KOOL-TV
Home ] Up ]

 

 

 

History

As a CBS affiliate

The Federal Communications Commission awarded the license of Phoenix's third VHF commercial station to two separate owners who competed heavily for its construction permit. These two owners, one of whom was Gene Autry,[1] signed on channel 10 as a shared operation on October 24, 1953. Under the arrangement, the two separate stations would each alternate airtime, but use the same channel allocation and transmitter. The combined KOY-TV and KOOL-TV operation operated as a primary CBS[2] and secondary ABC affiliate.

In 1954, KOOL-TV took over channel 10 full-time, absorbing KOY-TV's share of the operation and ending the split-station arrangement. It lost the ABC affiliation when KTVK (channel 3) signed on in February 1955, leaving channel 10 as an exclusive CBS affiliate; as a result, it was now able to feature Autry's show Gene Autry's Melody Ranch on its schedule. Over the years, KOOL-TV ran nearly the entire CBS schedule, along with some first-run syndicated shows and local newscasts.

On May 28, 1982 at about 5 p.m., Joseph Billie Gwin, wanting to "prevent World War III", forced his way into the KOOL-TV studios and fired a shot from his gun. The butt of the gun struck Louis Villa in the back of the head, Gwin then held Villa in a chokehold, at gunpoint for nearly five hours. Gwin took four people hostage and demanded nationwide airtime. Two of the hostages, Jack Webb and Bob Cimino, were released three hours later. At 9:30 p.m., anchor Bill Close read a 20-minute statement as Gwin sat next to him holding a gun under the table, Close took Gwin's gun after the statement and set it on the table.[3][4][5][6]

The station was sold to Gulf Broadcasting in 1982, and changed its callsign to KTSP-TV (the KOOL call sign is currently used by an FM radio station in Phoenix). It had been stated that the calls stood for "Tempe/Scottsdale/Phoenix", but it was also believed that the callsign was simply changed to match that of then-sister station WTSP in St. Petersburg, Florida. The logo that KTSP used at the time, which would remain in use until 1995, was similar to WTSP's "Sunset 10" logo (KTSP's logo was slightly modernized in the early 1990s, losing the linear elements at the bottom).

KTSP was sold to Taft Broadcasting in 1984, as part of a corporate deal; on October 12, 1987, Taft was restructured into Great American Broadcasting after the company went through a hostile takeover by investors. The station's operations did not change significantly under Gulf, Taft or Great American Broadcasting ownership. In 1989, KTSP newscaster Shelly Jamison left the station after appearing as both a cover model and posing nude in a Playboy pictorial.[7] When Great American Broadcasting filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1993, the company restructured once again and became known as Citicasters late that year. The station changed its callsign to KSAZ-TV on February 12, 1994 to match its new slogan, "The Spirit of Arizona".

As a Fox station

Due to the company's bankruptcy, Citicasters put four of its stations (including KSAZ-TV) up for sale. KSAZ and Kansas City sister station WDAF-TV were sold to New World Communications on May 5, 1994 for $360 million, with the sale becoming final on September 9 of that year. New World also acquired High Point, North Carolina's WGHP and Birmingham, Alabama's WBRC[8] (both of those stations would be placed in a blind trust, due to ownership complications, and were later sold directly to Fox). Just 18 days later, New World announced that twelve of its 15 stations (those it already owned and those it was in the process of acquiring, including the two that would later be sold to Fox) would switch their varying Big Three network affiliations (most of the New World stations, like KSAZ, were aligned with CBS) to Fox.[9] A major catalyst for the Fox-New World deal was the network's newly signed contract with the National Football League's National Football Conference. The Arizona Cardinals franchise were part of the NFC, and thus, had their games telecast on channel 10 since 1988, when that the Cardinals relocated to Phoenix from St. Louis (at that time, NFC games were shown on CBS). Until recently, however, home game telecasts were hard to come by, as the Cardinals often failed to sell out games at Sun Devil Stadium. Since moving to University of Phoenix Stadium, there have been no in-market blackouts.

As a result of the affiliation agreement, four commercial television stations in the Phoenix market each swapped network affiliations at different times. KSAZ dropped the CBS affiliation three days after the sale to New World became final on September 12. This switch temporarily left KSAZ as an independent station as Fox's affiliation agreement with its existing affiliate KNXV-TV (channel 15) did not expire until December 14 – as such, KSAZ was the only station involved in the New World deal and Fox's other affiliation agreements with Big Three stations that were byproducts of it that did not switch to Fox directly from another network. The CBS affiliation at that time went to former independent KPHO-TV (channel 5).[2] The ABC affiliation was to move from KTVK to KNXV on January 9, 1995 (as part of a separate multi-station affiliation deal between ABC and KNXV's owner, the E. W. Scripps Company), however KNXV began to add ABC shows in stages that August, as KTVK started to gradually excise that network's programs from its schedule (ABC's primetime and sports programs were the only network shows remaining on KTVK shortly before the affiliation formally moved to KNXV). Fox's primetime and sports programming moved to channel 10 on December 15, 1994. As with most other New World stations, KSAZ declined to run Fox Kids programming, which instead moved to KTVK and then in 1996, to KASW (channel 61).

KTVK originally chose to become a charter affiliate of The WB upon its January 11, 1995 debut, but that network's programming also went to KASW when it launched on September 22, 1995. With several top-rated syndicated shows moving to other stations in 1995, KSAZ dramatically increased the amount of local newscasts, producing about 45 hours each week. The remaining syndicated programs on the station were rather low-rated, and as a result KSAZ did not have good ratings in its early days as a Fox affiliate. Much of the audience for the station's newscasts went to KTVK, which also took on a news-intensive format after losing its ABC affiliation. In the fall of 1995, KSAZ added three hours of syndicated talk shows jointly produced by New World and Fox.

News Corporation purchased New World Communications, acquiring only its ten Fox-affiliated stations, in July 1996;[10] the merger was finalized on January 22, 1997, making KSAZ an owned-and-operated station of Fox. This status almost became short-lived: in February 1997, Fox nearly traded KSAZ and sister station KTBC in Austin, Texas to the Belo Corporation in exchange for Seattle's KIRO-TV.[11] That trade fell through; however, Belo would purchase KTVK (and KVUE in Austin) two years later. Fox began to upgrade the station's programming, adding some high-rated off-network sitcoms (such as M*A*S*H, Seinfeld and King of the Hill) as well as higher-rated syndicated court and reality shows.

Fox Television Stations purchased KUTP (channel 45) in 2001 as part of its acquisition of United Television (which had owned a 50% stake in UPN, until Viacom bought United's share of the network in 2000) forming the Phoenix market's second television duopoly. Although Fox owns both KSAZ and KUTP (now a MyNetworkTV station), neither aired the Saturday morning children's program block eventually known as 4Kids TV, which continued to air on KASW until Fox discontinued its programming agreement with 4Kids Entertainment and replaced the block with the Weekend Marketplace infomercial lineup in December 2008 (which ended up on KAZT-TV, channel 7).

On July 27, 2007, as all three aircraft were covering a police pursuit in downtown Phoenix, "SkyFox10" pilot/reporter Don Hooper witnessed a mid-air collision between two news helicopters respectively belonging to KTVK and KNXV-TV over Steele Indian School Park in downtown Phoenix.[12] In a video of the accident shot from "SkyFox" on YouTube, Hooper became very shaken and upset as he reported on the collision of the KTVK and KNXV helicopters. The video also contains audio of Hooper calling the tower at nearby Sky Harbor International Airport to report the collision on his aircraft's FAA radio. Hooper then talked on a discreet frequency to another news helicopter belonging to KPNX (channel 12) informing that he was fine, but two other helicopters had just crashed (Hooper surmised that KTVK pilot Scott Bowerbank, one of the four people – two pilots and two photographers – that were killed, was in one of the choppers).

 

(Note: we are interested in mainly the pas  history...  to see and stay updated  check the stations website or currect updates on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KSAZ-TV

Ed Sharpe - Archivist for SMECC)

 

 KSAZ-TV

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
KSAZ-TV
KSAZ logo 2006.png
Phoenix, Arizona
United States
Branding Fox 10 (general)
Fox 10 News (newscasts)
Slogan Just you watch the best
Channels Digital: 10 (VHF)
Virtual: 10 (PSIP)
Subchannels 10.1 Fox
Translators (see below)
Affiliations Fox (O&O)
Owner Fox Television Stations
(NW Communications of Phoenix, Inc.)
Founded 1953
First air date October 24, 1953; 60 years ago (1953-10-24)
Call letters' meaning Spirit of AriZona (former slogan)
Sister station(s) KUTP
Fox Sports Arizona
Former callsigns KOOL-TV (1953–1982)
KOY-TV (shared operation, 1953–1954)
KTSP-TV (1982–1994)
Former channel number(s) Analog:
10 (VHF, 1953–2009)
Digital:
31 (UHF, until 2009)
Former affiliations CBS (1953–1994)
ABC (secondary, 1953–1955)
Independent (September–December 1994)
Transmitter power 48 kW
Height 484 m (1,588 ft)
Facility ID 35587
Transmitter coordinates 33°20′2.3″N 112°3′45.7″W / 33.333972°N 112.062694°W / 33.333972; -112.062694
Licensing authority FCC
Public license information: Profile
CDBS
Website www.myfoxphoenix.com

KSAZ-TV, channel 10, is a Fox owned-and-operated television station located in Phoenix, Arizona, United States. The station is owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of 21st Century Fox, as part of a duopoly with MyNetworkTV affiliate KUTP (channel 45). The two stations share studio facilities located on the west end of Downtown Phoenix's Copper Square district, and its transmitter is located atop South Mountain on the city's south side. Its signal is relayed across northern Arizona through a network of 20 translator stations.

 

 

Digital television

Digital channel

Channel Video Aspect PSIP Short Name Programming[13]
10.1 720p 16:9 KSAZ DT Main KSAZ-TV programming / Fox

Analog-to-digital conversion

KSAZ-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 10, at 8:30 a.m. on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 31 to its former analog VHF channel 10.[14]

 
 

 

 

 

DXC-1600  Camera as used by  KOOL-TV Jerry foster   for video  from the helicopter during the time  he was in the employ of  Channel 10 KOOL-TV

 

 

sony-lens-book22.jpg (679306 bytes)

 

3) The DXC-1600 Color Camera Features:

The DXC-1600 is a high quality, single-tube portable color camera.

  • Comes with a 6:1 F 2.5 Zoom lens

  • Has a built-in behind-the-lens filter wheel

  • Needs 100-200 footcandles of light to produce good color

  • Relatively heavy-9 lbs. for the camera body and lens and 6 lbs. for the Camera Control

Unit. (The camera cannot be operated without the CCU.)

  • CCU requires its own battery to power camera—the BP-20A

  • Camera hand grip is detachable

•ON/OFF switch is very quiet-solenoid operated

  • Large 11/2 inch viewfinder

  •  

  • Battery level indicator light in viewfinder

'Works with both portable VTRs and studio VTRs without adaptors •Supplies its own sync or can take external sync from SEG system

 

 
 
 

Everyday we rescue items you see on these pages!
What do you have hiding in a closet or garage?
What could you add to the museum displays or the library?

PLEASE CONTACT US!

===================

DONATE! Click the Button Below!


Thank you very much!

===================

Material © SMECC 2007 or by other owners 

Contact Information for
Southwest Museum of Engineering,
Communications and Computation 
&
www.smecc.org

Talk to us!
Let us know what needs preserving!


Telephone 
623-435-1522 

Postal address 
smecc.org - Admin. 
Coury House / SMECC 
5802 W. Palmaire Ave 
Glendale, AZ 85301 

Electronic mail 
General Information: info@smecc.org