KOMO-TV - History

History

KOMO began operating on December 10, 1953 as an NBC affiliate. Its sister radio station was a long time affiliate of NBC Radio. In 1959, KOMO swapped affiliations with KING-TV and became an ABC affiliate.

KOMO nearly lost one of its staff in the volcanic eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980. Dave Crockett, who had been with KOMO since 1975, had been covering the mountain every day for three weeks until being rotated out a few days prior. On the morning of May 18, he woke up at 3 am in Seattle on a hunch that he would get some impressive video that day, and loaded up his news car and headed towards Mount St. Helens without anyone at KOMO knowing about it. He arrived at the mountain just as it was erupting. His news video, which shows an advancing ash cloud and mud flows down the South Fork Toutle River, was made famous by its eleven-minute long "journey into the dark", six of those minutes of which were recorded in "total darkness" as Crockett narrated to what he thought would be his "last day on Earth."

His video made worldwide news and was used in a movie remake of the disaster starring Art Carney. The car he drove, with the remains of KOMO lettering still visible, is now a part of a Mount St. Helens Volcano Museum just outside Toutle.

KOMO also has an almost forgotten distinction as being the first station in Seattle to broadcast a television signal. Whereas crosstown rival KING 5 was the first to air "wide audience" television (of a Thanksgiving Day high school football game), KOMO broadcast a television signal nearly 20 years prior. On June 3, 1929, KOMO radio engineer Francis J. Brott televised images of a heart, a diamond, a question mark, letters, and numbers over electrical lines to small sets with one-inch screens. A handful of viewers were captivated by the broadcast. KOMO would likely have held the distinction of being the first television station in Seattle, and perhaps the nation, were it not for a depression and World War II.

On July 2, 2009 a small electrical fire knocked KOMO's 11 pm newscast off the air. The fire also affected power to Fisher radio stations KOMO AM/FM and KPLZ FM. The fire started in an electrical vault at 11:15 pm local time. The fire forced KOMO-TV to improvise its delivery of KOMO 4 News, including setting up a temporary news set and satellite truck at Seattle's Kerry Park, and weather forecast graphics were prepared on a large sketchpad set up on an easel.