KOB-TV

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'KOB-TV' is a television station based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It's an NBC network affiliate and broadcasts on channel 4. KOB is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, Inc.. Its transmitter is located on Sandia Crest, east of Albuquerque.

Contents

Station history

Satellite stations

Newscasts

Newscasters

Notable Personalities

Current On-Air Talent

News/Station Presentation

Newscast Titles

Station Slogans

Trivia

External links

Station history

KOB-TV started operations on September 13, 1948, after Albuquerque Journal owner and publisher Tom Pepperday won a television license on his second try. Pepperday, who also owned KOB-AM-FM, had previously applied for one in 1943. It is the oldest television station in New Mexico, the first television station between the Mississippi River and the West Coast, and the second oldest in the Mountain Time Zone (KDYL-TV in Salt Lake City, now KTVX, had signed on a month earlier). Initially KOB-TV ran programming from all four networks--NBC, ABC, CBS and DuMont Television Network. However, it has always been a primary NBC affiliate.
Later, in May 1952, the station was purchased by Time Life (now Time Inc.) and former FCC chairman Wayne Coy. It was Time Life’s first television asset. In 1953 as each network gradually increased its schedule and as two new TV stations signed on within a week KOB-TV would drop programming of ABC and CBS. DuMont went out of business in 1956. CBS programming would move to KGGM (now KRQE) and ABC programming moved to KOAT.
Stanley E. Hubbard, founder of Hubbard Broadcasting, bought KOB-TV from Time Life in 1957. KOB's radio cousins were later sold off and are now known as KKOB-AM-FM, owned by Citadel Broadcasting; many people still confuse the television and radio stations today.
In 2005, KOB-TV entered into a news partnership with KKOB-AM.
In September 2006, KOB-TV began broadcasting NBC WeatherPlus on digital subchannel 4-2, at first inserting its Doppler radar during time reserved for local segments.

Satellite stations

Three stations rebroadcast KOB's signal and insert local content for other parts of the media market:

★ 'KOBF', Farmington, New Mexico (analog channel 12, digital channel 17) Began: July 1, 1972 (KIVA-TV: 1972-1983)

★ 'KOBR', Roswell, New Mexico (analog channel 8, digital channel 38) Began: June 24, 1953

★ 'KOBG', Silver City, New Mexico (analog channel 6) Began: January 10, 2004.
KOBF went on air in 1972 as KIVA-TV. It operated at about half of the class maximum (158 of 316kw) from an antenna 410 feet above average terrain. The station had always been an NBC affiliate.
Up until March 2007, KOBF had broadcast a short Four Corners news, weather and sports segment, "Eyewitness News 12," during some KOB news broadcasts. On March 1, 2007, KOB management fired three of the four members of the news department, including the news director and two technical directors. A similar practice of providing local newscasts had been done at KOBR, but to a much smaller extent. Those local broadcasts also ceased on March 1, 2007
KOBG has a license to broadcast a digital signal on channel 8, but has not begun digital broadcasts.
KOBR has been a KOB satellite since 1983, after previously operating as as a free-standing local station with a primary NBC affiliation and later as a satellite of NBC affiliate KCBD-TV in Lubbock, Texas. A separate article about KOBR-TV includes more extensive details about the history of the Roswell station.
The last letter of the satellite station callsigns stands for the city or county where the station is located. KOBG is in Grant County.
In addition to KOB and its three satellite stations, there are dozens of low-powered repeaters that carry KOB's programming throughout New Mexico, as well as a handful in Colorado and Arizona. [2]

Newscasts

Ordinarily, KOB airs five and a half hours of local news each weekday, three hours each Saturday, and an hour each Sunday. During the school year, KOB broadcasts a weekly 15-minute sportscast, "New Mexico Gameday," dedicated to high school sports. Also, during the fall of 2006, KOB broadcasts the Lobo Coaches Show, a 30-minute sportscast dedicated to the University of New Mexico football team.
KOB produced an hourlong newscast for Albuquerque's Fox affiliate, KASA-TV, through September 14, 2006. The next day, CBS affiliate KRQE took over production of that newscast as that station's parent company, LIN TV, began taking over KASA's operations as it purchased the station.
KOB's newscasts identify themselves as ''"Eyewitness News 4"''.

Newscasters

KOB-TV has a history of strong news talent, although it is a fixture at second place in market ratings.
The station's hiring of Dick Knipfing in 1980 from KOAT-TV, a local competitor, created the Albuquerque's first, big-dollar anchor, and stood out in the industry as the "anchorman wars" moved to relatively smaller markets. Knipfing's 1980 salary was approximately $90,000. Despite his hiring, the station was never able to overtake KOAT in the news ratings, largely due to the staying power of anchor Johnny Morris and a folksy weatherman Howard Morgan. Knipfing, now with KRQE-TV, his third time around, remains a fixture in the local TV news scene.
Today, KOB-TV's anchor team features Carla Aragon, who used to co-host ''PM Magazine'' with Gary Doll for KOB-TV in the early 1980s, before station management rejected her audition for a news anchor position, only to see her hired away by KNBC-TV in Los Angeles. Aragon, a native New Mexican, spent eleven years at KNBC as the morning co-anchor of the top-rated weekday morning newscast, ''Today In LA'' and as a general assignment reporter. She returned to KOB-TV in 1994 and is teamed with anchor Tom Joles, who followed Knipfing and Nathan Roberts in the anchor chair. Both Aragon and Joles are Emmy Award winners. With the retirement of his colleague Robin Marshment in 2006, Chief Meteorologist Larry Rice, recruited to come to KOB-TV from KIRO-TV in Seattle in 1995, now holds the distinction of having the longest continuous tenure of any of the present weather-casters in New Mexico. KOAT-TV's Joe Diaz may have more total years, but he left for more than a decade before returning in 1997 to resume his career as Chief Meteorologist in 1997 at KOAT-TV. Rice is also the only Albuquerque television meteorologist to earn an Emmy Award in weather-casting.
Other KOB-TV alums include intern-reporter Jane Wells, formerly with the ''Geraldo'' show and now with CNBC; and Jeff Schwartz, formerly of Flint, Michigan's WJRT-TV, who accepted a Fellowship with Los Alamos National Laboratory and would become its Public Affairs Officer.
Also in the 1980s, long time weekend anchor Greg Gurule, replaced by Joe Vigil, moved from KOB-TV to KOA-TV (now KCNC-TV) in Denver, Colorado, KGO-TV in San Francisco, California, and KNTV in San Jose, California, before returning to his home state to join KRQE.

Notable Personalities

Current On-Air Talent

'KOB ANCHORS'

★ 'Antoinette Antonio:' Weekend Anchor

★ 'Carla Aragón:' Weeknight Anchor

★ 'Nicole Brady:' Morning Anchor

★ 'Tom Joles:' Weeknight Anchor

★ 'Eric Kahnert:' 4PM Anchor

★ 'Steve Stucker:' Morning Anchor/Weather Forecaster

★ 'Joe Vigil:' Weekend Anchor
'KOB REPORTERS'

★ 'Shelton Dodson:'' Weekend Morning Anchor

★ 'Stuart Dyson:' General Assignment Reporter

★ 'Jeremy Jojola:' Investigative Reporter

★ 'Valerie Castro:' General Assignment Reporter

★ 'Jeff Maher:' General Assignment Reporter

★ 'Cris Ornelas:' General Assignment Reporter

★ 'Gadi Schwartz:' General Assignment Reporter
'PINPOINT4 WEATHERPLUS TEAM'

★ 'Larry Rice (NWA Seal of Approval):' Chief Meteorologist

★ 'Ty Shesky:' Weekend Meteorologist

★ 'Shar Spalding:' 4pm Weather Forecaster
'SPORTS ANCHORS/REPORTERS'

★ 'J.P. Murrieta:' Sports Director/Anchor, seen weeknights

★ 'Lee Faria:' Weekend Sports Anchor/Sports Reporter/Assistant Sports Director

News/Station Presentation

Newscast Titles

★ ''Eyewitness News 4'' (1970s-1980s)

★ ''Eyewitness News Network'' (1980s)

★ ''News 4 New Mexico & News 4'' (1980s)

★ ''Channel 4 Eyewitness News'' (1990s)

★ ''Eyewitness News 4'' (1996-present)

Station Slogans

★ ''Superstation KOB & Great Southwest Superstation'' (1980s)

★ ''We're There 4 You'' (1980s)

★ ''Working 4 You'' (2000s)

★ ''Live, Local, Late-Breaking Coverage.'' (2005-present)

Trivia

★ Many "Today in History" websites ([3][4][5]) say KOB-TV ceased transmission on October 28, 1986 - the same day the KOB radio stations changed callsigns to KKOB. KOB did not stop broadcasting on that date.

External links

★ KOB-TV Website

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