Early years From October 1948 to April 1952, the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) imposed a
freeze on the award of new television stations to revise technical standards. With the end of the freeze imminent, activity began around television in Tucson, and three Tucson radio stations applied for three television channels. The Arizona Broadcasting Company, owner of
KVOA (1290 AM), filed for channel 4 without opposition on February 7, 1952, and was granted a
construction permit to build on November 12. KVOA, Tucson's
NBC-affiliated radio station, selected channel 4 because it was preferred by
RCA and because NBC-owned stations in major cities, including
New York,
Los Angeles, and
Washington, D.C., were on channel 4. By the start of 1953, KVOA had announced its television plans. At the station's radio transmitter site at Lee Street and 10th Avenue, work would begin on studios, and the AM radio tower would be rebuilt to accommodate a television antenna. KVOA-TV had set a September 15 start date for launch, and construction proceeded uneventfully, but it opted to wait because it would be nearly two weeks after that when network
coaxial cable service would be available in Tucson for the first time. The station began broadcasting September 27, 1953, and its initial offering was the first TV program piped in to Tucson by coaxial cable. In addition to NBC programs, it carried a secondary affiliation with
ABC; ABC's radio affiliate in Tucson,
KCNA, had planned a station but bowed out. Arizona Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of
KTAR radio and
KVAR television in Phoenix, opted to exit Tucson broadcasting in 1955 and sold KVOA radio and television to
Clinton D. McKinnon of
San Diego for $515,000. Under McKinnon, KVOA-TV was the first to broadcast in color in Tucson, in November 1956. ABC programs moved off of channel 4 in March 1957, when a third station, KDWI-TV, was sold and became
KGUN-TV, acquiring the ABC affiliation. Some of this program void was filled by the
NTA Film Network, for which KVOA-TV had signed up at its launch the year before. McKinnon sold the radio station to Sherwood Gordon in 1958, keeping KVOA-TV and merging it with Alvarado Television, owner of
KOAT-TV in
Albuquerque, New Mexico, the next year. The transmitter was moved to Mount Bigelow in 1961, concurrently with
KOLD-TV (channel 13); the change put all three commercial stations on the mountaintop site. Several of the partners in Alvarado, in ill health and wishing to liquidate their holdings, pushed McKinnon to sell Alvarado Television in 1962. KVOA-TV and KOAT-TV were sold to Steinman Stations of
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, headed by
Clair McCollough, for $3.5 million, with FCC approval coming in January 1963. Steinman owned the Tucson station for five years before selling it in 1968 to the
Pulitzer Publishing Company, publishers of the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch and owners of
KSD radio and television in that city, for $3 million.
Channel 4-TV ownership An antitrust lawsuit involving the two daily newspapers in Tucson would have an impact on KVOA-TV. In 1971, a six-year antitrust lawsuit brought by the
United States Department of Justice concluded in the sale of the morning
Arizona Daily Star—which had been owned by the publisher of Tucson's afternoon daily, the
Tucson Daily Citizen—to Pulitzer; negotiations for Pulitzer to purchase the newspaper had been ongoing for months, but while an agreement had been reached, final details relating to KVOA-TV's fate remained uncertain. To acquire the
Daily Star, the Department of Justice required Pulitzer to sell KVOA-TV within a year. In mid-May, the sale of the television station to
Donrey Media Group of Arkansas, whose holdings included television stations in Arkansas and
Las Vegas and
Reno, Nevada, was announced. However, Donrey would be embroiled in a series of issues at the FCC that held up consideration of the KVOA-TV transfer. By January 1972, the Donrey TV stations were being investigated for a practice called "clipping", in which network credits or commercials would be clipped out of broadcast and replaced with local commercials. KORK-TV, the Donrey station in Las Vegas, was facing a license renewal challenge. By May, per a report in
Broadcasting magazine, FCC staff were recommending hearings be convened to analyze revocation of Donrey's television station licenses and would likely require a hearing to approve the Tucson TV station purchase. This threatened to prolong any sale attempt to Donrey at a time when Pulitzer was under a court order to find a buyer. In April, Pulitzer asked the Department of Justice for more time to sell KVOA-TV, after which it was granted another extension in June; however, if it could not sell the station by April 1973, Pulitzer would have to sell the
Star, and the television station would be placed in trusteeship. Meanwhile, the commission's actions were putting the nails in the coffin of a Donrey sale, as the Las Vegas station's license renewal was designated for hearing later in June, and Pulitzer called off the Donrey deal on June 8, 1972. In late June, a consortium of two Tucsonans—Don Diamond and Don Pitt—and California investor
Richard L. Bloch filed to buy KVOA-TV. The FCC approved in November 1972, and the new owners, incorporated as Channel 4-TV, took over in January 1973, making KVOA-TV the only locally owned television station in Tucson. A year and a half later, Jon Ruby left the general sales manager post at
WLS-TV in Chicago to take the job of general manager at KVOA-TV. He would remain in the position for 28 years and lead the station's transformation in the area of news, driving it from the lowest-rated news outlet in town to a period of ratings leadership that would last from November 1976, when KVOA passed KOLD-TV in news ratings, until 2004. In doing so, KVOA was able to buck the NBC network's declining fortunes as that network slumped into third place under the leadership of
Fred Silverman. Despite its network being in third place, from 1976 to 1977, KVOA-TV increased its prime time audience by 32 percent.
Post/Cordillera ownership The station was acquired by
H&C Communications—owned by the Hobby family of
Houston, publishers of the
Houston Post—in 1982, after the Diamond consortium opted to sell. The Hobby family was the only prospective buyer contacted, spending $30 million to purchase KVOA-TV. Ruby remained as general manager, and the station continued its leadership, being first to introduce stereo broadcasting and closed captioning in Tucson. When the
Post was sold a year later, the Hobby family reorganized its broadcasting interests as
H&C Communications. H&C began to liquidate its television stations in 1992. A deal was reached to sell KVOA and four of its sister stations (
KPRC-TV in Houston,
KSAT-TV in
San Antonio,
WESH in
Orlando, and
KCCI-TV in
Des Moines) to
Young Broadcasting that year, but it was canceled due to lack of financing for Young to proceed with the purchase. The following year, KVOA was sold to the
Evening Post Publishing Company (through its
Cordillera Communications subsidiary). It became the largest television property owned by Cordillera.
Super Bowl XLIII porn incident During
Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009,
Comcast's standard-definition transmission of the station was interrupted for approximately 37 seconds replacing KVOA's broadcast of the game with
hardcore pornography, affecting Comcast's analog subscribers in portions of the Tucson area. The substitution appeared to have been made at Comcast, not at KVOA, and only affected the standard-definition signal; KVOA's feed in high definition, as well as the station's digital and analog over-the-air signals and feeds to other cable and satellite providers, were unaffected. On February 4, 2011, Frank Tanori Gonzalez was arrested by the Tucson Police and the
FBI after suspicion of computer tampering connected with the sudden incident. Gonzalez then pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years
probation.
Two spinoffs in three years On October 29, 2018, Cordillera announced the sale of its entire station group to the
E. W. Scripps Company. Scripps could not acquire KVOA, since it already owned KGUN-TV and
KWBA-TV; as a result, KVOA was sold to
Quincy Media in a secondary deal for $70 million. The transaction was approved by the FCC on April 5, 2019, and was completed on May 1 of that year. On February 1, 2021, less than two years after KVOA was acquired by Quincy,
Gray Television announced it had purchased Quincy Media for $925 million. As Gray already owned KOLD-TV and both stations rank among the top four in ratings in the Tucson market, KVOA was put up for sale; on April 29, 2021, it was announced that Los Angeles–based
Allen Media Group would acquire KVOA and the remaining Quincy stations not being acquired by Gray Television for $380 million. The sale was completed on August 2. On June 1, 2025, amid financial woes and rising debt, Allen Media Group announced that it would explore "strategic options" for the company, such as a sale of its television stations (including KVOA). ==News operation==