KOLD-TV

Universal Communications was acquired by the Gannett Company as part of Gannett's purchase of the Evening News Association in 1986. Gannett had owned the Tucson Citizen since 1977, and FCC regulations of the time forced Gannett to sell KOLD along with KTVY (now KFOR-TV) in Oklahoma City and WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama to Knight Ridder Broadcasting after just one month of ownership. The News-Press & Gazette Company acquired KOLD in 1989, when Knight Ridder bowed out of broadcasting.

KOLD-TV used this logo from 2004 to 2010.

In 1993, Atlanta-based New Vision Television bought NPG's entire television station group of the time, which included CBS affiliates KOLD, WJTV in Jackson, Mississippi and its semi-satellite WHLT in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, NBC affiliates WSAV-TV in Savannah, Georgia and WECT in Wilmington, North Carolina, and ABC affiliate KSFY-TV in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In 1995, New Vision sold all of its stations to another Atlanta-based company, Ellis Communications (New Vision later rebuilt with smaller-market stations, and later resold the group to LIN TV). Ellis, in turn, was sold the next year to a media group funded by the Retirement Systems of Alabama, who purchased two additional broadcasting groups (AFLAC's broadcasting unit and Federal Broadcasting) several months later. That same year, KOLD relocated its longtime studios on West Drachman Street to their current location on North Business Park Drive on the northwest side of Tucson. The three groups merged in 1997 to form Raycom Media.

During 2011, the Raycom station Web sites were redesigned to a uniform format (previously, the Raycom station sites were a hodgepodge of different formats that were inherited from their previous owners). Raycom was once Worldnow's largest client in number of station Web sites, but was dwarfed in total market coverage in Spring 2012 by Fox Television Stations, which relaunched its Web sites during that time.

On November 15, 2011, Dallas-based broadcasting company Belo Corporation, then-owner of local Fox affiliate KMSB and MyNetworkTV affiliate KTTU, announced that it would enter into a shared services agreement with Raycom Media beginning in February 2012, resulting in KOLD taking over the two stations' operations and moving their advertising sales department to the KOLD studios. All remaining positions at KMSB and KTTU, including news, engineering and production, were eliminated and master control operations moved from Belo's Phoenix independent station KTVK to KOLD. KOLD also took over operations of KMSB's website. Though FCC rules disallow common ownership of more than two stations in the same market, combined SSA/duopoly operations are permissible (with such operations existing in Youngstown, Ohio, Topeka, Kansas, Duluth, Minnesota, Nashville and Honolulu).[5]

On June 25, 2018, yet another Atlanta-based business, Gray Television, announced it had reached an agreement with Raycom to merge their respective broadcasting assets (consisting of Raycom's 63 existing owned-and/or-operated television stations, including KOLD-TV), and Gray's 93 television stations) under Gray's corporate umbrella. The cash-and-stock merger transaction valued at $3.6 billion – in which Gray shareholders would acquire preferred stock currently held by Raycom – will result in KOLD-TV becoming the first station that Gray had ever acquired in Arizona. The arrangements with KMSB and KTTU would remain unchanged.[6][7][8][9] The sale was approved on December 20,[10] and was completed on January 2, 2019.[11]

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

KOLD-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 13, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[14] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 32, using PSIP to display KOLD-TV's virtual channel as 13 on digital television receivers.

Oddly, a 13.3 subchannel also exists which formerly carried until about April 2011 a message apologizing for the discontinuation of The Tube Music Network, which ended operations in late October 2007. On August 15, 2011, KOLD-TV added MeTV to subchannel 13.2 and moved its "News 13 Now" programming to the previous vacant 13.3.[13] In January 2012, KOLD-TV dropped the 13.3 subchannel, discontinuing the News 13 Now service.[15]

While KOLD's analog signal originated from a transmitter site in the Tucson Mountains west of downtown, KOLD's digital transmitter is at the Mount Bigelow transmitter site to the northeast of the city.

KOLD-TV has a construction permit for a fill-in digital translator on its pre-analog channel 13 which will benefit viewers who live in certain rugged terrain areas that are having difficulty receiving the signal on channel 32.[16]