KGUN-TV

The station was founded in 1955 by rancher D. W. Ingram of the Tucson Television Company, Inc., who gave the station his initials, KDWI-TV. It began broadcasting on June 3, 1956.[1] On January 24, 1957, Ingram sold it to H. U. Garrett.[2] Garrett changed the station's call sign to KGUN on March 14, 1957.[1] The change came in part because Garrett was concerned about possible negative connotations with the letters "DWI."[3] Garrett was also an avid Western fan and gun collector, and thought having "gun" in the station's calls would be apropos. The station's original studios were located on North 6th Avenue in Tucson.

Garrett sold the station to Cincinnati meatpacker Henry S. Hilberg, who renamed the station KGUN-TV, on February 1, 1961.[4] Hilberg sold both KGUN and WEHT in Evansville, Indiana to Gilmore Broadcasting in 1964. Gilmore then sold it to May Broadcasting in 1968.[5] May would sell KGUN and KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska to Lee Enterprises in December 1986.[6] Lee in turn sold all of its stations to Emmis Communications in 2000. In 2005, Emmis liquidated all of its television properties, sending control of KGUN to the Milwaukee-based Journal Broadcast Group, which already owned four radio stations in Tucson.[7] The sale was finalized in December 2005.

On March 18, 2008, Journal announced plans to buy CW affiliate KWBA-TV from Cascade Broadcasting Group on undisclosed terms, creating a duopoly with KGUN-TV.[8] On June 3 of that year, the Federal Communications Commission issued a failing station waiver[9] which allowed Journal to buy KWBA, which caused the loss of its rights to broadcast Arizona Diamondbacks baseball and continued financial losses as the reason for the sale (the special waiver was necessary since the Tucson market already had two co-owned duopolies at the time, and a Journal purchase of KWBA would leave the market with only seven unique station owners). In the waiver, Journal said it would launch a newscast produced by KGUN on the station. The acquisition was completed on July 23, 2008.

On July 30, 2014, it was announced that the E. W. Scripps Company would acquire Journal Communications in an all-stock transaction. The combined firm will retain their broadcast properties, including KGUN, and spin off their print assets as Journal Media Group. The deal made KGUN a sister station to Phoenix's ABC affiliate, KNXV-TV, along with connecting it through statewide coverage to existing sister station and ABC affiliate KTNV-TV in Las Vegas.[10] The FCC approved the deal on December 12, 2014. It was approved by shareholders on March 11, 2015. The merger was completed on April 1, 2015.[11][12]

As an ABC affiliate, KGUN broadcasts the network's schedule, supplemented by syndicated and local programming, most of which is local news.

Local programming has been a tradition at KGUN since its sign-on. Retrospectively, KGUN's standing in the Tucson market in its early years, and the reputation it scored during that time, was unusual for an ABC affiliate, as it was quite rare for that network to be on par with CBS or NBC until the 1970s.

KGUN aired The Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon from 1969[3] until the Muscular Dystrophy Association ended the telethon after the 2014 edition; nearly all of this time was spent as the "Love Network" affiliate in the city. The longevity of its airing on an ABC station meant that it was one of the few "Love Network" affiliates to still air the telethon during its last two years, during which time it was aired as a two-hour short form ABC network telecast under the new title MDA Show of Strength in 2013 and 2014.[15][16][17] In 1972, it acquired the rights to air the Fiesta de los Vaqueros rodeo parade, the world's longest non-mechanized parade; the event moved to KOLD in 2006.

A long-standing ratings champion at the station was Marshall KGUN; its many hosts included Burt Oien, Jack Jacobson and Bob Love. KGUN-TV, in collaboration with an out-of-town production company named Romper Room Inc. (which was acquired by Hasbro in 1969 and renamed Claster Television[18][19] before that company was dissolved in 2000), aired the local version of Romper Room during the 1960s (among the hosts of the Tucson version of the show were Jane Harrison).[20] Additionally, it aired the Mexican Theater (a showcase of Spanish-language films) and also held the Saturday Night Chiller Movies with host Dr. Scar.[3]

Syndicated programming currently featured on KGUN-TV includes Right This Minute, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Kelly Clarkson Show, and Live with Kelly and Ryan; the station is one of the few in the United States to have aired the game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune from their debuts in syndication. KGUN aired another game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire from its 1999 debut on ABC until September 2, 2013 (by which time the show had long moved into syndication), when the show was dropped in favor of Inside Edition.[21] Millionaire would return to the station in September 2014 (where it would remain until its cancellation 4½ years later), while Inside Edition was moved to NBC affiliate KVOA.

On April 26, 2010, KGUN began producing a lifestyle and entertainment magazine program called, The Morning Blend,[22] a program which was adapted from Journal flagship station WTMJ-TV. Hosted by Alex Steiniger and Heather Rowe, the program originally aired weekdays from 11 a.m. to noon, but in early 2020, it was cut down to a half-hour to accommodate a broadcast of RightThisMinute at 11:30 a.m.

KGUN-TV presently broadcasts 19½ hours of locally produced newscasts per week (with 3½ hours each weekday and one hour each on Saturdays and Sundays).

KGUN-TV started its own news operation in 1961, when it hired Mac Marshall to cover the news; previously, all newscasts that aired on KGUN were the film-recorded newscasts from ABC itself; as such, no locally based newscasts were made.[23] Its newscasts originally aired under the title of Panorama 9 and underwent various names, including a stab at the NewsCenter 9 motif before arriving at the current KGUN 9 On Your Side title in 2006 (although the slogan and format had been used at KGUN since the 1980s). KGUN's newscasts were originally videotaped in black-and-white, although the station had the city's first color film chain; it was during the 1968 elections that KGUN's newscasts began airing entirely in color.[24]

Pat Stevens started at KGUN as a weather forecaster and worked her way to news director, and, as a result, she made national news by becoming the first female news director at a network affiliate.[3] The long wave of news anchors at this station has included Fred Allison, Nina Trasoff, Andy Nadell, Ed Sorensen, Stephanie White and Jennifer Waddell over the years. Dave Silver became KGUN's sports director in 1983, and this was followed by the 1984 launch of Guy Atchley's career at the station, which spanned 34 years; he retired on March 30, 2018.[3]

In 1997, KGUN added a 5:30 p.m. newscast, moving ABC's World News Tonight to 6 p.m. and expanding its news department;[25] however, less than a few years later, the time slots for both were swapped.

On April 23, 2011, KGUN became the third station in Tucson to begin airing local newscasts in HD.

On April 21, 2014, KGUN began airing a one-hour extension of its weekday morning newscast on KWBA from 7–8 a.m. titled Good Morning Tucson Extra.[26] This replaced the simulcast of the weekday 7–9 a.m. portion of The Jon Justice Show from sister-station KQTH-FM.

KGUN began airing the "Don't Waste Your Money" consumer reports filed by John Matarese of its sister station WCPO in Cincinnati, Ohio in early 2016; the station is one of 22 in the United States currently broadcasting them.

• Official website
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KGUN-TV
• Query TV Fool's coverage map for KGUN-TV
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KGUN-TV