XETV Channel 6 turns 60

The original studio for XETV Channel 6 was in an office building above a deli on Park Boulevard.

Probably. Maybe.

“That’s anecdotal,” said Chuck Dunning, a 35-year employee of the station who now serves as vice president and general manager. “I haven’t been able to find an actual address.”

One thing Dunning is certain of, however, is the date XETV went on the air: April 29, 1953. (He isn’t aware of any original employees, although 88-year-old Raff Ahlgren joined around 1955 and still works there on an informal basis.)

That makes it San Diego’s second-oldest TV station (KFMB began four years earlier, KGTV a few months later). And Dunning thinks the 60th anniversary is worth celebrating. So he is holding an open house or employee reunion, whatever you want to call it, from noon to 4 p.m. on April 27 at the XETV studios in Kearny Mesa.

“We have that heritage,” Dunning said. “I want my staff to recognize the roots the station has in the community and remind longtime San Diegans how long we’ve been a part of their life.”

When XETV came on the air, Dwight Eisenhower was just three months into his first term as president. There were about 700,000 people living in the county, and as Dunning said, “the Padres played in a stadium (Lane Field) at the foot of Broadway, Mission Bay was transforming from swampland, and there were more cows than people in Mission Valley.”

Channel 6 began as an independent station, became an ABC affiliate from 1955-74, went back to being an independent for about a dozen years, then jumped at the chance to become a Fox affiliate when that network was created in 1986. It stayed with Fox until the summer of 2008, when the network opted to switch to KSWB Channel 5/69. XETV wound up becoming a CW affiliate (as it is today).

Two days after the open house, XETV’s morning show will celebrate the actual anniversary by dressing in 1950s vintage clothing; one segment even will be broadcast in black and white. The city and county will proclaim April 29 “Channel Six Day,” with politicians appearing on the morning show to make it official.

Radio update

Not much new in the land of San Diego radio ratings, unless you consider it news that KSON-FM (97.3) won another Arbitron period.

The country powerhouse actually widened its advantage during the March ratings released earlier this week, earning an average quarter-hour share of the audience (ages 6 and older) of 8.3 percent. That was nearly three percentage points higher than No. 2 KHTS-FM (Channel 933), which came in at 5.4.

In February, KSON’s advantage over Channel 933 and KPBS-FM (89.5), which tied for second, was 7.8 to 5.2. KPBS tied for fourth in March with XHTZ-FM (Z90.3) at 4.8, just behind KGB-FM (101.5) at 4.9. Z90.3 was one of the big winners in March, up more than half a point.

Among the biggest droppers were KIFM-FM (98.1), from 4.2 to 3.7, and KOGO-AM (600), from 2.7 to 2.2. Sports talk station XPRS-AM (1090), which posted a 2.5 share in January, dropped to 1.6 and 1.3 in the last two months.

Breen, band featured

Among the films playing at the Newport Beach Film Festival is “From Nothing, Something: A Documentary on the Creative Process.” Screening at 4 p.m. April 28 at The Triangle in Costa Mesa, it profiles various creative thinkers, including U-T San Diego’s Pulitzer-winning editorial cartoonist, Steve Breen.

The festival opens Thursday at Edwards Big Newport with a screening of the documentary “Broadway Idiot,” which looks at the creation of the Broadway musical “American Idiot,” based on the Green Day album of the same name. (“American Idiot” will play at the San Diego Civic Theatre from May 28 to June 2.)

The Newport Beach festival, which includes more than 40 feature films, runs through May 2.

Now watch this

“All the President’s Men Revisited” (8 p.m. Sunday, Discovery)

Where were you in 1972? If you were a political junkie, you were probably glued to the unfolding saga of the Watergate scandal as uncovered by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. You can relive the glory of those ink-stained days with “All the President’s Men Revisited,” a new documentary that returns to the scene of the crimes and triumphs.

The two-hour doc features interviews with Woodward, Bernstein and editor Ben Bradlee; insider dish from Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, who played the reporters in the Oscar-nominated “All the President’s Men” film; and modern-day commentary from Jon Stewart, Rachel Maddow, New York Times media reporter David Carr and many others.

Karla Peterson