Though the station was a perennial money-loser for most of its first decade in operation, its fortunes improved in the mid-1970s, and it spent six seasons as the television broadcaster of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team.
No buyer came through with a satisfactory purchase price, which prompted the liquidating firm to close the station down and sell it for parts in its shareholders' best interests.
WKBS-TV made its last broadcast on the morning of August 30, 1983; some equipment and most of its programming were purchased by one of its competitors, WPHL-TV, while other items were auctioned.
In the years following the closure of WKBS-TV, Philadelphia regained a third full-market independent in 1985 with the conversion of subscription-based WWSG into WGBS-TV, owned by Milton Grant.
The process to award channel 48 in Burlington to a new bidder spanned the rest of the decade; Dorothy Brunson, a Black radio station owner, received a construction permit in 1989 and built WGTW-TV in 1992.
[13] Drawing on the sports formula that made Kaiser's WKBD-TV successful from its launch earlier in the year,[6] taped replays of local college and high school football games formed part of WKBS's lineup,[14] and in January 1966, the station began airing live wrestling from the Hotel Philadelphia ballroom.
[19] During the late 1960s, Kaiser harbored ambitions of setting up its own television network, primarily consisting of the best programs produced at its individual stations.
In April, seven of twenty-one employees in the news department were dismissed;[22] the group then began expanding programming again, encouraged by ratings success at its Cleveland and Detroit stations.
[27][28] Ultimately, the entire news operation was closed after only two years, due to a weak economy and reluctance to embrace UHF stations.
In 1973, general manager William Ryan told Variety that the station had lost a "helluva lot of money" in its entire existence.
[35] By the late 1970s, the competition in the independent station market in Philadelphia was starting to favor channel 29, by this time known as WTAF-TV, which edged ahead of WKBS and WPHL in the ratings.
In 1975, Bill "Wee Willie Webber" left WPHL-TV to host children's shows for WKBS-TV;[37] he lasted three years on the station.
[39] After the Sixers moved to WPHL, the station signed a deal to carry a package of 25 Big 5 college basketball games, mostly away contests, which represented the city schools' largest television exposure in years.
[45] The final telecast came on the morning of August 30, after a syndicated college football game, the Kickoff Classic between Penn State and Nebraska.
[46] General manager Vince Barresi delivered a final editorial—a eulogy for WKBS:[47] Tonight completes the last day of the broadcasting operations of WKBS-TV, channel 48, Field Communications Burlington–Philadelphia.
Channel 48 as an entity, and our employees as individual citizens, have been deeply involved in our community; we have been unselfish over the years by giving literally thousands of hours of personal time to make the Delaware Valley an even better place in which to live.
[41] As part of the closure, the Providence Journal Company, owner of WPHL-TV, acquired $500,000 in equipment from WKBS, including four one-inch video tape machines.
[48] The Big 5, which had been days away from signing a renewal of its college basketball contract with channel 48 for the 1983–84 season, wound up with just five games telecast on the New Jersey Network.
[51][52][53] In 1985, Philadelphia-based subscription station WWSG-TV was sold to Milton Grant and relaunched as WGBS-TV "Philly 57"; its first major sports rights acquisition was Villanova University basketball, which had gone unaired since channel 48 folded.