KFOR-TV - History

History

Channel 4 first debuted under the callsign WKY-TV on June 6, 1949 as Oklahoma's first television station (beating KOTV/Tulsa to the airwaves by five months). Founded by the Gaylord family-owned Oklahoma Publishing Company (original publishers of The Oklahoman and then-owners of WKY 930 AM), it has been an NBC affiliate since its sign-on, owing to WKY's longtime affiliation with the NBC Radio Network. Early on, the station also held secondary affiliations with ABC, CBS and the DuMont Television Network. The station originally operated from studio facilities inside the Municipal Auditorium in downtown Oklahoma City, with local programming produced in that same section of the city from the Little Theatre. Because of a freeze on new television station licenses imposed by the Federal Communications Commission, WKY-TV was the only television station in the Oklahoma City market, until 1953 when KTVQ signed on, taking the ABC affiliation. WKY-TV lost the CBS affiliation when KWTV signed on in December of that year. WKY-TV subsequently lost the DuMont affiliation when the network shut down in August 1956; that same year, KTVQ ceased operations (the UHF channel 25 frequency used by that station is now used by Fox affiliate KOKH-TV), and channel 4 picked up ABC as a secondary affiliation once again. It lost the ABC affiliation for the second time in 1958, when Enid television station KGEO-TV relocated to Oklahoma City under the callsign KOCO-TV, that left WKY-TV with only the NBC affiliation.

As NBC became the first television network to broadcast programming in color in 1954, WKY-TV followed suit as one of the first television stations in the United States to make this transition several years before many other stations started to broadcast color programming (with most not making that transitioning until the mid-1960s). That same year on September 8 (shortly before he left for rival KWTV), WKY meteorologist Harry Volkman delivered the first television broadcast of a warning of an impending tornado in the Oklahoma City area, using a bootlegged tornado forecast issued by staff at Tinker Air Force Base. Station management made the call to air the alert as they figured that giving advanced warning on tornadoes would save lives (the FCC prohibited television and radio stations from warning of impending tornadoes during this period, at a time when many of these storms caused significant losses of life in the range of 100 people or more); survivors sent letters of thanks following the storm to WKY-TV and Volkman for the advanced warning.

In 1966, WKY-TV became the originating studio for country music singer Buck Owens' half-hour syndicated program, The Buck Owens Ranch Show (the first season of which was produced by brothers and local businessmen Bud and Don Mathis, the former of whom played the "ranch foreman" that joked and bantered with Owens), which was seen in over 100 U.S. markets at its height and was perhaps the most successful program of its kind that was not produced in Nashville, where the majority of country music and country-related television programs has historically originated; regular acts that appeared included Owens' band, the Buckaroos, Kay Adams, the Hager Twins, Susan Raye and Owens' sons Buddy Alan and Mike (the show should not be confused with Owens' later series Hee Haw, whose producers forced Owens to discontinue production on Ranch in 1973, due to music duplication on both programs). In 1972, news director Ernie Schultz hired Pam Henry as the first female to become a reporter on Oklahoma television, later becoming the state's first female news anchor. Henry worked in television news for 30 years, despite walking on crutches due to contracting polio at 14 months old (Henry had served as the national poster child for the March of Dimes in 1959).

The Oklahoma Publishing Company acquired several other television and radio stations over the years: including WSFA/Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, WTVT/Tampa, Florida in 1956, WVTV/Milwaukee in 1966, KHTV/Houston upon its 1967 launch and KTVT/Fort Worth in 1971; WKY-TV served as the group's flagship station, which ultimately became known as the WKY Television System. When the FCC barred cross-ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations in 1974, the combination of The Daily Oklahoman and WKY-AM-TV was grandfathered under the rule. This cluster was broken up with WKY-TV's 1976 sale to Evening News Association subsdiary Universal Communications, which changed channel 4's callsign to KTVY. WKY radio remained under Oklahoma Publishing Company ownership, while the television group was rechristened after the family that owned the company under the name Gaylord Broadcasting. During the KTVY years, the station aired hour-long edited replays of Oklahoma Sooners football games co-hosted by then-head coach Barry Switzer, which was syndicated to other stations such as KDOC-TV/Anaheim, California; the University of Oklahoma challenged the NCAA's rules restricting the number of college football telecasts around this time, which were lifted under a ruling by the United States Supreme Court in 1984.

The Gannett Company purchased the Evening News Association in 1986, forcing Gannett to sell KTVY as the company had already owned KOCO-TV at the time (similar ownership conflict resulted in KOLD-TV/Tucson, Arizona and WALA-TV/Mobile, Alabama being sold off due to Gannett's ownership of the Tucson Citizen and the Pensacola News Journal newspapers); after just one day of ownership, Gannett sold the station to Knight-Ridder Broadcasting. Knight-Ridder sold all of its broadcasting properties in 1989, to separate buyers as part of a plan to reduce its $929 million debt load, KTVY went to Palmer Communications (owners of WHO-TV/Des Moines, Iowa) in September of that year. The station's call letters were later changed to the current KFOR-TV on April 22, 1990. In 1991, Palmer Communications attempted to sell KFOR-TV to Hughes Broadcasting Partners, along with WHO-TV/AM and KLYF-FM in Des Moines; the sale was later aborted. The New York Times Company purchased the two stations in 1996, after an earlier attempt by River City Broadcasting (which was in the process of being acquired by the Sinclair Broadcast Group) to purchase the Palmer television holdings fell through due to FCC regulations that at the time prevented one entity from owning two stations in the same market (Sinclair had purchased KOCB around this time and effectively acquired KDSM-TV/Des Moines due to the River City purchase, preventing Sinclair from acquiring WHO-TV).

KFOR-TV eventually became the first station in the country to introduce colorized Doppler weather radar and in the 1990s, became the first television station to broadcast pictures and video of severe weather through cell phones. The WKY-AM-TV transmitter tower between Kelly Avenue and the Broadway Extension (which was designed to withstand winds in excess of 125 mph (201 km/h)) collapsed on June 13, 1998 (during a tornado outbreak that affected northern areas of the city), due to straight-line wind gusts up to 105 mph (169 km/h) (these winds caused minor damage to the nearby studios of KOCO-TV). The collapse of the tower, which had been used as an auxiliary tower for KFOR-TV and WKY-AM at the time, was captured by a camera on KWTV's broadcast tower. On September 14, 2005, CBS Corporation sold KAUT to The New York Times Company, creating a duopoly with KFOR-TV upon its finalization on November 4. On September 12, 2006, less than a year after closing on its purchase of KFOR, The New York Times Company announced its intention to sell its nine television stations. It entered into an agreement with private equity group Oak Hill Capital Partners to sell its station group to Local TV on January 4, 2007, with the sale finalized on May 7.