KUSA Channel 9 celebrates 60 years

[Colorado Media Newsroom]

KUSA
Forgive Channel 9 for trumpeting its own anniversary during Sunday night’s newscast. The story, by Gary Shapiro, duly noted that the station’s history reflects Denver’s history, from dirt roads to streetcars, from radio to TV and beyond.

The milestone is not exactly news, but it is noteworthy in cool spots the station is running through the month. The then-and-now spots, with audio from 1970s promo material, are a kick. There’s a baby-faced Shapiro and Patti Dennis, side-by-side with their current selves. Ed Sardella, “Stormy” Rottman, Carl Akers and other veterans, on the left huddled around clunky vintage computer terminals in the old Bannock Street basement, in the building that’s now Rocky Mountain PBS. On the right, current staff in the much more plush digs on Speer Blvd. On the left, giant satellite trucks and bulky shoulder-mounted cameras, on the right, iPhone and iPad.

Check out the anniversary spots by Robert Springer, Drew Sidener, Andy Schaeffer and Tommy Collier, here and here.

The station wasn’t the first to go on air in Denver (Channel 2, now KWGN, holds that distinction). But on Oct. 12, 1952, Channel 9 bowed, then as KBTV and owned by Mullins Broadcasting. It was burdened with a lousy assortment of affiliations: ABC, the newest and weakest of the three (ABC, CBS, NBC) and the DuMont Network (which ceased operations in 1956.) The big leaps forward came in 1972, when it was sold to Combined Communications, and in 1978, when Combined was merged into Gannett, the current owner. In 1984 the call letters were changed to KUSA; in the 1995 affiliation swap, Channel 9 became an NBC affiliate.

Naturally the anniversary salute doesn’t mention the long list of former KUSA staffers now toiling for the competition, Jim Benemann, Mike Landess, Ed Greene, Bertha Lynn, Mike Nelson, and Ron Zappolo among them.



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[Rob]

Naturally the anniversary salute doesn’t mention the long list of former KUSA staffers now toiling for the competition, Jim Benemann, Mike Landess, Ed Greene, Bertha Lynn, Mike Nelson, and Ron Zappolo among them.

I guess if you are let go from KUSA and find another job in the market, you aren't a part of their history anymore? Sad.