KKCO (channel 11) is a

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...

Grand Junction, Colorado Grand Junction is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Mesa County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 65,560 at the 2020 United States Census, making Grand Junction the 17th mos ...

, United States, affiliated with

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

and

Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language Terrestrial television, terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Television and Streaming#NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a divi ...

. It is owned by

Gray Television Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...

alongside low-power dual

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

/ CW+ affiliate

KJCT-LP KJCT-LP, virtual channel 8 (UHF digital channel 20), is a low-powered dual ABC/ CW+- affiliated television station licensed to Grand Junction, Colorado, United States and serving Colorado's Western Slope region. Owned by Gray Television, it i ...

(channel 8). Both stations share studios on Blichmann Avenue in Grand Junction, while KKCO's transmitter is located at the Black Ridge Electronics Site at the

Colorado National Monument Colorado National Monument is a National Park Service unit near the city of Grand Junction, Colorado. Sheer-walled canyons cut deep into sandstone and granite–gneiss–schist rock formations. This is an area of desert land high on the Colorado ...

west of the city.

History

KKCO signed on the air on May 5, 1996. Prior to then, some NBC programs had been available by way of off-hours clearance on

KREX-TV KREX-TV, virtual channel 5 ( VHF digital channel 2), is a CBS- affiliated television station licensed to Grand Junction, Colorado, United States and serving Colorado's Western Slope region. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is a sister stat ...

(channel 5). The network's full schedule was available only on cable from the network's

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 ...

affiliates (

KCNC-TV KCNC-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, and maintains studios on Lincoln Street (between ...

from the early 1980s until September 1995, then

KUSA Kusa or KUSA may refer to: * Kusa, Russia, a town in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia * Kusa, Latvia, a village in Madona District, Latvia * Kusa, Oklahoma, United States * Kusa, indigenous name of Beles River (in Gumuz language) * Kusa, Afghanistan * ...

for most of the 1995–96 season). Its sign-on made Grand Junction one of the last markets in the country with full service from the

Big Three networks In the United States, there are three major traditional commercial broadcast television networks — CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), NBC (National Broadcasting Company), and ABC (American Broadcasting Company) — that due to their longev ...

. KKCO was owned by Eagle III Broadcasting L.L.C. from 1996 to 2005, when current owner Gray Television bought the station. Soon after signing on, KKCO's newscast shot to the top of the ratings, past longer-established KREX and KJCT. It has remained atop the ratings for most of the time since then. On September 18, 2006, its DT2 subcarrier became the area's new affiliate for

The CW ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

. Sometime in late 2008, KKCO-DT2 dropped the CW affiliation when KJCT-DT3 picked up The CW. KKCO-DT2 relaunched in December 2012 when it affiliated with

MeTV MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television program ...

. KKCO has been digital-only since February 17, 2009. On December 15, 2014, KKCO launched a new third subchannel affiliated with

after KJCT's former intellectual unit moved to KKHD-LP, which formerly carried Telemundo.

News operation

KKCO currently carries 24½ hours of local news a week, with 4½ hours each weekday and two hours each on Saturdays and Sundays. With the exception of the 5 and 6 p.m. newscasts, KKCO's newscasts are also seen on sister KJCT-LD.

Notable alumni

Butch McCain Butch McCain is an American actor, an award winning broadcaster, producer and one-half of the singing-songwriting team, The McCain Brothers. Butch appeared as TV reporter Joachim West in MGM's Bio-Dome, the character, Creel, in Roger Corman's r ...

– chief weather anchor; weeknights at 5:30, 6 (KKCO-DT2 MeTV) and 10 p.m.

Technical information

Subchannels

The station's digital signal is

multiplexed In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

Translators

References

External links

* {{Gray TV NBC network affiliates MeTV affiliates Telemundo network affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1996 1996 establishments in Colorado KCO Gray Television