not reveal it; he declined to sign a new contract and took a new job in Sacramento, California. In the late 1990s, KOLD-TV became Tucson's first station to operate a news helicopter. Despite these improvements, newscast ratings continued to languish far behind the other two major stations, with channel 13 drawing half as many news viewers. However, the 2000s would change that picture. Ratings improved, and the station won its first and (to date) only Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, given in 2001 to Chip Yost for a story about exploding fuel tanks in police cars. By 2004, KOLD had pulled ahead of KVOA in all evening timeslots in the 25–54 demo, a feat which had not occurred in Tucson in 25 years. During this time, KOLD-TV also produced a 9 p.m. local newscast for KWBA-TV from 2003 to 2005. Not all were happy: anchor Randy Garsee was fired in 2006 after sending an email to all employees criticizing the news director for "micromanaging". As part of taking over KMSB's operations, KOLD-TV took over its local 9 p.m. newscast and added a weekday morning newscast, with the existing KMSB news team laid off. KMSB and KOLD also introduced a shared website, originally branded Tucson News Now. In 2022, Gray introduced new 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. newscasts for KOLD. Technical information Subchannels The station's digital signal is multiplexed: Analog-to-digital transition 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. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 32. While KOLD's analog signal originated from a transmitter site in the Tucson Mountains west of downtown, KOLD's primary digital transmitter is at the Mount Bigelow transmitter site to the northeast of the city, where the major Tucson stations built a common digital transmission facility in 2003. The Tucson Mountains site was then converted to a digital replacement translator on channel 13 to provide service to the Catalina Foothills. References Notes External links Official website OLD-TV Television channels and stations established in 1953 1953 establishments in Arizona CBS network affiliates MeTV affiliates Circle (TV network) affiliates Defy TV affiliates Former Gannett subsidiaries Gray Television Low-power television stations in the United States