9NEWS Turns 70 today.

Today 9NEWS Celebrates 70 years on the air.  They officially went on the air on October 12, 1952 at 3:00PM.  Unfortunately, there is no film or tape of there 1st newscast or anything from their first day on the air.  

Here is some more history about KUSA TV / KBTV---9NEWS. 

• It was the 2nd tv station in Colorado & 111th nationwide.
• ABC loaned the station it's 112,000-Watt temporary transmitter, it was boosted 20times to 240,000 watts by June 1953.
• The slogan at the time was "Denver's better television station".
• The first studio location was at Colfax Ave & Speer Boulevard behind where Denver Fire station #1 is located today. (No pictures have been found of this building)
• They broadcast programing from CBS & ABC.  (NBC Programing was seen on KWGN at the time)
• The fist program on the air was The Quiz Kids from CBS. 
• They eventually moved into a new studio at 1089 Bannock Street in Denver (KRMA later took this address over) 
• In 1992 they moved to the current studio location at 500 E. Speer Boulevard, it was the largest TV station in Denver by square foot until FOX Television Stations, LLC built KDVR's News & Technology Center in 2000. 
• On September 10, 1995 KUSA switched from ABC to NBC as part of a larger national broadcast re-alignment, other stations included with this re-alignment were WTVJ in Miami, WNCN in Raleigh, NC & KSL-TV in Salt Lake City  
• In April 2004 KUSA was the first TV Station in Colorado to go High Definition, included with this was a new SKY9 a Eurocopter-AS350. 
• They switched call letters from KBTV to KUSA-TV in 1984. 
• They briefly shared the Dumont Network with KWGN from 1953-1956.
• They were the first TV station in the country to film the construction of a nucellar power plant (Fort St Vrain) now a natural gas fired power plant in Northeastern Colorado owned by Xcel Energy.
• There 2nd studio location on Bannock street was a former car dealership that was converted to a tv studio.
• NBC's Tom Costello was a reporter at 9NEWS in the early 1990s, he left the station in Summer of 1995. 
• Reporter Fred Dressler founded the E! Entertainment Network, Sun Sports Network (now Bally Sports SUN), Sports Net New York & In-Demand network, that was seen on many cable systems (CATV) nationwide.  
• KUSA's 1996-2004 News set was used in the 1997 NBC Made for TV Movie "Asteroid". 
• 9NEWS.COM launched in May of 1996, a brainchild of former 9NEWS manager Tim Deetz who retired February 1, 2021.

(PICTURE: KUSA)

1965 Denver Flood (KUSA TV) 

(News footage from 1988, behind the scenes when the 5pm news was an hour long)

(Video: KUSA)

(The 9NEWS Set that was used for the NBC tv Movie Asteroid)

It wasn't until Day 2 that 9NEWS started its news reporting, October 13, 1952, with only a 10-minute report of the day's news and a quick weather report with Vince Monforte.  

Fast forward to today, they are now broadcasting 40 hours of news a week on 2 tv stations KUSA & KTVD, they have multiple channels--NBC 9.1, COZI-TV 9.2 True Crime Network 9.3, Quest on 9.5 & Circle TV on 9.6. (9.4 is used on the KTVD side to re-broadcast KUSA for folks who have signal issues with the KUSA signal) 

(KBTV's 1st Logo)

(KUSA's current Logo, since 2017)