Beginnings KOMO-TV began operating on December 11, 1953, as an
NBC affiliate, owing to KOMO radio's long-time relationship with the
NBC Radio Network. It is the fourth-oldest television station in the Seattle–
Tacoma area. KOMO also has an almost forgotten distinction as being the first station in Seattle to broadcast a television signal. Whereas crosstown rival KRSC-TV (channel 5, now
KING-TV) was the first to air "wide audience" television in November 1948, KOMO broadcast a television signal nearly 20 years prior on an experimental basis. On June 3, 1929, KOMO radio engineer Francis J. Brott televised images of a heart, a diamond, a
question mark, letters, and numbers over electrical lines to small sets with one-inch screens—23 years before KOMO-TV's first regular broadcasts. A handful of viewers were captivated by the broadcast. KOMO would likely have held the distinction of being the first television station in Seattle, and perhaps the nation, if it were not for the occurrences of the
Great Depression and
World War II. The station was originally owned by the Fisher family, which had its start in the
flour mill and
lumber businesses. The Fishers branched into broadcasting with its founding of KOMO radio in 1926. In competing for the channel 4
construction permit, the Fishers faced off against the then-owners of
KJR radio. KOMO was awarded the license in June 1953 after the KJR group dropped their bid, and KOMO-TV first signed on the air only five months later. William W. Warren, general manager of KOMO radio and a nephew of KOMO co-founder Oliver D. Fisher, oversaw the development of KOMO-TV and remained involved with the station's management until his retirement in 1987. In 1954, a KOMO news photographer discovered a way to develop color film in a new process that took just a few hours instead of days. His discovery allowed KOMO-TV to become the first television station in the nation to broadcast in true color. In October 1958, however, NBC signed affiliation deals with
King Broadcasting Company for their radio and television properties in Seattle and
Portland, Oregon. In Seattle, channel 4 shared both ABC and NBC programming with KING-TV until September 27, 1959, when KING-TV took the NBC affiliation full-time. At that point, KOMO-TV became an exclusive ABC affiliate. During the 1960s, local television personality Don McCune became well known in the Seattle market for two programs seen on KOMO-TV. Thousands of children in the area knew McCune as "Captain
Puget", his role while hosting a
children's entertainment program. Channel 4 and McCune also produced the documentary series
Exploration Northwest, which explored many of the places and people of the
Pacific Northwest.
Mount St. Helens eruption, May 18, 1980 owned by KOMO-TV that was involved in the
1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens KOMO-TV nearly lost one of its staff in the
volcanic eruption of
Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980. Dave Crockett, who had been with the station since 1975, had been covering the mountain every day for three weeks until being rotated out a few days prior. On the morning of May 18, he woke up at 3:00 a.m. in Seattle on a hunch that he would get some impressive video that day, and loaded up his news car and headed towards Mount St. Helens without anyone at KOMO knowing about it. He arrived at the mountain just as it was erupting. His news video, which shows an advancing ash cloud and mud flows down the South Fork Toutle River, was made famous by its eleven-minute long "journey into the dark", six of those minutes of which were recorded in "total darkness" as Crockett narrated to what he thought would be his "last day on Earth". His video made worldwide news and was used in a
movie remake of the disaster starring
Art Carney. The car he drove, with the remains of KOMO lettering still visible, is now a part of a Mount St. Helens Volcano Museum just outside
Toutle.
1984–present In 1984, KOMO became the first television station to broadcast daily programming in full
stereo sound. In 1994, KOMO applied for the first test license for broadcasting new
high-definition signals. KOMO began broadcasting a high-definition digital signal in 1997; on May 18, 1999, KOMO became the first television station in the United States to broadcast its daily newscasts in high definition. This statement, however, comes into conflict with a claim made by
WFAA in
Dallas (a sister station to KING-TV) that it is the first station in the nation to broadcast its daily news programs in high definition, on February 28, 1997. It also conflicts with
WRAL-TV in
Raleigh, North Carolina. On July 2, 2009, a large electrical fire that started in an electrical vault at the Fisher Plaza complex at 11:15 p.m. that evening knocked KOMO off the air during its 11 p.m. newscast. On April 10, 2013,
Sinclair Broadcast Group announced that it would acquire Fisher Communications for $373.3 million. However, the deal was subjected to financial scrutiny; the law firm Levi & Korsinsky notified Fisher shareholders with accusations that Fisher's board of directors were breaching
fiduciary duties by "failing to adequately shop the Company before agreeing to enter into the transaction", and Sinclair was underpaying for Fisher's stock. Shortly after the announcement, a lawsuit was filed by a Fisher shareholder. On August 6, the shareholders voted to approve the sale, after they approved that the shareholders would get $41 per share. The
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted approval of the deal on August 6, and the sale was consummated on August 8. Prior to the sale, KOMO-TV had been the last television station in the Seattle market to be owned by local interests, having been built by Fisher from the ground up. On March 18, 2014, KOMO-TV's news helicopter crashed at the
Seattle Center, as it was taking off from Fisher Plaza around 7:40 a.m., falling onto at least one car. A second car and pickup truck, also involved, caught fire. Fuel from the crashed helicopter, which was leased to the station by
St. Louis-based Helicopters Inc. and was also used by KING-TV under a
Local News Service agreement, ran down Broad Street (along and south of the crash site), later bursting into flames. Helicopter pilot Gary Pfitzner and photographer Bill Strothman were both killed in the crash. A 37-year-old man in one of the cars was also critically injured, reportedly suffering burns covering up to 20% of his body (revised from an earlier report of burns at up to 50%) according to the
Seattle Fire Department. The
Eurocopter AS350 B2 helicopter involved in the crash, FAA registration number N250FB, On May 8, 2017, Sinclair Broadcast Group entered into an agreement to acquire
Tribune Media—owner of Fox affiliate
KCPQ (channel 13) and
MyNetworkTV affiliate
KZJO (channel 22)—for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune, pending regulatory approval by the FCC and the
U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division. As KOMO and KCPQ rank among the four highest-rated stations in the Seattle−Tacoma market in total day viewership and broadcasters are not currently allowed to legally own more than two full-power television stations in a single market, the companies would have been required to sell either the KOMO/KUNS or the KCPQ/KZJO duopolies to another station group in order to comply with FCC ownership rules preceding approval of the acquisition; however, a sale of either station to an independent buyer was dependent on later decisions by the FCC regarding local ownership of broadcast television stations and future acts by
Congress. After speculation that Sinclair would keep KOMO-TV and KUNS-TV and sell KCPQ and KZJO to
Fox Television Stations, it announced on April 24, 2018, that it would keep KOMO-TV, buy KZJO and sell KCPQ and KUNS-TV. KUNS-TV was to be sold to
Howard Stirk Holdings, with Sinclair continuing to provide services to the station, while KCPQ was to be sold to Fox Television Stations, making KCPQ a Fox
owned-and-operated station; with the cancellation of the deal, KCPQ and KZJO instead went to
Nexstar Media Group in September 2019, only to be sold to Fox in March 2020. On July 18, 2018, the FCC voted to have the Sinclair–Tribune acquisition reviewed by an
administrative law judge amid "serious concerns" about Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties. Three weeks later on August 9, Tribune announced it would terminate the Sinclair deal, intending to seek other
mergers and acquisitions opportunities. In September 2021, radio
sister stations KOMO (1000 AM and
97.7 FM),
KVI (570 AM), and
KPLZ-FM (101.5) were sold to
Lotus Communications, leaving KUNS-TV as the sole sister station to KOMO-TV in Seattle; KOMO-TV and KOMO radio were separated after 68 years with the sale. Sinclair retained full control over the KOMO
call sign; on February 2, 2022, Lotus changed KOMO radio's call sign to
KNWN, though it continues to maintain a partnership with KOMO-TV, and the Lotus stations have not departed KOMO Plaza. On September 1, 2023, the station's second subchannel began to carry
The CW temporarily, replacing
KSTW, after
CBS News and Stations exercised its option to withdraw its affiliations with the network after Nexstar acquired a majority stake. The subchannel continued to carry programming from
Comet in all other time periods. On January 1, 2024, KUNS-TV discontinued its
Univision affiliation (which moved to
Bellingham-licensed
KVOS-TV) and became the new affiliate of The CW for the Seattle market. ==Programming==