construction permit was granted. One of the station's most memorable early promotions featured the "Bluebird of Happinews", with the voice of Elroy "Buzz" Towers (who was voiced by an early station master control/videotape operator) in an invisible sky-blue helicopter taking jabs at local news on other stations. In Phoenix, ON TV held telecast rights at various times to ASU sports, the Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Giants minor league baseball and Los Angeles Kings hockey. By July 1982, ON TV had 39,000 subscribers in Phoenix, but signs of trouble for the business were emerging rapidly. In 1981, the Suns signed a 13-year agreement to telecast games through American Cable, resulting in the launch of the Arizona Sports Programming Network; however, American Cable sub-licensed games to ON TV in part because they had not yet wired all of the metropolitan area. KNXV-TV also proved itself a tough partner for Oak's subscription service. The station resisted a request to expand ON TV to start before 7:00 p.m. on weekdays and 5:00 p.m. on weekends, while the station also threatened to stop airing ON TV's "adults only" late-night fare. ON TV took the station to court over its refusal to cede early evening hours, which generated 60 percent of the television station's revenue. Phoenix was one of the first ON TV markets to show serious subscriber erosion. By April 1983, its subscriber base had dipped below 25,000, a drop of more than 35 percent. Oak Communications ultimately shuttered ON TV in Phoenix on May 4, 1983, resulting in the loss of 140 jobs. KNXV then became a full-time general entertainment independent station, relying on a movie library and those syndicated shows not already owned by KPHO-TV, the established independent in Phoenix, or the network affiliates. Scripps purchase and Fox affiliation After going full-time with the end of ON TV, potential buyers appeared for channel 15. Cooperstein rebuffed a $22 million bid from the Tribune Company and accepted a $30 million offer from Scripps-Howard in 1984, with the sale being finalized in 1985 after Scripps was required to divest itself of radio stations KMEO-AM-FM. One new program on channel 15 in its first months with Scripps had much to do with its new owner. In mid-1985, KNXV began producing Friday Night at the Frights starring "Edmus Scarey" (portrayed by Ed Muscare), a series of decidedly campy B-movie wraparounds. Ed Muscare had previously hosted shows for another