KOAA-TV

KOAA-TV (channel 5) is a television station licensed to Pueblo, Colorado, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for the Colorado Springs area. It is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company alongside low-power Ion Mystery owned-and-operated station KZCS-LD (channel 18). KOAA-TV's main studios and business offices are located on 7th Avenue in Pueblo, with a satellite studio and news bureau in the Tech Center office complex in Colorado Springs; its transmitter is located on Cheyenne Mountain.

KOAA-TV operates a low-power digital translator, K30JM-D (channel 30) in Colorado Springs, whose transmitter is also located on Cheyenne Mountain.

History

The station signed on for the first time on July 13, 1953, as KCSJ-TV, owned by the Star-Chieftain Publishing Corporation, owners of Pueblo's two major newspapers, the morning Pueblo Chieftain and evening Pueblo Star-Journal, along with KCSJ radio.[1][2]

News operation

KOAA currently broadcasts 37 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with six hours each weekday and 3 1/2 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). Among the Colorado Springs–Pueblo TV stations that signed on originally in the 1950s, KOAA was the last station to start a morning newscast, which began in January 1996 as an hour-long program leading into NBC's Today show, and nudging KRDO-TV to expand the length of its newscast to a half hour at the time (it ran for 15 minutes since its 1983 sign on) and did it one week before the debut of KOAA's morning news program. KOAA was the second TV station in the market to add morning newscasts on the weekends starting in 2010.

Starting in 2001, KOAA used the NewsFirst 5/30 name for its morning and midday newscasts but continued to use the Eyewitness News brand for all other dayparts until February 8, 2002 (the first day of the 2002 Winter Olympics). On that date, the station adopted the News First brand for all of its newscasts.

In 2009, the branding was changed to NewsFirst 5, since its translator system (including K30AA, now K30JM-D) could remap to virtual channel 5 throughout the market. The name was modified slightly to News 5 in 2011. The station operates a News 5 Now channel on its second subchannel which is carried by the cable systems in both Colorado Springs and Pueblo, and includes news updates along with real-time weather forecasts and conditions. KOAA used to have newscasts at 4 and 9 p.m. on News 5 Now, but it would later cancel the 4 p.m. newscast and reduced the 9 p.m. newscast to 10 minutes. Eventually the 9 p.m. newscast was canceled altogether. In the fall of 2020, KOAA would bring back a 4 p.m. newscast but this time on the main KOAA channel and running as hour long lead in to its 5 p.m. half hour newscast, coupled with direct competition from KKTV and KRDO-TV which also run full hour long newscasts in the 4 p.m. hour. However by late December 2021, KOAA cut the 4 p.m. news hour to a half hour starting at 4:30 p.m., in order to clear a national news program called Newsfeed produced by KOAA's parent company Scripps that airs a half hour earlier. In April 2021, KOAA restored a full hour of local news at 4 p.m.

On February 18, 2010, KOAA-TV became the third station in the Colorado Springs–Pueblo market to broadcast its newscasts in true high definition and 16:9 widescreen, beginning with its midday newscast.

callsign	KOAA-TV
city	Pueblo, Colorado
branding	KOAA 5; KOAA News 5
digital	25 (UHF)
virtual	5
affiliations	5.1: NBC for others, see
translators	see
country	United States
airdate	July 13, 1953
location	Pueblo–Colorado Springs, Colorado
callsign meaning	Variant of what was formerly KOA-TV, now KCNC-TV in Denver
former callsigns	KCSJ-TV (1953–1962)
former channel numbers	Analog: 5 (VHF, 1953–2009) Digital: 42 (UHF, until 2020)
owner	E. W. Scripps Company
licensee	Scripps Broadcasting Holdings LLC
sister stations	KZCS-LD
erp	1,000 kW
haat	677 m
facility id	59014
coordinates	38.74414°N, -104.86325°W
licensing authority	FCC
website	https://www.koaa.com/

History

News operation

Technical information

Subchannels

Analog-to-digital conversion

Translators

External links

References