so all programs were either on film or live. For the next three and a half years, while the FCC froze all new awards of TV station construction permits, KPHO-TV remained the only television station in Phoenix and the state. In 1952, Phoenix Television sold the KPHO stations for $1.5 million to the Meredith Corporation of Des Moines, Iowa, whose only broadcast holdings at the time consisted of WHEN-TV in Syracuse, New York, and WOW radio and television in Omaha, Nebraska. Loretta Young and Irene Dunne were reported to be interested in the months leading up to the sale, offering $1.25 million, but the owners of KPHO were looking for $2 million at the time, only lowering their price because of the impending arrival of new TV stations. By 1953, KPHO-TV was programming 100 hours a week of network programming, with all four major networks of the time—CBS, NBC, ABC, and DuMont—represented. Local programming of the time included, at one point, three different live variety shows, as well as a show hosted by a young Marty Robbins. Other shows catered to women, kids, and sports fans. In the station's last year as a network affiliate, another major event occurred in station history. Ken Kennedy had created a character called "Gold Dust Charlie" to host Western movies. A sidekick was added when Bill Thompson, a 23-year-old artist, joined Charlie in the role of Wallace Sneed, Charlie's eastern cousin. Wallace soon became so popular that he received his own show of comedy sketches, It's Wallace. A studio cameraman, Ladimir Kwiatkowski, joined the show with his character Ladmo, and what would become known as The Wallace and Ladmo Show—a KPHO-TV fixture for decades—was born. The independent years The end of the FCC freeze in 1952 started the process that would bring to the Phoenix area three new television services within less than two years. The first of these stations launched on May 2, 1953: KTYL-TV channel 12 in Mesa. KTYL-TV took on NBC programming from KPHO-TV; it was speculated that Meredith might have let that network go on purpose, reasoning it was likely to lose it anyway if KTAR radio, the Phoenix NBC radio affiliate, had its proposed television station approved. Phoenix got a second channel in October 1953, shared by KOOL-TV and KOY-TV, but channel 10 did not have a network affiliation; at the same time, CBS added KPHO-TV to the "must-buy"