Daily Press partners up with KKCO TV in Grand Junction

MONTROSE — The Montrose Daily Press and KKCO television, Channel 11, the NBC affiliate in Grand Junction, have entered into a print, broadcast and online cooperative, it was announced today by both the newspaper and the TV station.

Beginning May 23, KKCO will broadcast Montrose area news and video on its 5:30 and 10 p.m. news casts, with Jean Reynolds, the longtime NBC anchor at the Grand Junction station. Daily Press reporters, editors and photojournalists will compile the news coverage and photography for broadcast from its print editions, and from its Web site/online entity.

Further, KKCO news reporters, photojournalists and staff will be using Daily Press facilities as a base to cover Montrose/Olathe/Ouray/Ridgway/Telluride events and breaking news.

“It will be a unique relationship, but then, this is a unique market, in flux from new development and growth,” said Daily Press publisher/group manager Stephen Woody. “Montrose has become a center for commerce and community. There are a lot of symmetries between our two cities (Grand Junction/Montrose) and western Colorado as a whole.”

The Daily Press and KKCO began sharing an online relationship in April from the two media’s web sites, www.kkco11newscolorado.com and www.montrosepress.com.

The Daily Press began streaming video coverage in February of breaking news, local events and meetings, video can be seen on its web site. Extending this electronic reach into television was a natural progression into the dissemination of news and marketing information for western Colorado, Woody added.

According to the most recent Nielsen ratings/information, KKCO, Channel 11, is the local news leader in viewers at 5:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., with more than 30,000 households. The television station is also a leader in online visitors with more than 20,000 unique visitors monthly. KKCO is seen locally on Bresnan cable channel 9. KKCO also has local news casts/programming at 6:30 a.m. and 12 noon.

The Daily Press is Montrose’ oldest business, established with the city’s founding in 1882. It is distributed to more than 13,000 print readers daily and averages more than 4,000 unique visitors daily to its web site.

Since 1997, the Daily Press has diversified its operations into commercial printing, online marketing and readership, direct mail marketing and book publishing.

The Daily Press will relocate its news operations from downtown Montrose into a new building one mile north of Montrose Regional Airport in August. The Press’ printing and distribution center was built adjacent to the new building two years ago.