KTTU (channel 18) is a television station in Tucson, Arizona, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Fox affiliate KMSB (channel 11); Tegna maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Gray Television, owner of CBS affiliate KOLD-TV (channel 13), for the provision of studio space and technical services while maintaining control of programming and sales. The stations share studios on North Business Park Drive on the northwest side of Tucson (near the Casas Adobes neighborhood), while KTTU's transmitter is located atop Mount Bigelow.
Channel 18 was built by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson and began broadcasting at the end of 1984 as KDTU. The station, intended as a family-friendly outlet, proved to be a popular—but commercial—independent station, as well as a boondoggle for the diocese, which lost $15 million between 1984 and 1989 and unloaded it at a loss to Clear Channel Communications. The call sign was changed to KTTU-TV after the sale. Since 1991, KMSB and KTTU have been either commonly operated or owned.
History
Construction and diocesan ownership
In 1980, the Federal Communications Commission received four applications proposing new commercial television stations on channel 18 in Tucson. Tucson Telecasting, a subsidiary of McKinnon Broadcasting (one part-owner, Clinton D. McKinnon, had owned KVOA-TV from 1955 to 1962); National Group Telecommunications, whose owners were busy building KSTS in San Jose, California; and Alden Communications Group all made bids, as did the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson. While the three companies, all with out-of-state interests, eyed independent stations that would primarily compete with regional independent KZAZ, the diocese was motivated to file an application because its own studies found that a cable television channel would reach fewer homes. Its application proposed mostly religious programming, and the diocese boasted that it would be the first in the country to directly own a television station.
The diocese almost dropped out months later when it indicated interest in noncommercial reserved channel 27. However, it stayed with the channel 18 application and, after a settlement agreement with McKinnon, came out the winner in March 1983. The call sign KDTU was chosen, and studios were built on North 6th Avenue in Tucson. Original proposals called for a station heavy on community involvement and also catering to the majority-Hispanic diocese. Fred Allison, a market veteran from KVOA, was tapped to help program the new station; the chief engineer was a priest, the Rev. Michael Bucciarelli. As it turned out, KDTU would be more secular than it had ever planned.
Tucson's independent television market was in the middle of rapid change. Nearly immediately after KDTU went on the air on December 31, 1984, in a debut marred by transmitter problems, Tucson got its second new station in a week: KPOL (channel 40). (The two stations shared the same transmitter site in the Tucson Mountains, a mast painted sky blue to reduce its visual impact in an attempt to mollify property owners, and both faced unexpected setbacks getting electric service.) Despite this, the diocese projected its new station would break even within three or four years after an initial $3 million investment.