KVOA, virtual channel 4 (UHF digital channel 23), is an NBC-affiliated television station licensed to Tucson, Arizona, United States. The station is owned by Quincy Media. KVOA's studios are located on West Elm Street north of downtown Tucson, and its transmitter is located atop Mount Bigelow, northeast of Tucson. The station has one low-power translator: K04QP-D (channel 4) in Casas Adobes, Arizona.
History
In September 1953, KVOA signed on as Tucson's second television station and NBC affiliate, eight months after KOLD-TV (channel 13) signed on as the CBS affiliate. Although KVOA was an NBC affiliate, it carried a secondary affiliation with ABC until 1956 when KDWI-TV (channel 9, now KGUN-TV) began operations. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.
It was originally owned by Chicago advertising executive John Louis, Sr., along with KVOA-AM 1290 (now KCUB). It was a sister station to KTAR in Phoenix. In October 1953, KVOA brought Tucson its first-ever live television event: a World Series broadcast. The Louis broadcasting empire eventually became known as Pacific & Southern Broadcasting, headquartered in Phoenix; however, Louis did not keep KVOA for long. In 1955, Louis sold the KVOA stations to Clinton D. McKinnon, who would later acquire KOAT-TV in Albuquerque, New Mexico and combine the two television stations to form Alvarado Television. In 1962, the Alvarado stations were sold to Steinman Stations, the owner of WGAL-TV in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
In 1968, the Steinmans sold a controlling stake in KVOA-TV to Pulitzer Publishing, making it Pulitzer's first (partial) television station acquisition outside of its home base in St. Louis, Missouri; KOAT went to Pulitzer fully a year later. In 1972, Pulitzer was forced to spin off its share of KVOA to an employee group called Channel 4-TV after it purchased the Arizona Daily Star the year before due to the tightening of the Federal Communications Commission's cross-ownership rules. Channel 4-TV also acquired Steinman's stake in KVOA around the same time.
The station was acquired by the Hobby family of Houston, publishers of the Houston Post, in 1982. When the Post was sold a year later, the Hobby family reorganized its broadcasting interests as H&C Communications. H&C sold off its television stations in 1993, with KVOA going to the Evening Post Publishing Company (through its Cordillera Communications subsidiary).
On October 29, 2018, Cordillera announced the sale of its entire station group to the E. W. Scripps Company. Scripps cannot acquire KVOA, since it already owns KGUN and CW affiliate KWBA; as a result, KVOA was sold to Quincy Media in a secondary deal for $70 million.
| TV stations in Arizona |
|---|
| KPNX/KNAZ, Mesa/Flagstaff KVOA, Tucson |
| Broadcast television in Southern Arizona, including Tucson, Sierra Vista and Douglas | |
|---|---|
| Tucson, Arizona: | Douglas, Arizona: |
| KVOA 4 (NBC) | KFTU-DT 3 (UniMás) |
| KUAT 6 (PBS) | K28OY-D 4 (NBC) |
| KGUN 9 (ABC) | |
| KMSB 11 (Fox) | |
| KOLD 13 (CBS) | |
| KUDF-LP 14 (Azteca) | |
| KTTU 18 (MNTV) | |
| K35OU-D 21 (HSN) | |
| KUAS 27 (PBS) | |
| KFTU-CD 34 (UniMás) | |
| KHRR 40 (TMD) | |
| KUVE-CD 42 (UNI) | |
| KUVE-DT 46 (UNI) | |
| KWBA 58 (CW) | |