KDZA-TV began test broadcasts on March 14, 1953,[2] and started its regular programming on March 19.[3] It was owned by Dee B. Crouch alongside independent AM outlet KDZA (1230 AM). Much of its programming, including network fare, was fed to it by a 104-mile (167 km) microwave relay between Pueblo and KFEL-TV (channel 2) at Denver.[4] The station began affiliations with CBS, NBC, and DuMont networks. KDZA also broadcast syndicated shows from Ziv Television Programs.[5]
Gene O'Fallon, who owned KFEL-TV, filed to buy KDZA radio and television from Crouch for $350,000, including the assumption of $100,000 in payments to DuMont Laboratories for the channel 3 transmitter, at the end of July.[6] Four months later, O'Fallon dropped the deal, though KDZA-TV continued taking programs from KFEL-TV,[7] including live basketball games.[8] The move came as KFEL-TV lost both of its major network affiliations in the final quarter of 1953 to new Denver outlets KLZ-TV (CBS) and KOA-TV (NBC) and after a second Pueblo television station, KCSJ-TV (channel 5), began broadcasting as an NBC affiliate.[4]
Ultimately, continued operation and program feeds from Denver proved uneconomical to continue. On May 7, 1954, channel 3 went silent to repair its equipment, but by then it was an open secret that the station was in financial woes.[4] It never returned, opting not to ask the Federal Communications Commission for continued authority to remain silent,[4] and its construction permit expired on September 22, 1954.[9] KDZA-TV was the third VHF station to close completely for economic reasons, after KFXD-TV in Nampa, Idaho, and KFOR-TV in Lincoln, Nebraska, which had shut down in August 1953 and March 1954, respectively.[4]
The channel 3 allocation was moved to Alamosa in 1955 at the petition of KCSJ-TV, which intended to build a satellite station there.[10] No full-power station ever appeared on the channel, but a translator of KRDO-TV was authorized to use it in December 1965.[11] The full-power allocation was shifted from Alamosa to Glenwood Springs in January 1980 upon the petition of Western Slope Communications, which built and signed on KCWS there in 1984.[12]