KOAA-TV, News First 5, served southern Colorado as the NBC affiliate since 1953.
The station serves a large viewing area from Monument, Colorado down to northern New Mexico and from the Front Range of the Rockies west to the Kansas border. This area includes the metropolitan areas of Colorado Springs and Pueblo.
News First 5, Southern Colorado’s News Leader, has been the highest-rated newscast for the past decade – in the morning, at noon, in the early evening and at night. News First 5 at 10pm is consistently the single most-watched newscast in the market.
This success is due in no small part to the tenure of the news, weather and sports anchors. Together, the team anchoring the 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. newscasts has more than 85 years of local experience. News First 5 is the team local viewers know and the team that knows the market best.
KOAA-TV is a well-rounded operation, earning the Colorado Broadcasters Association's Station of the Year Award 18 of the past 22 years. This demonstrates exceptional performance in news, community service, promotion, commercial production and other areas.
News First Now is the station’s 24/7 local news and weather channel. It has a strong cable position on Comcast channel 9 in Colorado Springs. It's also on Comcast digital channel 247 in Pueblo, over the air on broadcast 5.2 and on Bresnan, TVision and Baja cable systems.
News First 5 is online at NewsFirst5.com [1], on Facebook, on Twitter, and on the iPhone.
Market
Colorado Springs/Pueblo is the 91st ranked broadcast market, with 335,000 households in the DMA and 295,000 households in the metro area (El Paso and Pueblo counties).
The broadcast market runs 50%/50% male/female, 16.2% with college degrees, and 54.2% have household incomes greater than $50,000.
Colorado Springs is:
- Home of America's Mountain, Pikes Peak, which inspired "America the Beautiful"
- Home of the United States Olympic Committee and Olympic Training Center
- Home of the United States Air Force Academy
- Home of Fort Carson (Army) and Schriever and Peterson Air Force Bases
- First "Best Place to Live" - Outside Magazine (2009)
- First "Best City for Dogs" - Men's Health (2008)
- Second "Fittest City" - Men's Fitness (2009)
- Sixth "Most Wired City" - Forbes.com (2010)
- Seventh "Best City to Raise an Outdoor Kid" - Backpacker Magazine (2009)
- Eighth "Best City to Find a Fresh Start" - BusinessWeek (2009)
- Ninth "Best Bang-For-The-Buck City" - Forbes.com
- 10th "Best City to be a Woman" - Women's Health (2009)
- 14th "Cleanest Air" - American Lung Association (2009)
- 24th "Least Touched by the Recession" - BusinessWeek (2009)
History
On June 29, 1953, KCSJ-TV began its first broadcasting day in the Pueblo/Colorado Springs market. The broadcasting "day" lasted between 9 and 10 hours because Channel 5 was limited to only locally-produced programming. A few days later, on July 5, Channel 5 officially became an NBC [2] affiliate.
In 1961 KSCJ-TV was purchased by the owners of KOA-TV in Denver and the call letters were changed to KOAA-TV. With a video recorder brought down from Denver, KOAA was able to record and play back programs for the first time. This piece of equipment meant the end of live commercials.
By 1969, the primitive video equipment had been replaced with new updated color equipment and KOAA was able to offer local news and other locally originated programming in full color (but only to those people who owned a color TV).
November 1976 became a turning point at KOAA-TV when the station was bought by Evening Post Publishing Co. [3] out of Charleston, S.C. and John O. Gilbert was hired as President/General Manager. By 1978, with a news staff based in Colorado Springs, KOAA jumped to second in the ratings after being "fourth in a three station market" for many years. Gilbert then began focusing on coverage of community events as a way of connecting with the viewers.
The early 80's saw the construction of Channel 30, simulcasting the Channel 5 signal and allowing KOAA to reach more viewers in the Colorado Springs area. Channel 5 also got a new transmitter and began broadcasting in stereo.
By 1982 KOAA-TV's Eyewitness News was No. 1 in the ratings at 10 p.m. The early evening newscast at 5:30 p.m. was still No. 2.
The mid-80's found KOAA-TV at the forefront of community involvement, servicing a variety of new areas: from locally produced public service announcements to hands-on assistance from KOAA-TV staff in community projects and fundraisers.
In January 1996, KOAA-TV added 12 staff members and expanded its hour-a-day local Monday through Friday news offering to two-and-a-half hours a day. The hour-long Eyewitness News Today at 6 a.m. was immediately the No. 1 morning news show in the market and remains there today. A 30-minute midday news program was also added at that time.
In 1997, KOAA-TV expanded its news operation again, adding a 5 p.m. newscast and moving the 5:30 news to 6 p.m. In 2001, News First at 5 a.m. was added to the KOAA-TV news line-up, offering viewers four hours of local news per day. News First maintains the leadership position in Southern Colorado. The news department expanded from 22 employees in 1994 to more than 40 today.
David Whitaker [4] was named President and General Manager of KOAA-TV in 1998. Whitaker is leading Channels 5 and 30 into the digital age of television. Under his leadership, the Eyewitness News moniker was changed to News First. The station has added a state-of-the-art digital switcher that enables KOAA-TV to produce better video effects than ever before. In the spring of 2003, a satellite news gathering vehicle (News First SatLink) was added, giving the news department the ability to broadcast live from anywhere news is happening.
The year 2004 brought several changes to the on-air product. Spanish sub-titles became available to KOAA viewers in January with just a touch of a button. Weather First Now was launched in April serving viewers of the local cable provider Comcast with up-to-the-minute local weather information 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week. The most current weather information, local forecasts, news updates, school closings, outdoor reports and up-to-date airline information from the Colorado Springs Airport is reported around the clock.
KOAA-TV has received numerous awards and recognition over the years, such as being named Station of the Year by the Colorado Broadcasters Association [5] more than 20 times. KOAA-TV generally wins a handful of awards from the Associated Press each year, as well as an occasional Emmy. Recently, the station received Edward R. Murrow awards for investigative reporting two years in a row.
KOAA-TV continues to support the community through involvement and sponsorship of many events and non-profit fundraisers. Whitaker has also brought community projects to Southern Colorado that address many issues affecting viewers through on-air viewer interactive endeavors; Your Stories [6], Your Health First [7] and Teachers
First [8].