Origins 

     In 1926 Don Lee (a Los Angeles resident whose wealth had been built on his exclusive distribution rights for Cadillac automobiles in California) purchased KFRC in San Francisco. In 1927 he acquired KHJ in Los Angeles to promote auto sales. He then joined the McClatchy radio stations in 1928 and formed a western network that became affiliated with the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS).

     Don Lee died in 1934, and his son Thomas took over what continued to be known as the Don Lee Broadcasting System. Thomas Lee broke with McClatchy, and in 1936 signed with the Mutual network. Through the remainder of the 1930s and during the 1940s, the Don Lee Broadcasting System served as Mutual's West Coast nerve center. Operations were centered at KHJ in Los Angeles, with KFRC in San Francisco and KGB in San Diego. By the late 1940s the Don Lee Broadcasting System also controlled 17 other stations in smaller California towns. KALE in Portland, Oregon, anchored that state's ten owned­ and-operated stations located in smaller Oregon towns. KVI in Seattle and KNEW in Spokane led Washington's nine stations. The properties of the Don Lee Broadcasting System also included three stations in Idaho; KATO in Reno, Nevada; KOOL in Phoenix, Arizona; KCNA in Tucson, Arizona; and KHON in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Pioneering TV

     For all its regional radio success, the Don Lee Broadcasting System's truly pioneering work was in television broadcasting. Although RCA is usually given most of the credit for pioneering American television, the Don Lee Broadcasting System deserves at least equal billing. Its radio profits funded television experiments that began as a simple television laboratory in 1930. On 14 November 1930, auto-dealer-turned-broadcaster Don Lee hired Philo Farnsworth protege Harry Lubcke as his director of television. By IO May 1931 Lubcke and his staff had built television equipment of sufficient quality to convince the Federal Radio Commission to give the Don Lee Broadcasting System permission to go on the air experimentally. On the last day of 1931, its experimental TV station W6XAO went on the air on a UHF frequency for one hour per day, a schedule maintained through the 1930s. 

     With a transmitter and studios located in the Lee building's second floor in downtown Los Angeles, TV broadcasting experiments commenced on a slow, steady basis through the 1930s. Highlights included 1933 news footage of a Southern California earthquake as well as USC football games. In October 19 37 the Don Lee Broadcasting System presented a gala high-profile premiere, broadcasting both on radio and television the opening of the 27th annual Los Angeles Motor Car Dealers' Automobile Show from the Pan Pacific Auditorium. (This event represented for Don Lee Broadcasting System the equivalent of the more fabled 1939 RCA demonstration at the World's Fair.) Every year the Don Lee Broadcasting System television station broadcast the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade, and in 1940 moved its transmitter to the top of Mount Lee, above the fabled "Hollywood" sign. The Don Lee company was apparently on the verge of initiating mass market TV broadcasting-in Hollywood's back yard-but the bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 put further experimentation on hold. Throughout World War II, the Don Lee Broadcasting System concentrated on radio.

Decline

     After the war, Thomas Lee continued to concentrate on his highly profitable radio business and thus did not push to convert experimental W6XAO into formally licensed KTSL-TV (KTSL stood for "Thomas S. Lee") until May 1948. This came after Lee opened a $2.5 million radio and television complex at Hollywood and Vine with 18 studios covering 11 2,000 square feet, for television, AM, and FM broadcasting. Within the studio, Lee management sought to link radio with TV programming, not convinced that television would prove to be a stand-alone medium. Thomas Lee reasoned that simulcasting radio and TV programs would be the wave of the future. The Don Lee Broadcasting System's most famous show, Queen for a Day, was an example of this thinking.

     Although radio broadcasts of Queen for a Day began on 29 April 1945, it would be two years before Lee gave the go­ ahead to simulcast the program on the still-experimental TV station W6XAO. But when the simulcast finally occurred, its success led Lee to commit to television. Broadcasting live from a Hollywood theater- restaurant called the Moulin Rouge, host Jack Bailey interviewed four or five women who poured out tales of woe. The one receiving the most audience applause became "Queen for a Day" and was showered with gifts, her problems momentarily solved, at least in a material sense. James Cagney's sister Jeanne offered fashion shows in breaks between sob stories. Queen for a Day became a Los Angeles sensation through the early 1950s, and later ran on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and American Broadcasting Company (ABC) networks.

     Thomas Lee's death on 13 January 1950 was the beginning of the end of the Don Lee Broadcasting System. (He had been in poor health for years and either fell or jumped from the 12th floor of his broadcasting center.) Operations continued under long-time Vice President Lewis Allen Weiss until May, when, under the terms of Lee's will, the broadcast properties were put up for sale. In November, General Tire and Rubber Company's bid of $12.3 million was accepted. General Tire folded the Don Lee Broadcasting System into its broadcast empire, which then included the Mutual radio network, the Yankee radio network, and TV/radio station WOR of New York. By the end of the 1950s, nothing remained of the previous Don Lee Broadcasting System as a regional network or a group of influential radio stations.