KOLD

About KOLD

KOLD-TV, channel 13, is the CBS-affiliated television station licensed to Tucson, Arizona, branded on air as 13 News. Owned by Gray Media, it is the second-oldest television station in Arizona and was the first to sign on in Tucson, with a history stretching back to early 1953. The station has been a CBS affiliate for its entire existence, a span of more than seven decades. Alongside Fox affiliate KMSB and CW outlet KTTU-TV, which it operates under a shared services agreement, KOLD-TV anchors one of the largest local news operations in southern Arizona from studios on North Business Park Drive in northwest Tucson, with its main transmitter atop Mount Bigelow.

Lucky 13: the KOPO-TV years

The FCC granted a construction permit for a television station on VHF channel 13 in Tucson on November 13, 1952. Tucson's first television station went on the air in February 1953 with the call letters KOPO-TV, playing up the channel number with the nickname Lucky 13. The station was a sister to KOPO radio in Tucson and, like its radio partner, a CBS affiliate, with a secondary affiliation to the DuMont Television Network. Its original owner was the singing cowboy Gene Autry, who also owned KOOL-TV in Phoenix. The Autry connection gave the young station a direct link to one of the most famous entertainers in America and to the larger Arizona broadcast market taking shape in Phoenix.

In 1957, the station changed its call letters to KOLD-TV, a name derived from its Phoenix sister station KOOL-TV. The new calls kept the alliterative branding the Autry stations were known for, and they have remained in place ever since. Autry sold KOLD in 1969, ending the station's first ownership era but not its identity as Tucson's CBS station.

A chain of owners

KOLD's eventual buyer was Universal Communications, a subsidiary of the Detroit Evening News Association. When Universal's parent merged with Gannett in 1986, Gannett held KOLD for only a single day before spinning it off, along with Oklahoma City's KTVY and Mobile's WALA-TV, to Knight Ridder Broadcasting. The quick sale was driven by cross-ownership concerns tied to Gannett's newspaper holdings, including the Tucson Citizen. Knight Ridder exited broadcasting in 1989, and the News-Press and Gazette Company acquired KOLD that year.

In 1993, the first New Vision Television bought KOLD from News-Press and Gazette. Two years later, New Vision sold all of its stations to Ellis Communications, which in 1996 was acquired by a media group funded by the Retirement Systems of Alabama. That group merged the Ellis stations with the broadcasting unit of Aflac to form Raycom Media, which owned KOLD for more than two decades and invested in rebuilding its news operation into a competitive force in the Tucson market.

Gray Media ownership

Gray Television announced its acquisition of Raycom Media in June 2018 in a landmark 3.6 billion dollar deal, and the transaction closed on January 2, 2019, bringing KOLD-TV into the Gray Media family. Gray, one of the largest owners of local television stations in the United States, operates KOLD alongside Fox affiliate KMSB, channel 11, and CW affiliate KTTU-TV, channel 18, which are owned by Tegna. The three stations share studios on North Business Park Drive on the northwest side of Tucson, near Casas Adobes, consolidating much of the market's local television production under one roof.

The shared services arrangement traces to 2012, when the Belo Corporation turned over the non-sales management of KMSB and KTTU to Raycom's KOLD-TV. Under the agreement, Belo's KMSB shuttered its own news department and KOLD began providing news and local programming services to the Fox affiliate, including a prime-time newscast. The combined operation has made the KOLD building one of the busiest local news hubs in Arizona.

13 News: the news operation

KOLD-TV produces local newscasts under the 13 News brand across morning, midday, evening, and late-night dayparts, along with news programming for KMSB. The newsroom covers the distinctive issues of southern Arizona: growth and water in the desert Southwest, the U.S.-Mexico border, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and the region's military community, the University of Arizona, and the tourism economy of the Old Pueblo. Its weather operation tracks the monsoon storms that define Tucson summers, along with winter cold snaps and wildfire conditions in the surrounding mountains.

The station's ratings history has been a story of comebacks. After initially leading the Tucson market in local news, KOLD was surpassed by KVOA in the 1970s and suffered through the late 1980s and 1990s amid corporate neglect and cost-cutting. Since the 2000s, its newscasts have become genuinely competitive in the local ratings, and the station's investigative reporting has earned regional recognition. The 13 News brand is now firmly established as one of the market's major news voices.

Programming

As Tucson's CBS affiliate, KOLD-TV carries the full CBS network schedule, including CBS Mornings, the CBS Evening News, prime-time entertainment, and the network's sports portfolio. CBS sports programming, from NFL football to college basketball and golf, draws strong viewership in southern Arizona. Around the network lineup, the station airs syndicated talk, entertainment, and news magazines, with Entertainment Tonight among its long-running syndicated staples. Its digital subchannels carry additional multicast networks, including classic television programming.

Technical information

KOLD-TV broadcasts on digital UHF channel 32, displayed to tuners on virtual channel 13, with an effective radiated power of 108 kilowatts and a tower height above average terrain of 1,123 meters, or about 3,684 feet. Its primary transmitter sits atop Mount Bigelow in the Santa Catalina Mountains northeast of Tucson, a mountaintop site it shares with other market stations, and a secondary transmitter atop the Tucson Mountains west of the city fills gaps in coverage. The station's facility ID with the FCC is 48663. It broadcast on analog VHF channel 13 from 1953 until the digital transition in 2009.

Studios and facilities

KOLD-TV's studios are located on North Business Park Drive on the northwest side of Tucson, near Casas Adobes. The facility houses the 13 News newsroom and the shared operations for KMSB and KTTU-TV, with studios, control rooms, and master control serving all three stations. The consolidation has allowed the stations to share reporting staff, photographers, and technical resources while maintaining distinct on-air identities. The building's newsroom is the operational heart of southern Arizona's largest television news gathering operation.

Market position and competition

Tucson is a mid-sized television market where three legacy commercial stations, KOLD, KVOA (NBC), and KGUN (ABC), have competed for more than half a century, joined by Fox affiliate KMSB and a strong public television presence in KUAT. KOLD's long arc from market leader to struggling also-ran and back to contender is one of the more dramatic turnarounds in southwestern broadcasting. Its CBS affiliation gives it a powerful network lead-in for local news, and the operational scale of the Gray-run trio provides reporting resources that few mid-market stations can match.

Community involvement

The station is active in southern Arizona civic life through partnerships with schools, nonprofits, and community organizations, including annual fundraising drives and awareness campaigns. Its journalists participate in community forums and educational programs across Pima County and the surrounding region. Coverage of border communities, tribal nations, and rural Cochise and Santa Cruz counties reflects a newsroom that looks beyond the Tucson metro area to the wider region its signal serves.

Digital presence

KOLD-TV's digital home is kold.com, where it publishes breaking news, weather, and streaming video, complemented by mobile apps and social media channels. The station streams its newscasts live, serving viewers who watch on phones, tablets, and connected televisions. Under Gray Media, the station has expanded its digital and streaming newsroom as part of the company's broader investment in local digital platforms, keeping the Lucky 13 brand in front of southern Arizona audiences on every screen.