freed ABC to pick up the call letters for its flagship cluster of television, AM, and FM stations in Los Angeles shortly thereafter. DuMont ceased most network operations in 1955, but would honor network commitments until August 1956, when it ceased operations permanently. Channel 5 lost ABC programming when KONO-TV (channel 12, now KSAT-TV) signed on in 1957, leaving KENS as a full-time CBS affiliate. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network. In early 1962, the Express-News and KENS-AM-TV were purchased by Harte-Hanks Communications; the radio station was sold off a few months later since Harte-Hanks was not interested in radio station ownership at the time. When the FCC tightened its cross-ownership rules in the early 1970s, Harte-Hanks sought grandfathered protection for its San Antonio media combination. However, while the FCC granted such protection to several media combinations across the country, it would not do the same to the Harte-Hanks combination in San Antonio. Accordingly, in 1973, Harte-Hanks opted to keep KENS-TV and sell the Express-News to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. In the mid-1980s, KENS broadcast a short-lived local cable channel that was carried on Rogers Cablevision channel 24, called KENS II. Under the direction of station manager Larry Smith, the channel's programming included replays of channel 5's local newscasts, broadcasts of Ron Taylor and Janie Groves' classified real estate programming and a few locally produced programs and specials such as Auto TV (hosted by Richard Courchesne and Michael Saul), and Barney Regets' computer generated musical video kaleidoscope created earlier at UA Columbia's Consumer Cable 29. In March 1985, KMOL-TV parent company United Television filed a protest with the FCC, claiming that by operating KENS II, it gave KENS an unfair competitive advantage, and that Harte-Hanks was violating the spirit of the Commission's long-standing rules that forbade duopolies. KENS management maintained that the duopoly rules did not apply to cable television. The claims of KMOL were rejected by the FCC that October in a decision that was closely watched by industry observers. After a little over four years on the air, KENS II was shut down in May 1988. In July 1990, it was reported that KENS was holding talks with ABC about switching to that network, which would have left existing affiliate KSAT without a network affiliation. Then-KENS general manager Michael Conly cited CBS' then-distant third ranking as a reason for