A television receiver with a planar faceplate kinescope includes an automatic kinescope bias (AKB) control system (14a,b,c) wherein the kinescope electron gun (16, 18) is energized to induce a cathode input current, representative of the kinescope black image current level, in response to an auxiliary drive signal (V G ) applied to the electron gun during AKB operating intervals. The auxiliary signal (V G ) exhibits an amplitude for inducing the cathode current only during horizontal trace intervals encompassed by the interval when the auxiliary signal occurs.