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KSAZ-TV

Phoenix, Arizona
Branding	Fox 10 (general) Fox 10 News (newscasts)
Slogan	Just You Watch The Best
Channels	Digital: 10 (VHF)
Affiliations	Fox (1995-present)
Owner	Fox Television Stations, Inc. (NW Communications of Phoenix, Inc.)
Founded	1953 (as KOY-TV and KOOL-TV)
First air date	October 24, 1953
Call letters' meaning	Spirit of AriZona (former slogan)
Sister station(s)	KUTP
Former callsigns	KOOL-TV (1953-1982) KTSP-TV (1982-1994)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 10 (VHF, 1953-2009) Digital: 31 (UHF; -2009)
Former affiliations	ABC (secondary 1953-1955) CBS (secondary 1953-1955, primary 1955-1994) Independent (September–December 1994)
Transmitter power	1000 kW
Height	484 m
Facility ID	35587
Transmitter coordinates	33°20′2.3″N 112°3′45.7″W / 33.333972°N 112.062694°W / 33.333972; -112.062694
Licensing authority	FCC
Public license information:	Profile CDBS
Website	www.myfoxphoenix.com

KSAZ-TV is the Fox owned-and-operated television station in Phoenix, Arizona. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on VHF channel 10 from a transmitter atop South Mountain on the city's south side. Its signal is relayed across northern Arizona through a network of 20 translator stations. Owned by the Fox Television Stations subsidiary of News Corporation, KSAZ is sister to MyNetworkTV affiliate KUTP and both stations share studios on the west end of Downtown Phoenix's Copper Square district.

History [edit]

As a CBS affiliate [edit]

Channel 10 was founded in 1953 – signing on the air on October 24 of that year – as a shared-time signal between KOY-TV and KOOL-TV; the two stations later merged under the KOOL-TV callsign. Gene Autry was one of the station's owners.^[1] The station was originally a primary CBS^[2] with a secondary affiliation with ABC, until KTVK (channel 3, now an independent station) signed on the air on February 28, 1955 and took the ABC affiliation. As a result, the station became an exclusive CBS affiliate and was now able to feature Autry's show Gene Autry's Melody Ranch on its schedule. Over the years, KOOL-TV ran nearly all of the programming that CBS offered, along with some first-run syndicated shows and local newscasts.

On May 28, 1982 at about 5 p.m., Joseph Billie Gwin, wanting to "prevent World War III", forced his way into the KOOL-TV studios and fired a shot from his gun. The butt of the gun struck Louis Villa in the back of the head, Gwin then held Villa in a chokehold, at gunpoint for nearly five hours. Gwin took four people hostage and demanded nationwide airtime. Two of the hostages, Jack Webb and Bob Cimino, were released three hours later. At 9:30 p.m., anchorman Bill Close read a 20-minute statement as Gwin sat next to him holding a gun under the table, Close took Gwin's gun after the statement and set it on the table.^[3][4][5][6]

The station was sold to Gulf Broadcasting in 1982, and changed its callsign to KTSP-TV (the KOOL call sign is currently used by an FM radio station in Phoenix). It had been stated that the calls stood for "Tempe/Scottsdale/Phoenix", but it was also believed that the callsign was simply changed to match that of then-sister station WTSP in Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida. The logo that KTSP used at the time, which would remain in use until 1995, was similar to WTSP's "Sunset 10" logo.

KTSP was sold to Taft Broadcasting in 1984, as part of a corporate deal. Taft was restructured into Great American Broadcasting after a hostile investor takeover late in 1987. The station's operations did not change significantly under Gulf, Taft or Great American Broadcasting ownership. In 1989, KTSP newscaster Shelly Jamison left the station after appearing as both a cover model and posing nude in a Playboy pictorial.^[7] In the early 1990s, KTSP's logo was slightly modernized, losing the linear elements at the bottom. When Great American Broadcasting filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1993, the company restructured once again and became known as Citicasters late that year. The station changed its callsign to KSAZ on February 12, 1994 to match its new slogan, "The Spirit of Arizona".

As a Fox station [edit]

Due to the bankruptcy, Citicasters put four of its stations (including KSAZ-TV) up for sale. KSAZ and Kansas City sister station WDAF-TV were then sold to New World Communications on May 5, 1994 for $360 million, with the sale becoming final on September 9 of that year. New World also received High Point, North Carolina's WGHP and Birmingham, Alabama's WBRC^[8] (WBRC and WGHP would be placed in a blind trust, due to ownership complications, and were later sold directly to Fox). Just 18 days later, New World announced that all but three of its stations would switch their varying affiliations from the Big Three television networks (most of the New World stations, like KSAZ, were aligned with CBS) to Fox. A major catalyst for the Fox-New World deal was the network's newly-signed contract with the National Football League's National Football Conference. The Arizona Cardinals franchise were part of the NFC, and thus, had their games telecast on channel 10 since 1988, the year that the Cardinals relocated to Phoenix from St. Louis (at that time, the NFC games were shown on CBS). Until recently, however, home game telecasts were hard to come by, as the Cardinals often failed to sell out games at Sun Devil Stadium. Since moving to University of Phoenix Stadium, there have been no in-market blackouts.

As a result of the affiliation agreement, four commercial television stations in the Phoenix market each swapped network affiliations at different times. KSAZ dropped the CBS affiliation three days after the sale to New World became final on September 12. This switch temporarily left KSAZ as an independent station as Fox's affiliation agreement with its existing affiliate KNXV-TV did not expire until December 14. The CBS affiliation at that time went to former independent KPHO-TV.^[2] The ABC affiliation was to relocate from KTVK to KNXV on January 9, 1995 (as part of the corporate affiliation deal between ABC and KNXV's owner E. W. Scripps Company) but that August, KNXV began running ABC shows that KTVK chose to turn down as that station gradually began excising ABC shows from its schedule. Fox's primetime and sports programming moved to channel 10 on December 15, 1994. As with most other New World stations, KSAZ declined to run Fox Kids programming, which instead moved to KTVK and in 1996 then to KASW (channel 61).

KTVK originally chose to become a charter affiliate of The WB Television Network upon its January 1995 debut, but that network's programming also went to KASW upon its September 1995 launch. With several top-rated syndicated shows moving to other stations in 1995, KSAZ dramatically increased the amount of local newscasts, producing about 50 hours each week. The remaining syndicated programming on the station was rather low-rated, and as a result KSAZ did not have good ratings in its early days as a Fox affiliate. Much of the audience for the station's newscasts went to KTVK, which also took on a news-intensive format after losing its ABC affiliation. In the fall of 1995, KSAZ added three hours of syndicated talk shows jointly produced by New World and Fox.

News Corp. purchased New World Communications in July 1996, with the merger being completed in January 1997, making KSAZ a Fox owned-and-operated station through Fox Television Stations. Later in February 1997, KSAZ and Austin, Texas's KTBC were nearly traded to the Belo Corporation in exchange for Seattle's KIRO-TV.^[9] That trade fell through; however, Belo would purchase KTVK (and KVUE in Austin) two years later. Fox then began to upgrade the station's programming, adding some high-rated off-network sitcoms (such as M*A*S*H, Seinfeld and King of the Hill). The station also added higher-rated court shows and reality shows. Fox Kids programming, though, remained with KASW.

Fox Television Stations purchased KUTP (channel 45) in 2001 as part of its acquisition of United Television (which had owned a 50% stake in UPN, until Viacom bought United's share of the network in 2000) forming the Phoenix market's second television duopoly. Although Fox owns both KSAZ and KUTP (now a MyNetworkTV station), neither station aired the Saturday morning children's program block eventually known as 4Kids TV, which continued to air on KASW until Fox discontinued its programming agreement with 4Kids Entertainment and replaced the block with the Weekend Marketplace infomercial lineup in 2008 (which ended up on KAZT-CA).

On July 27, 2007, "SkyFox10" pilot/reporter Don Hooper witnessed a mid-air collision over downtown Phoenix between two news helicopters belonging to KTVK and KNXV-TV as all three helicopters were following a police pursuit that was in progress at the time. Four people on board both helicopters (two pilots and two photographers) were killed in the accident as they crashed into Steele Indian School Park.^[10] In a video available over the internet, Hooper became very shaken and upset as he reported on the collision of the KTVK and KNXV helicopters. The video also contains audio of Hooper calling the tower at nearby Sky Harbor International Airport to report the collision on his aircraft's FAA radio. Hooper then talked on a discreet frequency to another news helicopter belonging to KPNX (channel 12) saying that he was fine, but two other helicopters had just crashed (Hooper surmised that KTVK pilot Scott Bowerbank was in one of the choppers).

Digital television [edit]

KSAZ ceased its analog broadcasts at 8:30 a.m. on June 12, 2009, the federally-mandated date for American television stations to cease analog transmissions across the country. The analog switchoff occurred during the station's morning newscast. After the transition was complete, KSAZ moved its digital broadcast from its pre-transition UHF channel 31 to VHF channel 10, in correspondence to its former analog channel allocation.^[11]

News operation [edit]

This section requires expansion with: further information on the history of KSAZ's news department. (August 2010)

KSAZ presently broadcasts a total of 45 hours of local newscasts each week (with nine hours on weekdays, 4½ hours on Saturdays and three hours on Sundays); this gives the station the second largest local news output of any television station in the state of Arizona, surpassed by Phoenix area independent station KTVK's weekly news total by 5½ hours, though the two stations produce an equal amount of local newscasts (nine hours) on weekdays. As is standard with Fox stations that carry early evening newscasts on weekends, KSAZ's 5 p.m. newscast on Saturdays and Sundays is subject to preemption due to sports coverage.

On July 31, 2006, KSAZ launched a half-hour 6 p.m. newscast (the newscast is anchored by Troy Hayden, who also anchors the 10 p.m. newscast). Alongside the launch of the newscast was the debut of a brand new on-air appearance for KSAZ, taking on the Fox Television Stations standardized graphics and logo first used by sister stations WTVT/Tampa and WNYW/New York City. On July 6, 2009 starting with the 5 p.m. newscast, KSAZ began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition, becoming the last Fox owned-and-operated station to produce their newscasts in that format.

On April 1, 2009, Fox Television Stations and the E. W. Scripps Company announced the formation of the Local News Service model between stations owned by the two station groups in the Phoenix, Detroit and Tampa markets. The service allows the pooling of newsgathering efforts for local news events and each station provides employees to the pool service in exchange for the sharing of video.^[12] Meredith Corporation-owned CBS affiliate KPHO-TV (channel 5) eventually joined the Phoenix LNS agreement shortly after the announcement.^[13]

News/station presentation [edit]

Newscast titles [edit]

• The Esso Reporter (1953–1965)
• The National News/24 Hours (1965–1968)
• Channel 10 National News/Channel 10 World News (1968–1977)
• The Big News/Niteline News (1960s)
• KOOL News (1970s)
• KOOL News 10 (1977–1982)
• NewsCenter 10 (1982–1992)
• Channel 10 News (1992–1994)
• 10 News (1994–1996)
• Fox 10 News (1996–present)

Station slogans [edit]

• "We're the Team" (early 1980s–1989)
• "Sharing the Vision" (1989–1992)
• "The Spirit of Arizona" (1992–1996)
• "Arizona's News Leader" (1996–2006; news slogan)
• "Just You Watch!" (1997–2000; general slogan)
• "Just You Watch The Best" (2000–present; still used for programming and news promo after the first 10 minutes of the newscast)
• "The Most Powerful Name in Local News" (2006; promotional for new look)
• "Let The News Begin" (2006; promotional for new look)

This film, television or video-related list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it with reliably sourced additions.

On-air staff [edit]

Current on-air staff [edit]

KSAZ-TV's primary news anchors include Kristen Anderson (weekday mornings on Arizona Morning (4:30-10 a.m.) and weekdays at noon); Ty Brennan (Saturday mornings; also general assignment reporter); Rick D'Amico (weekday mornings on Arizona Morning (7-10 a.m.) and weekdays at noon); Troy Hayden (weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m.); John Hook (weeknights at 5, 5:30 and 9 p.m.); Ron Hoon (weekday mornings on Arizona Morning (5-10 a.m.); also fill-in noon anchor); Kristen Keogh (Saturday mornings; also weather anchor and reporter); Kari Lake (weeknights at 5, 5:30 and 9 p.m.); Marc Martinez (weekends at 5, 9 and 10 p.m.); Andrea Robinson (weekday mornings on Arizona Morning (5-10 a.m.); also fill-in anchor, general assignment and "Traffic Authority" reporter) and Linda Williams (weekends at 5, 9 and 10 p.m.)^[14]

The Fox 10 AccuWeather team includes chief weather anchor Dave Munsey (weeknights at 5, 5:30, 6, 9 and 10 p.m.); weather anchors Cory McCloskey (weekday mornings on Arizona Morning (5-10 a.m.) and weekdays at noon; also substitute morning and noon anchor), Kristy Siefkin (weekends at 5, 9 and 10 p.m.; also Wednesday-Friday morning reporter, fill-in weekday morning news anchor, fill-in traffic reporter, and fill-in weekday weather anchor); and Kristen Keogh (Saturday mornings).^[14]

The sports team includes sports director Jude LaCava (weeknights at 6, 9 and 10 p.m.), sports anchor Richard Saenz (weekends at 5, 9 and 10 p.m.) and sports reporter Gayle Jansen (also fill-in sports anchor and Saturday morning news reporter).^[14]

The station's reporting staff includes general assignment reporters Miriam "Mia" Garcia; Andrew Hasbun; Kelly Hessedal; Jill Monier; Syleste Rodriguez and Anita Roman; weekday morning reporter Diane Ryan; "SkyFox" pilot reporter Brian Kelley; and political reporter Steve Krafft.^[14]

Notable former on-air staff [edit]

• Ilona Carson - weekday morning anchor (to 2000s; now 4 p.m. anchor at KTRK-TV/Houston, Texas)
• Bill Close - anchor (1964-1993; deceased)
• J.D. Hayworth - evening sports anchor (to 1994; U.S. Congressman elected 1994, unseated in 2006. Hosted talk show on KFYI, then failed in a United States Senate bid in 2010)
• Geoff Morrell - reporter (mid-1990s; formerly White House correspondent for ABC News, now press secretary for The Pentagon)
• Anne Montgomery - sports reporter (1980s; later at ESPN, now a teacher at South Mountain High School)
• Vicky Nguyen - investigative reporter/collaborator (2004–2006; now reporter at KNTV/San Jose)
• Dale Schornack - anchor (1986–1992; now weekday anchor at KXTV/Sacramento)

Translators [edit]

References [edit]

External links [edit]

• MyFoxPhoenix.com - Official website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KSAZ-TV
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KSAZ-TV
• Program Information for KSAZ at TitanTV.com
• Video of the KOOL-TV/Bill Close hostage crisis live over-the-air statement read