Dec 1, 2007 12:00 am US/Mountain
The History Of CBS4
by Wendy Holmes, CBS4 Program Director
DENVER (CBS4) ―
The following is a series of important dates in CBS4's station history:
June 1952 - Metropolitan TV Company bought KOA Radio from NBC. This company was partially owned by Bob Hope and former Denver Mayor Quigg Newton.
September 1953 - KOA was granted the right to Channel 4 on the dial. KOA-TV went on the air December 24, 1953.
June 5, 1968 - The Federal Communications Commission approved sale of KOA-TV and KOA-AM and FM to a subsidiary of General Electric Company who took over in August of 1968.
June 1984 - GE sold all of its media properties except KOA-TV, and KOA Radio personnel moved out of the building. Radio got to keep KOA call letters, so the television station changed to call letters KCNC, which stand for "Colorado's News Channel." GE later merged with RCA, owner of NBC. KCNC became one of NBC's "owned and operated" stations.
September 1995 - Group W Westinghouse ended up with 2 stations in Philadelphia, the CBS and the NBC affiliates. NBC wanted to buy their affiliate for cash, but Group W wanted to trade for TV stations, one of which was Denver. So, on Saturday night, Sept. 9, 1995, at midnight, KCNC-TV was sold and became a CBS affiliate. Meanwhile KMGH switched from CBS to ABC, and KUSA switched from ABC to NBC. Since Westinghouse and CBS merged in 1995 to become the CBS Corporation, we once again became a network "Owned and Operated" station, this time for CBS.
September 1998 - the NFL returned to CBS, bringing the Broncos home to KCNC.
In 2000, CBS became part of Viacom (which had started as a spin-off of CBS in 1971), forming the #2 communications company. However, at the end of 2005, it split itself in two with CBS becoming the CBS Corporation, which included the CBS Network and owned TV stations, CBS Radio (owner of 3 stations in Denver, the syndicated companies of Paramount and Kingworld, Viacom Outdoor (renamed CBS Outdoor), Showtime, and Simon & Schuster. Viacom, keeping the original name, retained the Paramount movie portion plus the cable networks. Both CBS Corporation and the new Viacom are still owned by National Amusements (Sumner Redstone's company).
September 2003 - KCNC-TV announced that it was changing from KCNC-TV to CBS4.
Summer 2004 - KCNC once again became the "Broncos Station" and started carrying preseason football and Preview/Coaches shows. The station was featured in the 2007 films "Blades of Glory" and "Resurrecting the Champ."
Additional Resources
Take a look back at the state of Colorado's colorful history in video clips produced by CBS4 at the turn of the millenium. The Millenium project featured reports in 2000, and CBS4 photographer Eric Blumer is in the process of archiving the hundreds of reports that aired during the year.
Video Section: Millenium Project
(© MMVIII CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
