KOIN (channel 6) is a television station in Portland, Oregon, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside CW station KRCW-TV (channel 32); Nexstar's Tegna subsidiary owns NBC affiliate KGW (channel 8). KOIN and KRCW-TV share studios in the basement of the KOIN Center skyscraper on Southwest Columbia Street in downtown Portland; KOIN's transmitter is located in the Sylvan-Highlands neighborhood of the city.
History
Radio origins KOIN began as a radio station at 970 AM that went on the air November 9, 1925, as KQP; the station changed its call sign to KOIN on April 12, 1926.KOIN History from the station's website. Archived on the Wayback Machine on December 18, 2008. It became an affiliate of the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) on September 1, 1929. During the golden years of radio, KOIN was one of Portland's major radio stations, with an extensive array of local programming, including live music from its own studio orchestra.
As a CBS Radio Network affiliate, KOIN was the local home for CBS radio programs such as the CBS World News Roundup, Lux Radio Theater and Suspense. An FM station, KOIN-FM 101.1, was launched in 1948. Both stations were owned by Field Enterprises, Inc. from 1947 until sold in 1952 to the Mount Hood Radio and Television Broadcasting Corporation."KOIN Radio Sold by Field". The Oregonian, July 5, 1952, p. 1.
Radio stations KOIN and KOIN-FM were sold on May 1, 1977, to the Gaylord Broadcasting Company, and effective May 12, 1977, their call signs changed to KYTE and KYTE-FM, respectively.Murphy, Francis (May 3, 1977). "Behind the mike: Concert Hall stays on air". The Oregonian, p. C7. Its affiliation with CBS ended, and the CBS Radio Network's programming in the Portland market moved to KYXI in Oregon City at that time.Murphy, Francis (April 29, 1977). "KYXI radio set to carry CBS network". The Oregonian, p. F11. The stations using the former KOIN frequencies currently are KUFO (AM) and KXL-FM.
Television station KOIN-TV began broadcasting on October 15, 1953, as Portland's first VHF television station."KOIN-TV Goes on Air; Reception Found Good". The Oregonian, October 16, 1953, p. 1. It took on an affiliation with the CBS Television Network, to match the radio station (channel 6 has always been a primary CBS station, and as such, it is the only Portland TV station to retain its primary affiliation). At the time, it was jointly owned by Mount Hood Radio and Television Broadcasting Corporation; Newhouse Broadcasting Corporation (now Advance Publications), owner and publisher of The (Portland) Oregonian; local investors and Marshall Field's department stores. The station took its calls from KOIN radio (AM 970 and 101.1 FM), which was a joint venture of Mount Hood Broadcasting and Newhouse. Eventually, Marshall Field sold its stake to Newhouse. Lee Enterprises purchased KOIN-TV in April 1977 from the Mount Hood-Newhouse group."Lee Enterprises buys rest of KOIN-TV stock". The Oregonian, April 29, 1977, p. 1.
KOIN's first color television broadcast was made on August 14, 1954, only three days after then-NBC-affiliate KPTV (channel 12) had made Portland's first such broadcast.
In the 1950s, KOIN ran a Sunday afternoon program, Report to the People, hosted by the governor of Oregon.
On February 27, 1971, both transmitter towers used by KOIN-FM and KOIN-TV—the main tower and the auxiliary tower—collapsed during an ice and wind storm. The two KOIN (AM) towers, located on the same property, were not damaged. Nine days later, on March 9, 1971, KOIN-FM and KOIN-TV returned to the air when a temporary tower was erected on the site of the collapsed auxiliary tower. During those nine days off the air, CBS programming was provided to the Portland market (and, by extension, most of Oregon) by independent station KVDO-TV in Salem.
During the 1970s, KOIN still had a handful of locally produced programs on the air, including RFD 6, Hi! Neighbor, the cooking show KOIN Kitchen, and public affairs programs such as News Conference Six and Northwest Illustrated. In 1976, KOIN-TV became the second television station in the Portland market (after KPTV) to broadcast Portland Trail Blazers basketball games. Select Blazers games aired on KOIN-TV until 1996, when the Blazers moved to KGW. KOIN was the first flagship station of the Trail Blazers' radio network, beginning in the inaugural 1970–71 season, and ending when the station was sold shortly before the Trail Blazers won the 1976–77 NBA championship, which was broadcast on KOIN-TV via CBS' coverage (KOIN also broadcast all Blazers games that were aired through CBS Sports from 1973 to 1990).
By the 1980s, one of KOIN's past general managers—Richard M. "Mick" Schafbuch—served one term in 1981 as President of the CBS Network Affiliates Group. In 1982, C. Stephen Currie, KOIN's program operations manager, was elected to serve as the president of the National Association of Television Program Executives. During KOIN-TV's 30th anniversary week in 1983, the station aired classic CBS programming from the 1950s and 1960s. By this time, the station had moved into its new location at KOIN Center. In 1984, the station aired the Japanese program From Oregon With Love. The "-TV" suffix was dropped on August 31, 1992, fifteen years after KOIN radio was sold off.
In October 2000, the Lee Enterprises television group, including KOIN was purchased by Emmis Communications. On January 27, 2006, Emmis sold KOIN (along with KHON-TV in Honolulu, Hawaii, KSNT in Topeka, Kansas, and KSNW in Wichita, Kansas) to Montecito Broadcast Group for $259 million.
On July 24, 2007, Montecito announced the sale of all of its stations (KOIN, plus KHON-TV and its satellites, KSNW and its satellites, and KSNT) to New Vision Television. The sale closed on November 1, 2007.
In October 2008, KOIN converted its central Oregon translators into a locally focused semi-satellite, KBNZ, which was sold off in 2010. On December 30, 2008, one of the 15 guy wires on the station's main transmitter tower snapped, putting the tower in danger of collapsing (as with the 1971 tower collapse, this incident followed a prolonged snow and ice storm). The Portland Police Bureau evacuated about 500 local residents and closed several roads around the tower, including a portion of Skyline Boulevard, the main north-south road through the West Hills of Portland. At first, officials feared that the wire itself—which is over long and weighs several tons—had snapped, which would have taken several weeks to manufacture and install a replacement. Upon inspection, it was revealed that one of the high frequency insulators incorporated into the guy wire assembly had shattered. Repair crews replaced the insulator by 4 p.m. the next day and the surrounding neighborhood was reopened to residents and car traffic. New Vision Television paid a $1,500 fine to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) due to equipment neglect.
On May 7, 2012, LIN Media announced that it would acquire KOIN and the other New Vision stations for $330.4 million and the assumption of $12 million in debt. The FCC approved the sale on October 2,http://licensing.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/pubacc/Auth_Files/1499212.pdf and it was completed ten days later on October 12, 2012. The group deal reunited KOIN, KHON, KSNW and KSNT with several former Emmis-owned stations which had been purchased by LIN seven years earlier, such as KRQE in Albuquerque, New Mexico, WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama, and WLUK-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin (KOIN, KRQE, KSNW, and KSNT had also been sister stations under Lee Enterprises).
On March 21, 2014, Media General announced that it would purchase LIN Media and its stations, including KOIN, in a $1.6 billion merger. The merger was completed on December 19.Media General Completes Merger With LIN Media , Press Release, Media General. Retrieved December 19, 2014 Less than a year later, on September 8, 2015, Media General announced that it would acquire the Meredith Corporation for $2.4 billion, with the combined group to be renamed Meredith Media General once the sale is finalized by June 2016. Because Meredith already owns Fox affiliate KPTV (channel 12), and the two stations rank among the four highest-rated stations in the Portland market in total day viewership, the companies would have been required to sell either KPTV or KOIN to comply with FCC ownership rules as well as recent changes to those rules regarding same-market television stations that restrict sharing agreements; KPTV's MyNetworkTV-affiliated sister station KPDX (channel 49) could have remained with either KPTV or KOIN or be spun off to the suitor as its total day viewership ranks below the top-four ratings threshold.
However, the proposed deal with Meredith would later fall through, and on January 27, 2016, it was announced that Nexstar Broadcasting Group would buy Media General for $4.6 billion. KOIN became part of "Nexstar Media Group" and is the company's first station in Oregon.
On December 3, 2018, Nexstar announced it would acquire the assets of Chicago-based Tribune Media—which has owned CW affiliate KRCW-TV (channel 32) since 2003—for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. Nexstar included the overlap between KOIN and KRCW-TV among the television stations in thirteen markets where the group may consider making divestitures to address national ownership cap issues related to the Tribune transaction and/or to comply with FCC local ownership rules preventing it from owning two or more stations in the same market. However, KRCW does not rank among the four highest-rated stations in the Portland market in total day viewership, and FCC regulations no longer preclude legal duopolies that would leave fewer than eight independently owned television stations in a single market (a KOIN/KRCW combination would leave only seven full-power commercial television stations with independent ownership remaining in the market, barring a second legal duopoly in the market under the previous "eight-voices test" rules repealed by the FCC in November 2017), hence there are no legal hurdles in place which would otherwise preclude a KOIN/KRCW duopoly. The sale was approved by the FCC on September 16 and was completed on September 19, 2019.
On August 19, 2025, Nexstar Media Group agreed to acquire Tegna for $6.2 billion. In Portland, Tegna already owns KGW. The transaction was completed on March 19, 2026. Nexstar was allowed to hold three TV station licenses in markets such as Portland. A temporary restraining order issued one week later by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, later escalated to a preliminary injunction, has prevented KGW from being integrated into KOIN and KRCW.
News operation KOIN presently broadcasts hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with hours each weekday and hours each on Saturdays and Sundays). On February 1, 2007, KOIN became the first television station in the Portland market to being broadcasting its local newscasts in 16:9 widescreen standard definition.KOIN goes widescreen from the Oregon Media Insiders blog According to Oregon Media Insiders, during Montecito's ownership of KOIN, its local news ratings declined in all time periods; among the four news-producing stations in the Portland market, KOIN had the greatest loss in audience share.February 2007 Ratings from the Oregon Media Insiders blog
For the first time in ten years, KOIN finished in first position in the 11 p.m. news in the May 2008 NSI sweeps. KOIN News 6 at 11—unlike a year earlier when it lost over 20 percent of its CBS lead-in share—held its prime time share throughout its 11 p.m. newscast in the May 2008 NSI sweeps. In January 2008, KOIN's then-owners, New Vision Television, fired news director Jeff Alan and replaced him with Lynn Heider. Afterwards, KOIN dropped its slogan "Bringing News Home" as Jeff Alan had trademarked it under his name in 2000 before he worked at KOIN.