Patsy and Craig Smullin in the control room at KOBI-TV 5 in downtown Medford.

When Bill Smullin created KOBI-TV 5 on Aug. 1, 1953, there were no other VHF television stations in the state of Oregon.

There were virtually no televisions, either. But Smullin didn’t waver in his vision. He brought televisions in by train from the East Coast and gave them away to his first advertisers so they could watch their own ads, said Patsy Smullin, Bill’s daughter and president of California Oregon Broadcasting Inc.

The company runs KOBI and its sister station KOTI (Channel 2) in Klamath Falls. Between the two, the company serves viewers in nine counties in Southern Oregon and Northern California.

Ahead of the 70th anniversary, Smullin pointed out the business is unique now not only for being the first, but the only — KOBI and KOTI are the only locally owned TV stations in the Rogue Valley and the Klamath Basin.

From her father, Smullin remembered learning how to cover nine counties. 

“I remember when I was a kid and we were in Yreka, there was a fire on I-5, and my dad said, ‘You’re going to want to call to find out if the Coos Bay stores are going to get stocked, people will want to know,’ and at first I was like, ‘What?’” she said. People in Coos Bay were going to wonder whether the trucks on I-5 would be able to get through.

Over time, the message sank in, she said. The region and its residents are connected. People share more than they don’t share. Stories should serve everyone as much as they can.

At the KOBI station in downtown Medford Friday, Smullin moved with the comfort of somebody who is at home. She grew up at the stations, she said, and she has years of fond memories of the whole family working together in set and studio. 

She pointed to photos of old shows such as the “Aunt Polly Show,” featuring her mother and sometimes her sister. Alongside black-and-white photos of the family at work, awards decorate the walls. Photos of Smullin and her father with presidents George Bush Sr. and Ronald Reagan hang nearby. Smullin beamed with the same impish grin seen in the photos.

“I was the youngest of five children, I never expected to go into the business. And now Craig and I, we’re it,” she said.

Craig Smullin — the station’s news director — is Patsy’s nephew. Even if only two Smullins are at work now, the family atmosphere remains through the way the company operates, he said.

Unlike many television news studios, she said, the entire studio works together, from marketing and sales to traffic and weather.

“We don’t want anyone to feel isolated. We want everyone to feel they’re part of it. It’s important to us,” she said.

Passing framed photos of KOBI political debates on the wall, Smullin stopped and pointed to them with a suddenly serious eye.

“We’ll never stop doing these,” she said.

Even as the digital age has made it harder for journalists to capture an audience and easier for critics to pick apart the work, KOBI-TV will never relent in delivering political debates, she said.

Staff will always be expected to be informed and unbiased. This task gets to the heart of Smullin’s vision for her news stations — a cooperative spirit fostered between all staff to ensure they can meet the weighty challenge of journalism’s highest ideal in the face of the pressure and pace of the work itself.

Smullin looked into the station’s control rooms, with their seemingly infinite bundles of colorful wire, with Scott Gee, creative services director. In the face of budget cuts and the pandemic, the station has automated and stripped down the number of staff operating that equipment, the teleprompters and cameras, he said. 

Walking into the set for shows such as “Docs on Call,” Smullin was proud to point to continuity there — next year Dr. Robin Miller will mark 21 years as the host of the show. The station also boasts five-and-a-half hours of local news every day, she said. 

Just down the hall is the main news set, complete with the weatherman’s green screen and a news desk with cameras between them. Behind the green screen in the weatherman’s private quarters, computers showed intricate programs and rows of colorful ties hung on the wall.

Leaning on the table where anchors interview guests, Smullin cited her favorite memory on that set.

“The first newscast we did when we moved here in the ’80s — there were a lot of surprises, a lot of errors to fix,” she said with a laugh.

Asked about watching the changes through the decades from switching to color to going digital, Smullin answered quickly.

“It’s been expensive. It’s why so many smaller markets have gotten out of the business. … We watch every penny, sometimes down to the point of the ridiculous. Our staff has to understand it, and they do. You may make more at a bigger market, but there are things you get here,” she said.

Staff at KOBI don’t have to go through a corporate chain with a complaint, a question or a request for help. The owner can be reached directly by phone, said Craig Smullin.

“I do a lot of recruiting for the station, and we recruit nationally. It’s a big selling point,” he said.

The youngest remaining Smullin, Craig remembered his journey to news director and anchor. After college, he almost took an internship with the National Football League, he said, but rent in Los Angeles turned him to the family business. From his internship, he worked his way up through a variety of jobs at the station.

“I never thought I’d be on camera, I’m really more of an introvert. As a pup in the newsroom I got to know other anchors. I kind of learned through osmosis,” he said.

Smullin estimated the station’s newsroom has between 20 and 25 staff members at any given time. Between Craig Smullin and General Manager Bob Wise, they manage the high turnover rate common for broadcast newsrooms.

Sometimes employees come to Medford looking for a stepping stone to Los Angeles, Craig Smullin said. A few move then come back to KOBI — choosing the family-oriented company culture over a larger paycheck.

The station also picked up some help when KTVL Channel 10 abruptly ended its local news coverage in May.

“We were crushed to see them go,” Patsy Smullin said. “Even though they were our competitors, we were crushed. But we were able to hire many great people.”

“There were people crying in the lobby. I thought there had been an accident, maybe right outside the station,” she said.

Once she realized the crowd was actually former Channel 10 employees, Smullin went from surprise to handing out job applications in minutes, she said. 

To protect small broadcast stations, Smullin has traveled to Washington, D.C., to work as a lobbyist many times over the years. Looking at the station logo on the wall, she remembered leaning on her father’s choice of logo in that work.

“I’ve fought every new manager over the years not to change the logo. They always want to change it. … In D.C. I wouldn’t be wearing some diamond-studded logo for KOBI. No, I’d have a pin with the 5 logo, beat up, old, plastic. And people would see it and point at it, ‘Hey! Interstate 5, Oregon, California, I know that area,’ It works,” she said.

In her quest to keep the station going into the future, Smullin tackles the big picture and the little details alike.

“Employees I’m sure notice the oddity, to see me in a meeting about carpet stains one minute and lobbying with Sen. Wyden the next — but it’s all important,” she said. 

To learn more about KOBI-TV, visit kobi5.com.