California

Doctor Who aired in these cities, on these channels:

San Francisco

KRON

Channel 4 (NBC)

• 22 September 1973: Doctor Who debuts with the Jon Pertwee stories, Saturdays at 6:30pm.

Oakland Tribune, Sept. 19, 1973

TV listing for KRON, 1974

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KQED

Channel 9 (PBS)

• 1980s: aired Wednesdays 8.00-8.30pm and Saturday night marathons (credits in tact)

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Los Angeles

Radio Times, 14-20 November 1992, promoting the colourised repeat

first airing, July 1, 1975

Note the quotation from the Philadelphia Inquirer describing the first-ever airing in the US

KCET

Channel 28 (PBS)

Dr Who Debuts! 1 July 1975	The Ambassadors of Death, August 1975	Inferno, Part 7, 18 November 1975	Los Angeles loves Doctor Who! (Los Angeles Times, 1 July 1975) An opposing viewpoint (Long Beach Press-Telegram, 1 July 1975)
The Mind of Evil, Part 1, 23 December 1975	The Mind of Evil, Part 6, 3 February 1976	The Claws of Axos, Part 1, 17 February 1976
The Claws of Axos, Part 4, 9 March 1976	The Daemons, Part 1, 23 March 1976	The Daemons, April 1976

• 1 July 1975: Doctor Who begins screening Tuesdays at 7.30pm with the Jon Pertwee stories.
• 6 June 1976: The series moves to Sunday nights.
• 9 October 1976: Now Saturday evenings.
• 29 January 1977: Saturday night airings end.
• 10 September 1977: A surprise run of Saturday afternoon airings begins.
• 15 October 1977: An airing watched by no one as it aired opposite game 4 of the Dodgers/Yankees World Series.
• 19 November 1977: The Daemons airs as a compilation with one intermission. A recording of this broadcast is used to colorize telerecordings for eventual VHS and DVD releases. The Mind of Evil also around this time. Does this run feature the first American compilation broadcasts?
• 31 December 1977: The series is dropped until 1983. During the hiatus, KBSC screens the Tom Baker series.
• 3 December 1983: After a six year break, KCET picks up Doctor Who again with The Five Doctors, but passes on the nationwide broadcast.
• 7 January 1984: The Tom Baker stories commence their run, and air for several years on a repeat cycle.
• 1984: The reissued 14 colour Jon Pertwee stories air.
• 9 March 1985: The Talons of Weng-Chiang airs for the second and last time. KCET pulls the episode after complaints from the Asian-American community. It doesn't air during Tom Baker's three other runs.
• 1986-1987: Omnibus editions air, Saturdays, usually 1.00 to 2.30pm.
• 13 June 1987: The Peter Davison stories begin airing.
• 9 October 1987: Sylvester McCoy visits with the Doctor Who Tour (parked at Plummer Park, on Santa Monica Boulevard).
• 31 October 1987: The Colin Baker stories commence. During 1987, the series screened Saturdays, at 1.00pm.
• January 1988: The 24 repackaged Jon Pertwee stories aired, with a repeat in 1991.
• 17 March 1990: The first run of Sylvester McCoy stories airs.
• 1990: Compilation editions air Saturday mornings, sometimes from 10.50am.
• 1992: During 1992, the series airs in omnibus editions from 9.00am to 10.30am on Saturday mornings.
• 1993: During 1993, the series airs in 90 minute omnibus editions from 8.00am to 9.30am on Saturday mornings, although in November and December, the timeslot is reduced to only one hour.
• 18 December 1993: KCET drops Doctor Who.

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Media

• CLIP: TOM BAKER KCET Pledge

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KBSC

Variety, 16 August 1978

KBSC was one of the first stations to purchase the Tom Baker stories

Listing for the first airing on KBSC, 2 Oct 1978, 5.00pm (Los Angeles Times)

Channel 52 (Independent)

• 2 October 1978: Aired Doctor Who weeknights at 5pm and 6:30pm, often out of sequence.
• 29 December 1978: The 5:00 airing is dropped. The Friday airings are dropped for seven weeks.
• 26 April 1980: After a week off, the series moves to Saturday afternoons at 12:30.
• 6 September 1980: With KBSC drifting towards Spanish language programming and On TV, Doctor Who is taken off the schedules.

Listing for the first airing on KBSC, 2 Oct 1978, 5.00pm and again at 6.30pm (Los Angeles Times)

Promo card for KBSC using artwork by Tom Crabtree

Santa Ana Register, Oct. 9, 1978

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Fandom

LA Herald Examiner report on Who 1 convention, 9 March 1980

• 1 December 1979: Tom Baker, Graham Williams and Terrance Dicks attend the first ever US Doctor Who convention in Los Angeles.
• 1-2 March 1980: Ian Marter and Elisabeth Sladen guest at the Who 1 convention in Los Angeles.
• A full account of the History of Doctor Who Fandom in Los Angeles can be read HERE.

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Los Angeles Metro

• On the tiles decorating the 7th Street / Metro Center station of the Los Angeles Metro underground train system, can be found a number of very familiar creatures: a Menoptra (The Web Planet); Koquillion (The Rescue), and two Daleks.

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Fresno

KMTF

Variety, 16 August 1978

KMTF was one of the first stations to purchase the Tom Baker stories

KMTF Channel 18 listing for 21 January 1989

Channel 18 (PBS)

• 1989: By this time, omnibus editions were airing on Saturdays.
  • 21 January 1989: An unidentified omnibus edition aired from 8:00 to 9:30pm.

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San Jose

KTEH ad promoting Doctor Who and a special interview with John Nathan-Turner

Happy Birthday to WHO!' TV Guide, November 1983

KTEH

Channel 54 (PBS) (also available in Santa Cruz)

• 13 April 1981: Doctor Who commences its run on KTEH, five days a week; KTEH is the third station in the Bay Area to screen the series.

• 1982: Omnibus versions commenced on Saturday nights while episodes continue to run daily.

• By mid 1983: The Peter Davison stories begin screening Saturday nights to lead in to the networked screening of The Five Doctors on 23 November 1983.

• At 8.10pm (on 23 November 1983?) channel 54 screened a 40 minute An Interview with Tom Baker.

• 23 November 1983: The Five Doctors airs, at 8.50pm.

• 1984: The 14 available full colour Jon Pertwee stories air. The series airs weeknights at 7.30pm, with an omnibus "movie" edition on Saturdays at 11.15pm.

• By November 1984 the 11.15pm Saturday screenings had reached the Peter Davison stories - Arc of Infinity aired 10 November 1984.

• KTEH generally airs two 'movie' compilations per week.

• 1985: The repackaged colour / black and white Jon Pertwee stories air around this time, and repeated in 1991 and 1992.

• 16 September 1985: The Tom Baker stories are recycled again, weekdays at 7.30pm. Omnibus editions also screen Saturday evening (Nightmare of Eden screened 14 September 1985.)

• 1986: The Colin Baker stories and repackaged 17 William Hartnell stories air.

• February 1987: The repackaged five Patrick Troughton stories screen. The War Games screens the very week that Troughton dies in Columbus, Georgia.

• November 1988: The Sylvester McCoy stories go to air.
• 1991-2001: The repackaged 24 Jon Pertwee stories continued to be aired a few times.
• 1992: The recently recovered The Tomb of the Cybermen screens.
• January 2003: KTEH's almost uninterrupted run of Doctor Who came to an end in January of this year.

• A more detailed account of KTEH's broadcast history of Doctor Who can be found HERE

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Redding

KIXE

Channel 9 (PBS)

• 15 April 1981: The Tom Baker stories begin, Wednesdays at 8pm.

• 1988: The 24 repackaged Jon Pertwee stories aired circa 1988.

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Sacramento

KVIE

Channel 6 (PBS)

• 1987: The Tom Baker stories air; The Deadly Assassin screens on 14 March 1987. Half-way through, the story stops for a pledge break:
  • CLIPS: KVIE PLEDGE BREAK 14 MAY 1987 part 1
  • CLIPS: KVIE PLEDGE BREAK 14 MAY 1987 part 2
    • Background on these Sacramento Pledge Drives
  • CLIPS: KVIE Pledges and ads, early 1988

• 1989: The 24 repackaged Jon Pertwee stories aired.
• 1990s: KVIE produces its own on-air introductions for the Hartnell and Troughton episodes, featuring station staff and volunteers, usually in costume. Often the intros explained what had happened to the regular characters in the stories that could not be screened (i.e they were missing or incomplete).

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Sonoma County

KRCB

Channel 23 (PBS)

• June 1996: Airing compilations Saturday nights at 10pm, including the repackaged 24 Jon Pertwee stories.

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San Diego?

KGTV?

Channel 10 (NBC)

• BBC documentation records a sale of Jon Pertwee stories to "KGTV" by March 1974, but despite our searching local TV listings from 1972 to 1974, we could find no evidence that Doctor Who had screened on that, or any other San Diego station. But it's possible this record is a misspelling of "KGTF", the station in Guam which did screen the series from 1972 to 1974, and which is not recorded in that same BBC documentation.

• If the series did not air in San Diego in the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s, that makes it the largest US TV market to never show Doctor Who.