KDZA-TV was a television station broadcasting on channel 3 in

Pueblo, Colorado Pueblo () is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat and the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality of Pueblo County, Colorado, Pueblo County, Colorado ...

, which broadcast from March 16, 1953, to May 7, 1954. It was the first television station established in Pueblo. The station shut down due to financial difficulties, competition from a second station in Pueblo and two outlets in Colorado Springs, and network affiliation changes in Denver that affected its main programming source.

History

KDZA-TV began telecasting March 16, 1953. It was owned by Dee B. Collins alongside independent AM outlet KDZA (1230 AM). Much of its programming, including network fare, was fed to it by a microwave relay between Pueblo and KFEL-TV (channel 2) at

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

. Gene O'Fallon, who owned KFEL-TV, filed to buy KDZA radio and television from Collins for $350,000, including the assumption of $100,000 in payments to

DuMont Laboratories Allen B. DuMont Laboratories, Inc. (printed on products as Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories, Inc., commonly referred to as DuMont Laboratories, shortened to DuMont Labs; referred to on company documents as DuMont) was an American television equipmen ...

for the channel 3 transmitter, at the end of July. Four months later, O'Fallon dropped the deal, though KDZA-TV continued taking programs from KFEL-TV, including live basketball games. The move came as KFEL-TV lost both of its major network affiliations in the final quarter of 1953 to new Denver outlets KLZ-TV (CBS) and KOA-TV (NBC) and after a second Pueblo television station, KCSJ-TV (channel 5), began broadcasting as an NBC affiliate. Ultimately, continued operation and program feeds from Denver proved uneconomical to continue. On May 7, 1954, channel 3 went silent to repair its equipment, but by then it was an open secret that the station was in financial woes. It never returned, opting not to ask the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...

for continued authority to remain silent. KDZA-TV was the third VHF station to close completely for economic reasons, after

KFXD-TV KFXD-TV was the first television station in the U.S. state of Idaho. It broadcast on channel 6 from Nampa for less than two months in the summer of 1953, between June 18 and August 11. Owned by radio station KFXD ( 580 AM), it did not have any ne ...

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, and KFOR-TV in Lincoln, Nebraska, which had shut down in August 1953 and March 1954, respectively. The channel 3 allocation was moved to

Alamosa Alamosa is a home rule municipality and the county seat of Alamosa County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 9,806 at the 2020 United States Census. The city is the commercial center of the San Luis Valley in south-central Colorad ...

in 1955 at the petition of KCSJ-TV, which intended to build a satellite station there. No full-power station ever appeared on the channel, but a translator of

KRDO-TV KRDO-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by the News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG) alongside low-power Telemundo affiliate KTLO-LD (channel 46) and radio stations ...

was authorized to use it in December 1965. The full-power allocation was shifted from Alamosa to

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in January 1980 upon the petition of Western Slope Communications, which built and signed on KCWS there in 1984.

References

{{Colorado Springs/Pueblo TV DZA-TV 1953 establishments in Colorado Television channels and stations established in 1953 1954 disestablishments in Colorado Television channels and stations disestablished in 1954 Defunct television stations in the United States DZA-TV