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| KXNV-LD | |
| History | |
First air date | September 27, 1953 (72 years ago) (1953-09-27) |
Former call signs | KZTV (1953–1956) |
Former channel numbers |
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Call sign meaning | from former sister stationKOLO (AM) |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 63331 |
| ERP | 15.6kW |
| HAAT | 893 m (2,930 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 39°18′48.6″N119°53′3.6″W / 39.313500°N 119.884333°W /39.313500; -119.884333 |
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Public license information | |
| Website | www |
KOLO-TV (channel 8) is atelevision station inReno, Nevada, United States, affiliated withABC andThe CW Plus. It is owned byGray Media alongsideIncline Village–licensedlow-powerTelemundo affiliateKXNV-LD (channel 26). The two stations share studios on Ampere Drive in Reno; KOLO-TV's transmitter is located onSlide Mountain betweenSR 431 andI-580/US 395/ALT in unincorporatedWashoe County.
KOLO hit the airwaves September 27, 1953, as KZTV. It was the second station in Nevada, followingKLAS-TV inLas Vegas (which went on air two months earlier) and the first in northern Nevada. It had hoped to be the first in Nevada, but a carpenters' strike delayed sign-on.[2] It carried programming from all four networks, but was a primaryCBS affiliate; despite this, none of thesoap operas it cleared during the 1950s came from CBS.[3]
Its founding owner,Donald W. Reynolds of the Donrey Media Group (nowStephens Media LLC) originally sought an affiliation withNBC. However, NBC balked; noting the fact that Reno had only 97 television sets at the time, network officials asked, "Who would be stupid enough to put a television station in Reno, Nevada?" CBS was far more responsive to Reynolds' offer. At the time channel 8 signed on, Reno was the smallest city in the country with a television station.[4]
The station also carried programs from the short-livedParamount Television Network; KZTV was one of that network's strongest affiliates, airing Paramount programs such asTime for Beany,[5]Bandstand Revue,[6] andHollywood Wrestling.[7] It also aired a large amount of local programming, much of it live. Its freewheeling production style earned it the nickname "Crazy TV."[2]
In 1956, Reynolds bought KOLO radio (AM 920, nowKIHM) and changed channel 8's callsign to the present KOLO-TV.[2] TheKZTV call sign now resides on the CBS affiliate inCorpus Christi, Texas. Four years later, KOLO-AM-TV got sister stations in Las Vegas when it boughtKORK-AM-FM-TV as part of Donrey's purchase of theLas Vegas Review-Journal.
The station originally broadcast from a short tower at its studios on Fifth Street. However, its signal was marginal at best even in areas close to Reno; Reynolds couldn't get a picture at his home on Lake Tahoe. As a solution, channel 8 built its current tower atop Slide Mountain. It was initially thought to be difficult to maintain, given the heavy snow and high winds that are common on the mountain during the winter. In those days, the FCC required engineers to be at the transmitter site at all times. To that end, one of the engineers asked his father, who worked forU.S. Steel, to build a transmitter building designed like storage tanks for oil companies. It had a cupola on top for the microwave, and had interior walls and flooring to accommodate living quarters for the engineers. The transmitter building remains in use today.[2] Also around this time, the station began building translator after translator across its vast coverage area, which now stretched across a large swath of northern Nevada and northeastern California.
The Fifth Street studio burned down during a fire in a closet. The station was off the air until it moved to a new temporary studio on Vassar Street and Terminal Way. The current facility on Ampere Drive came online in 1979.[2]
It lost DuMont when the network ceased operations in 1955. It also lost NBC to KCRL-TV (nowKRNV-DT) when it started in 1962, and ABC toKTVN when that station started operations in 1967. KOLO and KTVN swapped affiliations in 1972. KOLO also carriedSesame Street for several years, until September 29, 1983, when Reno got aPBS station of its own (KNPB).
Donrey sold KOLO-TV toSmith Broadcasting in 2001. In 2002, KOLO-TV was sold to current owner Gray Television (nowGray Media).
The analog signal of KOLO-TV went off the air at 12:30 p.m. on January 12, 2009, so that the station could complete work on the transmitter on Slide Mountain in order to move the digital signal back to Channel 8.
KOLO-TV produces the only midday newscast that runs from 11 a.m. to noon while also airingABC World News Tonight at 6 p.m., instead at 5:30 or 6:30 p.m. KTVN also airs their network newscast at 6 p.m. while KRNV-DT is the only station to air its network newscast at 5:30 p.m. Other newscasts include a2+1⁄2-hour longGood Morning Reno that runs from 4:30 to 7 a.m. andKOLO 8 News NOW at 4:30, 5, 5:30, 6:30 and 11 p.m. The 4:30 a.m. newscast debuted on October 13, 2014, to compete with KTVN and as of 2018, KRNV is the only station to not have a 4:30 a.m. newscast. On April 20, 2015, KOLO-TV became the first station to offer a 4:30 p.m. newscast in the market afterDr. Oz was moved to an hour-long 2 p.m. time slot afterThe Queen Latifah Show was canceled andJeopardy! was added as a rerun for the 4 p.m. time slot.[8] KTVN has since added local news at 4 and 4:30 p.m., the latter of which competes against KOLO-TV at 4:30 p.m. and KRNV-DT at 4 p.m.
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8.1 | 720p | 16:9 | KOLO-TV | ABC |
| 8.2 | 480i | KOLO-SD | MeTV | |
| 8.3 | 720p | CW-TV | The CW Plus | |
| 8.4 | 480i | CIRCLE | Outlaw | |
| 8.5 | QUEST | Quest | ||
| 8.6 | START | Start TV |
KOLO-TV shut down its analog signal, overVHF channel 8, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition VHF channel 9 to channel 8.[10]
Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofNevada | ||
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Includes stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of Nevada | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
| Religious | ||
| Spanish | ||
| Other stations | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
Includes English-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of California | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
| Religious | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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Includes English-language stations in out-of-state TV markets, but reaching a portion of California | ||
| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Independent | ||
| PBS | ||
| Religious | ||
| Other | ||
| ATSC 3.0 | ||
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