About KVOA 4

KVOA is a television station located in Tucson, Arizona. It signed on the air in September 1953 as Tucson's second television station and an NBC affiliate, eight months after KOLD-TV (channel 13) began operations as the CBS affiliate. Although KVOA was primarily affiliated with NBC, it also carried a secondary affiliation with ABC until 1956, when KDWI-TV (now KGUN-TV) began broadcasting in the area. During the late 1950s, KVOA was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.

KVOA was originally owned by Chicago advertising executive John Louis Sr., along with KVOA-AM 1290 (now known as KCUB). It was a sister station to KTAR in Phoenix, and in October 1953, KVOA aired Tucson's first live television event: a World Series broadcast. The Louis broadcasting empire eventually became known as Pacific & Southern Broadcasting, based in Phoenix, but Louis did not retain ownership of KVOA for long. In 1955, he sold the KVOA stations to Clinton D. McKinnon, who later also acquired KOAT-TV in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and combined the two stations to form Alvarado Television. In 1962, the Alvarado stations were sold to Steinman Stations, the owner of WGAL-TV in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

In 1968, Steinman sold a controlling stake in KVOA to Pulitzer Publishing, making it Pulitzer's first television station acquisition outside of its home base in St. Louis, Missouri. KOAT was fully acquired by Pulitzer a year later. However, in 1972, Pulitzer was required to spin off its share of KVOA to an employee group called Channel 4-TV due to the Federal Communications Commission's cross-ownership rules, which were being tightened at the time. Channel 4-TV also acquired Steinman's stake in KVOA around the same time.