ABC/CW affiliate in Reno, Nevada
KOLO-TV
(channel 8) is a
television station
in
Reno, Nevada
, United States, affiliated with
ABC
and
The CW Plus
. It is owned by
Gray Television
alongside
Incline Village
?licensed
low-power
Telemundo
affiliate
KXNV-LD
(channel 26). The two stations share studios on Ampere Drive in Reno; KOLO-TV's transmitter is located on
Slide Mountain
between
SR 431
and
I-580
/
US 395
/
ALT
in
unincorporated
Washoe County
.
History
[
edit
]
KOLO hit the airwaves September 27, 1953, as KZTV. It was the second station in Nevada, following
KLAS-TV
in
Las 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 primary
CBS
affiliate; despite this, none of the
soap operas
it cleared during the 1950s came from CBS.
[3]
Its founding owner,
Donald W. Reynolds
of the Donrey Media Group (now
Stephens Media LLC
) originally sought an affiliation with
NBC
. 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-lived
Paramount Television Network
; KZTV was one of that network's strongest affiliates, airing Paramount programs such as
Time for Beany
,
[5]
Bandstand Revue
,
[6]
and
Hollywood 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, now
KIHM
) and changed channel 8's call letters to the present KOLO-TV.
[2]
The
KZTV
call letters now reside on the CBS affiliate in
Corpus Christi, Texas
. Four years later, KOLO-AM-TV got sister stations in Las Vegas when it bought
KORK-AM
-
FM
-
TV
as part of Donrey's purchase of the
Las 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 for
U.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 (now
KRNV-DT
) when it started in 1962, and ABC to
KTVN
when that station started operations in 1967. KOLO and KTVN swapped affiliations in 1972. KOLO also carried
Sesame Street
for several years, until September 29, 1983, when Reno got a
PBS
station of its own (
KNPB
).
Donrey sold KOLO-TV to
Smith Broadcasting
in 2001. In 2002, KOLO-TV was sold to current owner
Gray Television
.
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.
News operation
[
edit
]
KOLO-TV produces the only midday newscast that runs from 11 a.m. to noon while also airing
ABC 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 a 2½-hour long
Good Morning Reno
that runs from 4:30 to 7 a.m. and
KOLO 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 after
Dr. Oz
was moved to an hour-long 2 p.m. time slot after
The Queen Latifah Show
was canceled and
Jeopardy!
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.
Notable former on-air staff
[
edit
]
Technical information
[
edit
]
Subchannels
[
edit
]
The station's signal is
multiplexed
:
Analog-to-digital conversion
[
edit
]
KOLO-TV shut down its analog signal, over
VHF
channel 8, on June 12, 2009, the official date on 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 VHF channel 9 to channel 8.
[10]
Translators
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Facility Technical Data for KOLO-TV"
.
Licensing and Management System
.
Federal Communications Commission
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
On Air: 60 Years of KOLO 8
(Television Production).
United States
: KOLO-TV. 2013.
Archived
from the original on December 19, 2021.
- ^
"Station Clearances"
.
- ^
"KOLO-TV history"
.
Archived
from the original on January 7, 1997
. Retrieved
February 11,
2020
.
- ^
"KZTV Programs".
Reno Evening Gazette
. Reno, NV. October 10, 1953. p. 10.
- ^
"KZTV Channel 8".
Nevada State Journal
. Reno, NV. March 24, 1954. p. 17.
- ^
"KZTV Log".
Reno Evening Gazette
. Reno, NV. March 26, 1955. p. 11.
- ^
"KOLO is ready for some more "News NOW" at 4:30 p.m."
The Changing Newscasts Blog
. Roly Ortega. April 7, 2015
. Retrieved
July 2,
2015
.
- ^
"RabbitEars TV Query for KOLO"
. Rabbitears.info
. Retrieved
February 15,
2014
.
- ^
"DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds"
(PDF)
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on August 29, 2013
. Retrieved
March 24,
2012
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
Stations
| Full-power OTA
|
- KTVN
(2.1
CBS
, 2.2
Scripps News
, 2.3
Ion
, 2.4
Defy
)
- KRNV-DT
(4.1
NBC
, 4.2
Dabl
, 4.3
TBD
)
- KNPB
(5.1
PBS
, 5.2
Create
, 5.3
PBS Kids
)
- KOLO-TV
(8.1
ABC
, 8.2
MeTV
, 8.3
CW+
, 8.4
Outlaw
, 8.5
Quest
, 8.6
Start
)
- KRXI-TV
(11.1
Fox
, 11.2
Charge!
, 11.3
ANT
, 11.4
REW
)
- KNSN-TV
ATSC 3.0
(21.1
Ind.
/Sports/
MNT
(secondary)
, 21.2
Nest
, 21.3
Comet
)
- KREN-TV
(27.1
UNI
, 27.2
Grit
, 27.3
Crime
, 27.4
Laff
, 27.5
Court
)
|
---|
Low-power OTA
|
- KCNL-LD
(3.1
TV Guides
, 3.2
Infomercials
, 3.3 BizTV)
- KRMF-LD
(7.1
Estrella
, 7.2
F24
, 7.3 Biz TV)
- KNRC-LD (14.1
Estrella
, 14.2 Classic movies, 14.4 Wow Channel,
14.5
3ABN
)
- KRRI-LD
(25.1 unknown)
- KXNV-LD
(26.1
TMD
, 26.2
Ind.
/Sports,
26.3
ABC)
- KRNS-CD
(46.1
UniMas
, 46.2
LATV
, 46.3
Mystery
, 46.4
Bounce
)
|
---|
|
---|
Defunct stations
| |
---|
|
|
---|
ABC
| |
---|
CBS
| |
---|
Fox
| |
---|
NBC
| |
---|
The CW
| |
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MyNetworkTV
| |
---|
Ion Television
| |
---|
PBS
| |
---|
Univision
| |
---|
UniMas
| |
---|
Telemundo
| |
---|
Other
|
- KLAS-TV 8.2
(
ANT
,
Las Vegas
)
- KENV-DT 10
(
TBD
,
Elko
)
- KBYU-TV 11
(
BYUtv
,
Provo, UT
)
- KUTF 12
(
Daystar
,
Logan, UT
)
- KJZZ-TV 14
ATSC 3.0
(
Ind.
,
Salt Lake City, UT
)
- KUPX-TV 16
(
Ind.
,
Provo, UT
)
- KHDF-CD 19
(
VL
,
Las Vegas
)
- KNSN-TV 21
(Sports/
Ind.
,
Reno
)
- KHSV 21
(
MeTV
,
Las Vegas
)
- KPNZ 24
(
TCT
,
Ogden, UT
)
- KRRI-LD 25
(
Ind.
,
Reno
)
- KMCC-DT 34
(
Ind.
,
Laughlin
)
|
---|
ABC
network affiliates licensed to and serving the state of
California
|
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|
|