In fact, KPIX had a hand in getting KGO-TV on the air, as the CBS-affiliated station produced informational programming on how to receive and view ABC's channel 7.

KGO-TV was the fourth of ABC's five original owned-and-operated stations to sign-on, after WABC-TV in New York City, WLS-TV in Chicago and WXYZ-TV in Detroit, and before KABC-TV in Los Angeles.

[8] In 1954, KGO-TV moved to one of the most modern broadcasting facilities on the West Coast at the time at 277 Golden Gate Avenue, formerly known as the Eagle Building.

As an ABC-owned station, KGO-TV originated a few network daytime shows, including programs hosted by fitness expert Jack La Lanne, singer Tennessee Ernie Ford, and entertainer Gypsy Rose Lee.

In 1985, KGO-TV began broadcasting from its current studios at 900 Front Street, sharing the facility with radio stations KGO (AM 810), KSFO and KMKY (the former two are now owned by Cumulus Media).

According to Broadcasting magazine, KGO unveiled this logo, created by San Francisco design consultant G. Dean Smith, on August 27, 1962.

The station was among the handful of ABC affiliates to have aired the syndicated Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, first-run on the network, until the game show's cancellation in 2019.

Owing to its common ownership with ESPN, Channel 7 holds the right of first refusal to Monday Night Football games involving the San Francisco 49ers.

The station carried the 1989 World Series, a matchup between the Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants which would be interrupted by the Loma Prieta earthquake shortly before Game 3 was to begin at Candlestick Park.

From June 26, 2006, to September 10, 2010, KGO-TV broadcast a locally produced weekday variety show called The View from the Bay, hosted by Spencer Christian and Janelle Wang.

7 Live had an innovative format with a studio audience called "The Voice Box" and viewer-submitter e-mail, Facebook and Twitter comments that were read by the hosts during the program.

Along with the other ABC O&Os, KGO-TV also used an edited version of the "Tar Sequence" from the soundtrack of Cool Hand Luke as the theme music for its newscasts starting in 1969.

The station broadcast a 4:30 p.m. newscast named Early News in 1970, anchored by Ray Tannehill and John Reed King, with Pete Giddings covering weather and Bob Fouts presenting sports.

Sunday newscast was Richard Hart's segment about technological developments, alternatively titled "Next Step" and "Drive to Discover".

[citation needed] The station previously used the market's first helicopter equipped to shoot and transmit high definition video, branded as "Sky 7HD", which made its on-air debut in February 2006.

KGO became the second television station in the Bay Area (after KTVU) to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition on February 17, 2007.

[citation needed] From January 8, 2007, until March 11, 2022, KGO-TV also produced an hour-long 9 p.m. newscast for independent station KOFY-TV (channel 20).

On July 20, 2007, longtime evening news anchor and KGO radio talk show host Pete Wilson died at age 62, following a massive heart attack that he suffered during a hip replacement procedure at Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, California.

Around that same time and prompted by a sluggish economy and the station's conversion to the "Ignite" automated control room system, on May 26, 2011, KGO debuted an hour-long 4 p.m. newscast, which filled the timeslot formerly held by The Oprah Winfrey Show (which ended its 25-year syndication run the previous day).

[citation needed] On August 8, 2014, KGO struck a partnership with Univision O&O KDTV-DT to cross-promote newscast and share news context second behind its Philadelphia sister station WPVI-TV which in December partnered with WUVP-DT to produce a live 11 p.m.

[18] On July 9, 2015, KGO became the first station in Northern California to fly a commercial drone under newly approved FAA guidelines.

On February 4, 2022, the station launched ABC 7 Bay Area 24/7, a continuous online streaming channel showing local news and information.