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KRMZ,
virtual channel In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered as digits on a receiver's ...
24 ( VHF
digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...
channel 10), is a Public Broadcasting Service (
PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
)
member Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...
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's s ...
licensed to
Steamboat Springs, Colorado Steamboat Springs is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Routt County, Colorado, United States. The population was 13,224 at the 2020 census. Steamboat Springs is the principal city of the Ste ...
, United States. Owned by Rocky Mountain Public Media, Inc., it is one of the five full-service transmitters of the
Rocky Mountain PBS Rocky Mountain PBS is a network of PBS member television stations serving the U.S. state of Colorado. Headquartered in Denver, it is operated by Rocky Mountain Public Media, Inc., a non-profit organization which holds the licenses for most of th ...
state network, broadcasting from atop Quarry Mountain west of town.
Master control Master control is the technical hub of a broadcast operation common among most over-the-air television stations and television networks. It is distinct from a production control room (PCR) in television studios where the activities such as swit ...
and internal operations are based at Rocky Mountain PBS' headquarters in the Buell Public Media Center in
downtown Denver Downtown Denver is the main financial, commercial, business, and entertainment district in Denver, Colorado, United States. There is over of office space in downtown Denver, with 132,000 workers. The downtown area consists mostly of the neigh ...
. KRMZ has been part of the Rocky Mountain PBS network since 2007. Prior to that, it was an
independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...
television station based in Steamboat Springs, then a
Telemundo Telemundo (; formerly NetSpan) is an American Spanish-language terrestrial television network owned by NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, a division of NBCUniversal, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Comcast. It provides content ...
affiliate Affiliation or affiliate may refer to: * Affiliate (commerce), a legal form of entity relationship used in Business Law * Affiliation (family law), a legal form of family relationship * Affiliate marketing * Affiliate network or affiliation platfo ...
which was seen in
Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...
on two low-power stations.


History


Early years

On May 5, 1986, the
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...
(FCC) granted a
construction permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...
to Constance J. Wodlinger for a new television station on channel 24 in Steamboat Springs. Wodlinger owned radio stations in the
Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more t ...
market. Channel 24 began broadcasting as an independent television station in the second half of December 1987, as KSBS-TV; Wodlinger was joined by several other investors in Steamboat Broadcast System, Inc., which owned the station, including president Thomas Greer. Local programming on channel 24 at launch included ''Steamboat Breakfast Club'', a daily
morning show Breakfast television (Europe and Australia) or morning show (Canada and the United States) is a type of news broadcasting, news or infotainment television programme that broadcasts Live television, live in the morning (typically broadcast pro ...
with news and features; a daily news program; and telecourses from
Colorado Mountain College Colorado Mountain College (CMC) is a Public college, public community college with multiple campuses in western Colorado, and headquartered in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Founded in 1965, the institution offers numerous associate degrees, eigh ...
. The station filled out its broadcast day with programs from the Satellite Program Network and music videos from Wodlinger-owned
Hit Video USA Hit Video USA was a 24-hour music video television network based out of Houston, Texas. The station debuted in 1985 as a low power television station in Houston, operating on channel 5 there as 'TV5'. From 1985 to 1993, the station was located on ...
. Greer, who had previously produced a program called ''Ski TV'' which aired on
ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...
, had plans to start similar stations in other Colorado ski cities. The station sold itself to advertisers seeking to reach ski visitors, noting that it was the only television signal carried in some of the town's hotels. KSBS-TV was sold in 1991 to Frederick I. Shaffer III for $250,000. Under Shaffer, KSBS-TV primarily broadcast tourist information programming and content from the
Resort Sports Network Outside TV (formerly RSN Television) is a sports-oriented cable and satellite television network based on ''Outside'' magazine. The network features programming related to various outdoor activities and the lives of those who engage in them. Hi ...
.


Going Telemundo

Another sale came in March 1995 to GreenTV Corporation, headed by David Drucker. Drucker's purchase marked the first connection between KSBS-TV and a Denver station, since he owned KUBD, Denver's Telemundo affiliate. However, Drucker and his partner in Denver, Charlie Ergen, sold KUBD two months later to Paxson Communications Corporation. Paxson immediately switched that station to the same Infomall TV
infomercial An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of di ...
programming used on its other stations. Telemundo moved from KUBD to KSBS-TV, which appeared on two
translators Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...
in Denver—KMAS-LP (channel 63) and KSBS-LP (channel 18)—and also began a fight to get onto important cable systems in Denver for the first time using
must-carry In cable television, many governments, including the ones of the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, apply a must-carry regulation stating that forces a cable TV provider to carry the public interest programming, like locally licensed te ...
rules. In 1997, TCI added KSBS to its Denver cable systems, replacing
Galavisión Galavisión is an American Spanish-language pay television network owned by TelevisaUnivision. The network is unrelated to the earlier Mexican channel of the same name, though both broadcast Televisa-produced programming. As of February 20 ...
. In 2000, KSBS-TV was purchased by Council Tree Communications of
Longmont Longmont is a home rule municipality located in Boulder and Weld counties, Colorado, United States. Its population was 98,885 . Longmont is located northeast of the county seat of Boulder. It is named after Longs Peak, a prominent mountain th ...
, in which one of the investors was an
Alaska Native Alaska Natives (also known as Native Alaskans, Alaskan Indians, or Indigenous Alaskans) are the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples of Alaska that encompass a diverse arena of cultural and linguistic groups, including the I ...
-owned corporation; the new owners changed the call letters to KMAS-TV for ''más'', the Spanish word for "more". Council Tree then deepened its involvement with Telemundo by making a $181 million investment in exchange for a 17 percent stake in the network—which still was a controlling stake because of ownership restrictions; the transaction also made KMAS-TV a network
owned-and-operated station In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an network af ...
. KMAS-TV then was sold along with the network to
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
in October 2001.


From Telemundo to PBS

In 2006, Longmont Broadcasting sold its television station in that city,
KDEN-TV KDEN-TV (channel 25) is a television station licensed to Longmont, Colorado, United States, serving as the Denver area outlet for the Spanish-language network Telemundo. Owned and operated by NBCUniversal's Telemundo Station Group, KDEN-TV main ...
(channel 25), to NBC, and Telemundo moved there from KMAS-TV and its two translators on March 6, a switch giving Telemundo signal parity with other Denver TV stations. It was the third station purchase made by Telemundo in a year, after its purchase of KBLR-TV in Las Vegas and a license swap that gave Telemundo a full-power signal in Phoenix. The Steamboat Springs station was now surplus to NBC's needs, and it was taken silent. The chief engineer of KMAS-TV, a former Rocky Mountain PBS employee, suggested that the company donate the station to the public broadcaster. After several visits to the site and the repair of the transmitter, the station returned to the air in October 2007 as KRMZ, the fifth full-service transmitter in the Rocky Mountain PBS network.


References


External links

{{Denver TV Television channels and stations established in 1987 1987 establishments in Colorado RMZ Steamboat Springs, Colorado