KOLD-TV (channel 13) is atelevision station inTucson, Arizona, United States, affiliated withCBS. It is owned byGray Media, which provides certain services toFox affiliateKMSB (channel 11) and dualCW/MyNetworkTV affiliateKTTU-TV (channel 18) under ashared services agreement (SSA) withTegna Inc. The three stations share studios on North Business Park Drive on the northwest side of Tucson (nearCasas Adobes). KOLD-TV's primary transmitter is atopMount Bigelow, with a secondary transmitter atop theTucson Mountains west of the city to fill in gaps in coverage.
Established in February 1953, KOLD-TV is the second-oldest television station in the state and was the first on air in Tucson. It has been affiliated with CBS for its entire history. After initially being the market leader in local news, it was surpassed byKVOA in the 1970s and suffered particularly in the late 1980s and 1990s from corporate neglect and cost-cutting. The station produces local newscasts that, since the 2000s, have been competitive in the local ratings.
In the wake of theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) lifting its freeze on the award of new television stations, three Tucson radio stations applied for three channels. The Old Pueblo Broadcasting Company, held byGene Autry and Tom Chauncey and owner of Tucson'sKOPO (1450 AM) and owned byGene Autry and Tom Chauncey, filed for channel 13 without opposition on June 21, 1952, and was granted aconstruction permit to build on November 12.[2][3] Construction got under way in early December on an interim transmitter facility mounted on the AM radio tower, as 500-foot (150 m) towers were not yet available,[4] and on a television addition to the KOPO radio facility on West Drachman Street.[5]
On January 13, 1953, at 1:13:13 p.m. (13:13:13 in24-hour time), the KOPO-TV transmitter was turned on.[6] As construction in the television studio was still in progress, no programming was aired[7] until February 1, when the station began to carry programs from CBS and theDuMont Television Network. The day before, a dedicatory program was broadcast from the studios.[8] Network presentations had to be aired fromkinescopes until acoaxial cable hookup was completed in September to be shared by KOPO-TV and new stationKVOA-TV, allowing Tucsonans to see live network shows.[9]
KOPO radio and television became KOLD radio and television on April 30, 1957.[2] The KOLD call letters had been used by the Autry-owned station inYuma until it was sold; that outlet becameKOFA and closed in 1963. Autry and Chauncey ownedKOOL radio andtelevision in Phoenix; as was done there, the phones were answered "It's KOLD in Tucson".[10]) The main transmitter was moved to Mount Bigelow in 1961, simultaneously with KVOA-TV;KGUN-TV had been built on the mountain five years prior.[11]
Evening News, Knight-Ridder, and News-Press and Gazette ownership
In December 1968, Autry and Chauncey announced the sale of KOLD-TV, separate from the radio station, for $3.8 million to the Universal Communications Corporation, the broadcasting arm of theDetroit-basedEvening News Association.[12] The FCC approved of the deal in 1969, though it required the E. W. Scripps Trust to divest itself of its holding in the Evening News Association, asScripps-Howard Broadcasting owned fourVHF stations (of a limit of five), and Evening News now would own two (KOLD-TV andWWJ-TV in Detroit).[13] The commission tweaked the ruling to allow Scripps to retain an interest of one percent.[14] The radio station, split from channel 13, reverted to its former KOPO designation.[15]
In October 1988, Knight-Ridder announced its intent to sell the company's station group to help reduce a $929 million debt load[23] and finance a $353 million acquisition of online information providerDialog Information Services.[24] TheNews-Press & Gazette Company (NPG) acquired KOLD on June 26, 1989, spending $18 million.[25] It implemented budget cuts in the newsroom, which was wracked by employee turnover as a result.[26] NPG also moved KOLD from Mount Bigelow to the Tucson Mountains west of the city; this improved reception in some parts of the city that had terrain blockages, but it createdsignal ingress issues for cable subscribers. More critically, it impaired the signal for many over-the-air viewers, notably in outlying areas such asBenson, Arizona. A 1985 study done for KVOA, KGUN, and KOLD estimated a Tucson Mountains move would affect 15 percent of the station's viewers.[27][28][29]
In 1993,New Vision Television, a new broadcast station group based inLansing, Michigan, bought NPG's entire television station group of the time, which included KOLD and stations in five other markets.[30] New Vision took over before the end of the year and immediately made moves to shore up flagging employee morale at KOLD. In addition to a new general manager, New Vision began planning for a new facility on Tucson's northwest side with nearly twice as much space as the Drachman facility, which the station had outgrown.[31] The new facility, outfitted with a news studio called the "Newsplex", debuted in late 1994, before New Vision sold its stations to Ellis Communications in 1995; Ellis was in turn folded intoRaycom Media in 1997.[29] Raycom would house its centralized design operation, Raycom Design Group, in Tucson.[32]
On November 15, 2011, theBelo Corporation, then-owner of local Fox affiliateKMSB andMyNetworkTV affiliateKTTU, announced that it would enter into ashared services agreement (SSA) with Raycom Media beginning in February 2012, resulting in KOLD taking over the two stations' operations and moving their advertising sales department to the KOLD studios. All remaining positions at KMSB and KTTU, including news, engineering and production, were eliminated, and master control operations moved from Belo'sKTVK in Phoenix to KOLD. Though FCC rules disallow common ownership of more than two stations in the same market, combined SSA/duopoly operations are permissible.[33]
In 2018, Raycom Media was acquired byGray Television. The $3.6 billion transaction gave Gray its first station in Arizona. The arrangements with KMSB and KTTU remained unchanged.[34][35][36][37] The sale was approved on December 20 of that year[38] and was completed on January 2, 2019.[39]
Behind-the-scenes at KOLD-TV withAnn Kirkpatrick as a guest.
Originally, local news programming for KOPO-TV/KOLD-TV was provided by KOOL-TV in Phoenix.[10] However, by the 1960s, the station was leading the news ratings in the Tucson market, a status it would hold until the late 1970s, when KVOA took the lead.[40] The station continued in second or third place for the next quarter-century, with the station reaching a nadir after being acquired by News-Press & Gazette. Budget cuts meant outdated equipment that broke down,[29] while a series of anchors were fired and replaced with cheaper, entry-level talent. Vic Caputo, who had spent seven years at channel 13, was released by his contract in a decision he attributed to the owners' "money crunch".[41] NPG fired sports anchor Kevin McCabe days before Christmas[28] in a dispute that led to a lawsuit over severance pay.[42] Weatherman Pat Evans was told that there was a "big plan" for him, but when he asked, they would not reveal it; he declined to sign a new contract and took a new job inSacramento, California.[26]
In the late 1990s, KOLD-TV became Tucson's first station to operate a news helicopter.[43][44] Despite these improvements, newscast ratings continued to languish far behind the other two major stations, with channel 13 drawing half as many news viewers, into the 2000s.[45] In 2001, the station won aAlfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, given to Chip Yost for a story about exploding fuel tanks in police cars.[46] By 2004, KOLD had pulled ahead of KVOA in all evening timeslots in the 25–54 demo, a feat which had not occurred in Tucson in 25 years.[47] During this time, KOLD-TV also produced a 9 p.m. local newscast forKWBA-TV.[48] Not all were happy: anchor Randy Garsee was fired in 2006 after sending an email to all employees criticizing the news director for "micromanaging".[49]
As part of taking over KMSB's operations, KOLD-TV took over production of its local 9 p.m. newscast and added a weekday morning newscast, with the existing KMSB news team laid off.[50][51] KMSB and KOLD also introduced a shared website, originally brandedTucson News Now.[52]
In 2022, Gray introduced new 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. newscasts for KOLD.[53]
While KOLD's analog signal originated from a transmitter site in the Tucson Mountains west of downtown, KOLD's primary digital transmitter is at the Mount Bigelow transmitter site to the northeast of the city, where the major Tucson stations built a common digital transmission facility in 2003.[57] The Tucson Mountains site was then converted to a digital replacement translator on channel 13 to provide service to theCatalina Foothills.[58]
^"2 TV Stations Authorized in Tucson".Arizona Daily Star. Tucson, Arizona. November 14, 1952. p. 1A,12A.Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. RetrievedJune 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^"Permit for TV Given to KCNA".Arizona Daily Star. Tucson, Arizona. December 19, 1952. p. 8A.Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. RetrievedJune 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^"Cable Will Mean More Shows".Tucson Daily Citizen. Tucson, Arizona. September 26, 1953. p. 24.Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. RetrievedJune 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^abTurner, Tom (June 25, 1995)."Tucson TV: KOLD".Arizona Daily Star. Tucson, Arizona. p. 10-I.Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. RetrievedJune 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^"KOLD-TV Sold To Detroit Firm".Tucson Daily Citizen. Tucson, Arizona. December 11, 1968. p. 27.Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. RetrievedJune 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^"KOLD-TV Sold; Radio Again KOPO".Tucson Daily Citizen. Tucson, Arizona. July 3, 1969. p. ★1.Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. RetrievedJune 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^Nelson, Mary Jo (November 16, 1985)."Gannett Sells KTVY To Knight-Ridder".Saturday Oklahoman & Times. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. p. 21. RetrievedOctober 13, 2024 – via Newspapers.com.
^"Knight-Ridder agrees to purchase KTVY-TV".Journal Record. October 16, 1985.ProQuest258986810 – via ProQuest.
^"In Brief"(PDF).Broadcasting. November 18, 1985. p. 126.Archived(PDF) from the original on June 29, 2020. RetrievedJune 26, 2020 – via World Radio History.
^abSorenson, Dan (March 29, 1990)."Lean times at KOLD".Tucson Citizen. Tucson, Arizona. pp. 1B,3B.Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. RetrievedJune 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^Dickson, Glen (August 17, 2007)."Graphic Consolidation".Broadcasting & Cable.Archived from the original on September 30, 2020. RetrievedJune 25, 2022.
^Eggerton, John (June 25, 2018)."Gray Buying Raycom for $3.6B".Broadcasting & Cable.Archived from the original on August 10, 2018. RetrievedDecember 11, 2018.
^"McCabe sues KOLD for severance pay".Tucson Citizen. Tucson, Arizona. April 19, 1990. p. 1D.Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. RetrievedJune 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^Abbott, Jim (April 12, 2000)."WKMG hires new general manager".The Orlando Sentinel. Orlando, Florida. p. B-1.Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. RetrievedJune 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^Hatfield, David (May 2, 2004)."KVOA falls to KOLD in news race".Arizona Daily Star. Tucson, Arizona. p. E1,E3.Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. RetrievedJune 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
^White, Erin (December 11, 2005)."WB News at 9 signing off after Thursday".Arizona Daily Star. Tucson, Arizona. p. E6.Archived from the original on June 25, 2022. RetrievedJune 25, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
