KZAZ
In 1962, channel 11 was added to the table of allocations for Nogales, Arizona.[2] Two years later, in September 1964, the International Broadcasting Company—led by construction company official Ronald Waranch—applied to build a television station on the channel.[3] The application brought protests from Tucson's three commercial television stations, who argued that the proposal constituted "just another Tucson TV channel, but originating in Nogales"—with negative consequences for their businesses; KVOA-TV also fretted about the loss of its translator, on channel 11, used to fill in coverage gaps on Tucson's northwest side.[4] The transmitter would be located on Mount Hopkins, specifically at a distance from a new astronomical observatory to be built by the Smithsonian Institution, under plans approved by the United States Forest Service.[5]
International Broadcasting Company was approved for a construction permit by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on April 13, 1966.[6] In Tucson, IBC purchased a former Safeway supermarket on Tucson Blvd. to serve as its studios and offices; meanwhile, Leo and Lester Ziffren, prominent Los Angeles attorneys, and entertainer Danny Thomas joined as limited partners,[7] as would Monty Hall and Stefan Hatos. Programming began on February 1, 1967;[8][9] The station aired movies in both English and Spanish, dramas, sitcoms, bull fights, cartoons, and other general entertainment fare. It had a local news department and newscast. A Nogales studio in the ballroom of the former Montezuma Hotel opened on March 19, a month and a half after starting broadcasting.[10] The station also had an extensive amount of Spanish-language programming, which was pared back because ratings agencies were not adequately measuring Hispanic audiences—some of them in Mexico.[11] (Spanish-language programming appeared on channel 11 as late as the early 1980s with the program Telefiesta Mexicana, hosted by Óscar Stevens, who would become a minority investor in the station.[12])
In 1970, KZAZ filed for the station to be dual-city designated as a Tucson-Nogales station, and the FCC gave it temporary authority to operate from the Tucson studio only.[13] This was continually extended until 1973, when permanent approval was granted.[14] The move was also hoped to bring more advertising to the station by designating it as a Tucson outlet in advertising publications.[15] The Nogales facility was then used as offices, though insufficient coverage of Nogales events led to the FCC issuing a short-term renewal in 1975 and ordering it to send its mobile studio to Nogales on at least a monthly basis;[16] by 1984, the station had segments on Nogales in its midday newscasts and a weekly Sunday night program on Nogales issues. Meanwhile, the station had found its first true program success: telecasts of Arizona Wildcats men's basketball, which attracted public interest and also raised the profile of the team.
Gene Adelstein, a Tucson resident and general manager of KZAZ since 1970 when he left his job as a public information officer for the city of Tucson,[17] and attorney Edward Berger put together a group of investors as "Roadrunner Television" and bought KZAZ in 1976.[18] Under Adelstein, KZAZ—one of the smallest independents by market size in the country—continued to have a homespun feel. As Bonnie Henry wrote in the Arizona Daily Star: "They held live wrestling matches in the studio, organized a paint-the-station day, and ran a 24-hour Star Trek marathon that sparked a run on blank videotape."[19] At the same time, the addition of a satellite dish, which the Christian Broadcasting Network paid for, greatly expanded its ability to air live sports and news programming, such as the Independent Network News.[20]
The Adelstein–Berger team also expanded to a second station, owning half of KGSW-TV in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when it launched in 1981; the duo also made an unsuccessful bid for KCPQ in Tacoma, Washington, in 1978.[21][22] Meanwhile, the pair began to look at possibly moving KZAZ off of Mount Hopkins. The transmitter location, south of Tucson, often meant subpar reception for Tucson viewers. KZAZ proposed relocating to Mount Bigelow, continuing to broadcast by a channel 11 translator into Nogales (with the capability to opt out of the main Tucson signal) and a new channel 24 translator into Tubac.[23][24]
KMSB
Adelstein and Berger opted to put the station on the market in 1984 to allow the various investors—ranging from senator Dennis DeConcini and former University of Arizona basketball coach Fred Snowden to teachers, Alaskan pipeline workers, and employees—to profit from the station.[25] A deal was first reached in March with the Ackerley Group of Seattle for a $13.2 million purchase;[26] Ackerley, however, found KZAZ to have overstated its advertising revenues, withdrawing from consideration by the start of June.[27]
That September, KZAZ and KGSW-TV in Albuquerque were sold to Mountain States Broadcasting, a joint venture of the Providence Journal Company (ProJo) and Southland Corporation.[28] KZAZ accounted for $6 million of the $13.2 million joint purchase price.[29] Mountain States closed on the purchase in 1985 and set out to change a station that had a "home-cooked" image with Gene Adelstein and his wife Ellen having on-air presences.
Shared services era
In November 2011, Belo announced that it would enter into a shared services agreement with Raycom Media beginning in February 2012, citing a lack of advertising revenue and the weakly recovering Arizona economy. This outsourcing arrangement resulted in CBS affiliate KOLD-TV taking over daily operations of KMSB and KTTU and moving their advertising sales department into the KOLD studios (however, they remained employees of Belo). All remaining positions at the two stations were eliminated and master control moved from KTVK to KOLD.[43] The transfer of KMSB's operations occurred in several stages, with newscasts moving to KOLD's studios on February 1 and other operations being taken over by KOLD in the following weeks.[44]
On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company announced that it would acquire Belo. However, as Gannett held a partial ownership stake in the publisher of the Arizona Daily Star, the KMSB license was instead sold to Sander Media, LLC, operated by a former Belo executive, Jack Sander. While the other Belo stations acquired by Sander in the deal had various shared services agreements with Gannett, Raycom Media continued to operate the two stations, and the Belo employees handling advertising sales became Gannett employees.[45]
