poor reception in the area where he lived, complimented the Galligan Family, the many volunteers who discussed their experiences at the station (pre-empting what would have been the last “Sex And You” program) and Myers himself, who he confessed “a sneaking admiration for” in giving up a successful public relations career to launch a new venture because he had a dream. It was a dream that cost Julian Myers the $350,000 he had in savings when he started pursuing it in 1964, as well as his marriage and quite literally everything he had owned.
Channel 16 never returned to the air under Myers or any other owner. In 1985, after a construction permit issued to Sears' "Neighborhood TV" (an aborted attempt to cash in on the new low-power television service by creating a network of LPTV stations) the preceding year was surrendered, channel 16 was reassigned to land mobile use by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, precluding its subsequent use for television broadcasting. The table of allocations was amended to substitute channel 41, but technical issues forced a second amendment specifying channel 57 instead. KSTV began operations on that channel in October, 1990.
The end of Bob Holt's column of September 14, 1969 seems a fitting end to the KKOG story:
Many of us, if we have a dream, lack the courage to tackle it. Or, saddest of all, millions have no dream at all, which is another way of being dead. Not physically dead, but spiritually.
But it can be said of Julian Myers that he followed his dream, and he gambled his all on it, and he lost.
There is something else to be said for Julian Myers -- his unfailing good manners. Even when his enterprises were falling in ruins around him, his courtesy did not desert him. As one of his volunteers put it on the air: “He is unendingly concerned about others.”
He tilted his windmills, and went down, but he will not altogether be forgotten.
This website is dedicated to the late Julian Myers, who passed away December 21, 2013 at age 95. Among all the industry obituaries, only The Hollywood Reporter's mentioned KKOG-TV.
