Gary Cocola

2000 ENTREPRENEUR IN RESIDENCE

Gary M. Cocola is the President of Cocola Broadcasting Companies, with headquarters in Fresno, California.

Cocola Broadcasting Companies is the licensee of television stations, serving the Fresno, Bakersfield, Sacramento, Santa Maria and Arroyo Grande, California television markets. He also operates the Home Shopping Affiliate, KBSE-TV in the Boise, Idaho television market.

Mr. Cocola started his broadcast career as an on-the-air personality in radio and television between 1956 and 1964. He hosted his own programs on both radio & television in the Fresno, Bakersfield and Monterey California markets.

In 1964 he left the Broadcasting Industry to join his father in the family produce business. In 1985, after a seven-year effort to obtain a construction permit from the Federal Communications Commission, he built Channel 59, KMSG-TV in Fresno. He left the produce industry at that time to own and operate the station. KMSG-TV was an affiliate of the Spanish language network, Telemundo. He sold that station in 1991.

In 1992, he formed Cocola Broadcasting Companies with the launch of KGMC-TV Channel 43 the Fresno markets only Independent Television Station. Channel 43 is also carried on the AT&T Cable system on Channel 10. During the next several years he has continued to build and now operates a total of twenty television stations.