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KOCO-TV (channel 5) is a
television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the eart ...
in
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, and ...
, United States, affiliated with
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
and owned by
Hearst Television Hearst Television, Inc. (formerly Hearst-Argyle Television) is a broadcasting company in the United States owned by Hearst Communications. From 1998 to mid-2009, the company traded its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ...
. Its studios and transmitter are located on East Britton Road ( Historic Route 66)—between North Kelley and North Eastern Avenues—in the McCourry Heights neighborhood of northeast Oklahoma City. Although KOCO-TV's call letters sound like " cocoa" if pronounced as a word, the station is never referred to in that manner; it is always mentioned on air as "K-O-C-O".


History


Early history in Enid

The
Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
(FCC) originally assigned the VHF channel 5 allocation in the Oklahoma City
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to Enid. The initial application to broadcast over the frequency was filed in July 1952—shortly after the FCC had lifted a four-year moratorium on new television station license applications—when the Enid Radiophone Company, a subsidiary of ''
Enid News & Eagle The ''Enid News & Eagle'' is a daily newspaper published Tuesday through Sunday in Enid, Oklahoma, United States. The publication covers several counties in northwest Oklahoma and is owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. The newspaper also ...
'' parent Enid Publishing Company and owner of radio station KCRC (1390 AM), applied with the FCC to obtain a construction permit and license to operate a television station on VHF channel 5. Enid businessman George Streets, owner of local electronics manufacturer Streets Electronics Inc., filed a separate license application for channel 5 in November of that year. When the FCC awarded the license and permit for channel 5 to Streets (who would serve as its original
general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...
), and his ownership group (which included local building contractor Philip R. Banta, who served as the station's president, and stockholder L.D. Banta, both of whom—like Streets—held similar 21.3% interests in the station) on February 11, 1954, he requested and received approval to assign KGEO-TV (for "Greater Enid, Oklahoma") as the call letters for his television station. As consolation for losing the application grant to Streets Electronics, the Streets group gave Enid Radiophone an option to acquire a 20% stake in the station. The station began test broadcasts on July 6, 1954; KGEO—which originally intended to debut on June 15, three weeks before test telecasts commenced—officially signed on the air nine days later on July 15. Channel 5 was the fifth television station to sign on in the Oklahoma City market—behind WKY-TV (channel 4, now
KFOR-TV KFOR-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Independent station (North America), independent station KAUT-TV (channel ...
), which signed on the air on June 6, 1949;
KTVQ KTVQ (channel 2) is a television station in Billings, Montana, United States, affiliated with CBS and The CW Plus. Owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, it is part of the Montana Television Network, a statewide network of CBS-affiliated station ...
(channel 25, allocation now occupied by
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affiliate KOKH-TV), which signed on October 28, 1953; KLPR-TV (channel 19, allocation now occupied by
Cornerstone Television The Cornerstone Television Network is a non-commercial Christian broadcast and satellite television network based in Wall, Pennsylvania, United States. Its founder was Russ Bixler. The network has 44 full-power and 57 low-power affiliate station ...
affiliate
KUOT-CD KUOT-CD, virtual and UHF digital channel 21 is a low-powered, Class A 3ABN- affiliated television station licensed to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States. Founded March 7, 1995, the station is owned by The Edge Spectrum, Inc. Digital tel ...
), which signed on November 8, 1953; and
KWTV KWTV-DT (channel 9) is a television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is the Flagship (broadcasting), flagship broadcast property of locally based Griffin Media, and is co-owned with MyNe ...
(channel 9), which signed on December 20, 1953—the seventh television station to sign on in the state of Oklahoma, the first within the Oklahoma City market's present designated boundaries to be
licensed A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
outside of Oklahoma City proper, and the only full-power VHF station to have operated in northern Oklahoma. The station originally maintained studio facilities located at East Randolph Avenue and North 2nd Street in northeastern Enid, adjacent to a Streets-owned appliance store; KGEO based its transmission tower adjacent to the property. Initially broadcasting nine hours of programming per day from 2:30 to 11:30 p.m., Channel 5 has operated as an
ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...
affiliate since its debut, In addition to carrying ABC programming, KGEO-TV also maintained a secondary affiliation with the
NTA Film Network The NTA Film Network was an early American television network founded by Ely Landau in 1956. The network was not a full-time television network like CBS, NBC, or ABC. Rather, it operated on a part-time basis, broadcasting films and several f ...
from October 15, 1956, until the programming service ceased operations in November 1961. The film
anthology series An anthology series is a radio, television, video game or film series that spans different genres and presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a dif ...
''NTA Film Spectacular'' was the service's only program to be cleared by KGEO/KOCO, as the majority of NTA's offerings were carried by either WKY-TV (which cleared several of NTA's drama, interview and variety series) or KWTV (which had carried most of the service's scripted programs). KGEO management charged that some provisions of
National Telefilm Associates National Telefilm Associates (NTA) was an audio-visual marketing company primarily concerned with the syndication of American film libraries to television, including the Republic Pictures film library. It was successful enough on cable television ...
(NTA)'s contracts with NTA Film affiliates—particularly, a compulsory 11-hour "option" for affiliates to carry network programming—violated FCC rules for chain broadcasters; these accusations were rebutted in an FCC hearing on October 5, 1956, when NTA representatives claimed that the company did not abdicate license control over programs and that affiliation contracts, among other allowances, permitted stations to decline clearance of certain programs. Channel 5 became an exclusive ABC affiliate in November 1961, when National Telefilm Associates discontinued the NTA Film Network service.


Transfer to Oklahoma City

Beginning under the stewardship of the Streets group, the station's ownership made a concerted effort to migrate channel 5 into the larger Oklahoma City metropolitan area. On January 11, 1955, Streets Electronics filed a construction permit application to build a new -tall tower in a rural area west-northwest of
Crescent A crescent shape (, ) is a symbol or emblem used to represent the lunar phase in the first quarter (the "sickle moon"), or by extension a symbol representing the Moon itself. In Hinduism, Lord Shiva is often shown wearing a crescent moon on his ...
( south-southeast of Enid). The move came shortly before the FCC proposed rules to limit television transmission antennas from being located more than from the outskirts of a station's principal city of license. The KGEO transmitter proposal as well as a proposal by KSWS-TV (now NBC affiliate
KOBR KOBR (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Roswell, New Mexico, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is a satellite of Albuquerque-based KOB (channel 4) which is owned by Saint Paul, Minnesota-based Hubbard Broadcasting. KOBR's trans ...
) in Roswell, New Mexico to build a transmission tower drew opposition from the
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...
and the
U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...
(DoD), which were concerned that broadcast towers standing at heights above would create safety hazards for military and civil aircraft. On August 5, FCC Hearing Examiner Hugh B. Hutchison issued a recommendation for approval of the move of the KGEO transmitter to the Crescent site, citing that the existing tower near Enid (located within a proximity to
Vance Air Force Base Vance Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located in southern Enid, Oklahoma, about north northwest of Oklahoma City. The base is named after local World War II hero and Medal of Honor recipient, Lieutenant Colonel Leon Robert Va ...
and Woodring Airport) was more of a hazard to airplanes than the proposed tower would have been, that the proposed tower would substantially place 678,439 residents within KGEO-TV's signal contour. Hutchinson also stated that KGEO was not guilty of charges made by KTVQ owner Republic Television and Radio Company that channel 5 wanted to "straddle" its transmitter between Enid and Oklahoma City to serve both cities, as between 75% and 85% of television set owners in the Enid area had oriented their home antennas to receive signals from Oklahoma City and the new tower would provide improved reception in Enid by allowing the signal to propagate into the area at the same direction that these home antennas were aimed. On December 15, the Commission denied motions by Republic Television and Radio (which was concerned that KGEO's move to the Crescent site would create unfair competition that would result in the shutdown of the bankrupt station) to set aside the recommendation to grant of the transmitter application as well as a petition to reopen the record and call attention to the issues the move would cause. The FCC granted the permit change application by Streets Electronics in a 6–1 vote on May 4, 1956, subject to the group ensuring that the tower include sufficient lighting and hazard markings; the agency subsequently denied DoD petitions to deny KGEO's permit as well as one filed by WSLA (channel 8, now
WAKA Waka may refer to: Culture and language * Waka (canoe), a Polynesian word for canoe; especially, canoes of the Māori of New Zealand ** Waka ama, a Polynesian outrigger canoe ** Waka hourua, a Polynesian ocean-going canoe ** Waka taua, a Māori w ...
) in Selma, Alabama to increase its tower height from to based on the issues previously addressed. On October 9, 1956, the Enid broadcast tower collapsed as construction crews prepared to relocate the station's transmitter antenna to the newly built Crescent tower, causing an estimated $140,000 in damage. The crane boom and
gin pole A gin pole is a supported pole that uses a pulley or block and tackle on its upper end to lift loads. The lower end is braced or set in a shallow hole and positioned so the upper end lies above the object to be lifted. The pole (also known as ...
that was hoisting the antenna off its platform buckled along with the tower, and the antenna dug a furrow into the ground, folding into four large sections during the collapse. KGEO-TV's analog signal was briefly knocked off the air until it set up temporary transmitter facilities from an auxiliary tower in downtown Enid, where it continued to transmit until the new tower became operational. On October 11, 1957, Streets Electronics sold KGEO-TV to the Caster-Robison Television Corporation (owned by broadcasting executives Louis E. Caster and Ashley Robison) for $950,000 plus the assumption of approximately $500,000 in debt; the sale to the Caster-Robison group received FCC approval two months later on December 11, with the then-recently deceased Caster's interest subsequently being transferred to his estate on March 5, 1958. On March 1, 1958, the station's call letters were changed to KOCO-TV (for "Oklahoma City, Oklahoma"), to reflect its new secondary city of service. Although it nominally remained an Enid station, KOCO had moved its studio operations to Oklahoma City, setting up temporary facilities inside a converted former Kimberling's
grocery store A grocery store ( AE), grocery shop ( BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food products, which may be fresh or packaged. In everyday U.S. usage, however, "grocery store" is a synonym for supermarket, a ...
on Britton Road. In October of that year, the station's operations moved to a permanent studio facility on a plot of land near Northwest 63rd Street and Portland Avenue, which included a terrace overlooking
Lake Hefner Lake Hefner is a reservoir in northwestern Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was built in the 1940s to expand the water supply for the city of Oklahoma City,station identification Station identification (ident, network ID or channel ID or bumper) is the practice of radio and television stations and networks identifying themselves on-air, typically by means of a call sign or brand name (sometimes known, particularly in th ...
rules to identify as an Enid–Oklahoma City station on-air and in license documents; however, the Commission denied the petition in May 1961. Following Caster's death on May 15, 1960, due to a
heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which ma ...
, Ashley Robison and the inheritors of Caster's estate sought offers to sell off KOCO. In May 1961, Caster-Robison Television sold KOCO to the Cimarron Television Corporation—a subsidiary of Oklahoma City-based Capital City Investment Corporation that included among its investors, oilmen Dean A. McGee and John E. Kirkpatrick, Grayce Kerr (wife of state senator
Robert S. Kerr Robert Samuel Kerr (September 11, 1896 – January 1, 1963) was an American businessman and politician from Oklahoma. Kerr formed a petroleum company before turning to politics. He served as the 12th governor of Oklahoma from 1943 to 1947 and ...
, who also was a minority owner of KVOO-TV ow_KJRH-TV.html" ;"title="KJRH-TV.html" ;"title="ow KJRH-TV">ow KJRH-TV">KJRH-TV.html" ;"title="ow KJRH-TV">ow KJRH-TVin Tulsa with McGee at the time) as well as longtime KOCO stockholders Philip and L. D. Banta—for $3 million. The sale received FCC approval on September 27 of that year. As that transaction was taking place, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to add a third commercial VHF allocation, under reduced mileage separation requirements, in eight U.S. markets. Under the plan, per an earlier filing by the Caster-Robison group, KGEO and its channel 5 allocation would be moved to Oklahoma City, but with its signal radiation suppressed to alleviate co-channel interference with KFSA-TV (now KFSM-TV) in Fort Smith, Arkansas, Fort Smith (located east of Oklahoma City, at a distance below the FCC's threshold for separation of adjacent broadcast signals transmitting on the same channel). Despite the full proposal receiving backing from ABC, the FCC voted twice against relocating short-spaced VHF channels into seven of the eight proposed markets during the spring of 1963, but granted permission for KOCO's channel allocation to be shifted to Oklahoma City both times, albeit with requirements that it observe standard mileage separation requirements to limit interference with KFSA-TV and that it maintain an auxiliary studio in Enid. The FCC granted KOCO a waiver of the mileage requirement in a 5–1 vote on July 25 of that year, after station representatives convinced the Commission that KOCO's would signal be impaired within Oklahoma City at a distance sufficient under the requirements, and that, if it were to comply with standard spacing rules and
Civil Aeronautics Board The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was an agency of the federal government of the United States, formed in 1938 and abolished in 1985, that regulated aviation services including scheduled passenger airline serviceStringer, David H."Non-Skeds: T ...
tower height limitations, it would be difficult for the transmitter to provide a signal that would allow it to adequately serve both the state capital and Enid. (KOCO was the second Oklahoma television station to transfer its license and operations to a larger, nearby city: fellow ABC affiliate KTVX ow_KTUL.html"_;"title="KTUL.html"_;"title="ow_KTUL">ow_KTUL">KTUL.html"_;"title="ow_KTUL">ow_KTULhad_moved_from_Muskogee,_Oklahoma.html" ;"title="KTUL">ow_KTUL.html" ;"title="KTUL.html" ;"title="ow KTUL">ow KTUL">KTUL.html" ;"title="ow KTUL">ow KTULhad moved from Muskogee, Oklahoma">Muskogee to Tulsa in August 1957.) In March 1964, channel 5 moved its transmitter facilities to a tower on East Britton Road in northeast Oklahoma City, at an antenna farm housing the transmission towers of other local television and radio stations; the tower was dedicated with two days of ceremonies that included such notable guests as ABC News anchor Howard K. Smith and the husband-and-wife comedy team of Phil Ford (comedian), Phil Ford and Mimi Hines. KOCO's formal transfer to Oklahoma City made it the third station in the state's capital city to have been affiliated with ABC: WKY-TV had aired select ABC shows under a secondary basic affiliation from its sign-on in June 1949 until August 1956 and fledgling UHF outlet KTVQ maintained a full-time primary affiliation from its sign-on in November 1953 until that station ceased operations in December 1955, with WKY-TV continuing to carry some of the network's programs while KTVQ was operating. (Like other UHF stations of the period, television viewers were required to purchase a standalone UHF tuner in order to receive KTVQ's signal.) One of channel 5's most popular local programs was a show aimed at younger audiences; Ed Birchall hosted a local
children's program Children's television series (or children's television shows) are television programs designed for children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run during the early evenin ...
on the station for 29 years from March 1959 until shortly before his death after a brief bout with advanced-stage cancer in July 1988. Originally debuting as ''Lunch With HoHo'' and airing under various titles (including ''HoHo's Cartoon Circus'', ''Good Morning HoHo'' and ''HoHo's Showplace''), Birchall—who donned a colored patchwork jacket and suspender pants, a small brown
top hat A top hat (also called a high hat, a cylinder hat, or, informally, a topper) is a tall, flat-crowned hat for men traditionally associated with formal wear in Western dress codes, meaning white tie, morning dress, or frock coat. Traditional ...
and oversized tie in his portrayal of HoHo the Clown—starred alongside a
sock puppet A sock puppet or sockpuppet is a puppet made from a sock or a similar garment. The puppeteer wears the sock on a hand and lower arm as if it were a glove, with the puppet's mouth being formed by the region between the sock's heel and toe, and ...
named Pokey (played by longtime KOCO stage manager Bill Howard), and presented various segments from educational content to light-hearted newspaper stories to cartoon shorts. A memorial service (the first of three held for Birchall) had to be moved to St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church, one of Oklahoma City's largest churches, to accommodate a live KOCO broadcast (which was also carried by KTVY, KWTV and KOKH-TV) as well as a crowd of mourners that included an
honor guard A guard of honour ( GB), also honor guard ( US), also ceremonial guard, is a group of people, usually military in nature, appointed to receive or guard a head of state or other dignitaries, the fallen in war, or to attend at state ceremonials, ...
of professional clowns. Other notable past local programs produced by KGEO/KOCO included entertainment/lifestyle/fashion talk program ''The Ida B. Show'' (originally titled ''At Home with Ida B.'' and then ''Dateline Hollywood''), whose host, Ida Blackburn, had previously hosted a local version of ''
Romper Room ''Romper Room'' is an American children's television series that was franchised and syndicated from 1953 to 1994. The program targeted preschoolers (children five years of age or younger), and was created and produced by Bert Claster and his p ...
'' for the station from 1958 to 1960; and ''Captain Tom's
Popeye Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar.Dialing for Dollars'' movie/trivia franchise.


Combined Communications ownership

In November 1969, Cimarron Television announced that it would sell KOCO-TV to the
Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1,608,139 residents as of 2020. It is the fifth-most populous city in the United States, and the on ...
-based Combined Communications Corporation (CCC) for $6.5 million. It was the first broadcast property ever acquired by CCC, which was formed earlier that year through the merger of the KTAR Broadcasting Company (owner of company flagships KTAR-AM- TV in Phoenix) and Eller Outdoor Advertising (a company founded by CCC president
Karl Eller Karl Eller (June 20, 1928 – March 10, 2019) was an American businessman and entrepreneur. Early life Eller grew up in Tucson, Arizona. He played football collegiately at the University of Arizona where he was a member of the Phi Gamma Del ...
). The sale received FCC approval on July 17, 1970. In February 1977, KOCO adopted "5 Alive" as its on-air branding, as part of Combined Communications' rollout of the "Alive" branding concept—which Peters Productions initially developed for
Tribune Broadcasting Tribune Broadcasting Company, LLC was an American media company which operated as a subsidiary of Tribune Media, a media conglomerate based in Chicago, Illinois. The group owned and operated television and radio stations throughout the United St ...
-owned independent station
WPIX WPIX (channel 11) is a television station in New York City. Owned by Mission Broadcasting, it is operated under a local marketing agreement (LMA) by Nexstar Media Group, making it a ''de facto'' owned-and-operated station and flagship of Th ...
(now a CW affiliate) in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
in early 1976—on most of the group's television stations. It was accompanied by a logo similar to that used at the time by
Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
sister station
WXIA-TV WXIA-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate WATL (channel 36). Both stations share studios at One Monroe Place on the north ...
, when it began identifying as "11 Alive" in September 1976 (, WXIA is the only station out of the four former CCC outlets that continues to use the "Alive" moniker, which had also been utilized by sister station
WLKY WLKY (channel 32) is a television station in Louisville, Kentucky, United States, affiliated with CBS. The station is owned by Hearst Television, and maintains studios on Mellwood Avenue (near I-71) on Louisville's east side; its transmitter is ...
in
Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...
and former sister
WPTA WPTA (channel 21) is a television station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, affiliated with ABC, NBC, and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by Gray Television alongside CW+ affiliate WISE-TV (channel 33). Both stations share studios on Butler Road ...
in
Fort Wayne, Indiana Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...
). On March 31, 1977, Washington Star Communications announced that it would sell its
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
flagship station WMAL-TV (now
WJLA-TV WJLA-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Washington, D.C., affiliated with ABC. It is one of two flagship stations of Sinclair Broadcast Group (alongside dual Fox/ MyNetworkTV affiliate WBFF hannel 45in Baltimore), and is also s ...
) to Combined Communications, in exchange for KOCO-TV and approximately $65 million of nonvoting preferred stock in CCC. The deal, which was considered to be the largest purchase price for a single television station up to that time, was done to comply with an FCC rulemaking to diversify print and broadcast media ownership, under which the agency required Star Communications to divest itself of all but one of its D.C.-area media properties by January 1979. The proceeds from the sale, as well as a total of $65 million that Star Communications would have received within 20 years through the repurchase of Combined stock, were to be used to offset the continuing monetary losses of ''
The Washington Star ''The Washington Star'', previously known as the ''Washington Star-News'' and the Washington ''Evening Star'', was a daily afternoon newspaper published in Washington, D.C., between 1852 and 1981. The Sunday edition was known as the ''Sunday Sta ...
'' newspaper. Although the sale initially received approval from the FCC in January 1978, it was never finalized: on February 3, 1978, three weeks before the sale contract with CCC was set to expire, Star Communications sold ''The Washington Star'' to
Time Inc. Time Inc. was an American worldwide mass media corporation founded on November 28, 1922, by Henry Luce and Briton Hadden and based in New York City. It owned and published over 100 magazine brands, including its namesake ''Time'', ''Sports Illu ...
for $20 million plus the assumption of $8 million in debt. The FCC subsequently rescinded its approval of the transfer pending an inquiry into Time's purchase of the ''Star'', given the basis of the trade on ensuring the newspaper's financial stability. In a meeting to reconsider its approval of the WJLA-KOCO trade in early March (which was rescheduled from its original February 24 hearing date), the FCC once again granted approval of the station trade after the commission determined that Star Communications president
Joe Allbritton Joe Lewis Allbritton (December 29, 1924 – December 12, 2012) was an American banker, publisher and philanthropist. Early life Joe Allbritton was born on December 29, 1924, in D'Lo, Mississippi, the sixth of seven children. His family soon reloc ...
had not committed himself to retaining the ''Star'' and that reevaluating the approval order turned up no reason to overturn the original decision. Despite this, on March 24, Star Communications—which had twice extended its sale contract with CCC to accommodate the FCC's hearing docket following delays in the hearing date—terminated the sale, citing a court appeal filed by the Adams Morgan Organization, the District of Columbia chapter of the
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, the D.C. Media Task Force and the National Black Media Coalition that accused Star Communications on reneging on efforts to help minority-owned groups obtain financing to acquire the company's broadcast properties.


Gannett ownership

On May 9, 1978, the then–
Rochester, New York Rochester () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, and Yonkers, with a population of 211,328 at the 2020 United States census. Located in W ...
–based Gannett Company announced that it would purchase Combined Communications—which, at the time, had owned seven television and thirteen radio stations, two newspapers (''
The Cincinnati Enquirer ''The Cincinnati Enquirer'' is a morning daily newspaper published by Gannett in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. First published in 1841, the ''Enquirer'' is the last remaining daily newspaper in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, al ...
'' and the ''
Oakland Tribune The ''Oakland Tribune'' is a weekly newspaper published in Oakland, California, by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of MediaNews Group. Founded in 1874, the ''Tribune'' rose to become an influential daily newspaper. With the declin ...
''), and an outdoor advertising unit—in an all-stock transaction worth $370 million, which was the largest transaction involving an American print and broadcast media company up to that point. The sale—which was contingent on Gannett selling its Rochester station,
WHEC-TV WHEC-TV (channel 10) is a television station in Rochester, New York, United States, affiliated with NBC. Owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, the station maintains studios on East Avenue in Downtown Rochester and a transmitter on Pinnacle Hill in ...
(which it later sold for $27 million to BENI Broadcasting), to comply with FCC rules that restricted media companies from owning more than seven VHF television stations nationwide—both received FCC approval and was consummated by the boards of Gannett and Combined on June 7, 1979. Gannett (which would eventually spin off its broadcast holdings into
Tegna Inc. Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into tw ...
in June 2015) made major investments in the former Combined stations, aiming to improve the local news presence at KOCO and the four sister stations included in the purchase. In the fall of 1980, the station's operations were relocated into a newly constructed, state-of-the-art studio facility located near the station's Britton Road transmitter site ( east of the studios of rival KTVY); the former studio facilities on Northeast 63rd Street were subsequently purchased by the
Trinity Broadcasting Network The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) is an international Christian-based broadcast television network and the world's largest religious television network. TBN was headquartered in Costa Mesa, California, until March 3, 2017, when it sold its ...
for use as the office and production facilities for TBN owned-and-operated station
KTBO-TV KTBO-TV (channel 14) is a religious television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, owned and operated by the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). The station's transmitter is located near the John Kilpatrick Turnpike/Interstate 44, ...
(channel 14). The new $2.4-million facility (designed by Oklahoma City-based architect Frank Rees) housed two production studios, offices and an expanded newsroom, and was designed to provide passive solar energy and included overhangs to shield the building's interior from sunrays to keep the building cool during the summer months. While KOCO remained under Gannett ownership for 18 years, its position in the company's portfolio was placed in limbo several times. On September 25, 1982, Gannett announced that it would sell KOCO to the
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
-based
Chronicle Publishing Company The Chronicle Publishing Company was a print and broadcast media corporation headquartered in San Francisco, California that was in operation from 1865 until 2000. Owned for the whole of its existence by the de Young family, CPC was most notab ...
for $100 million, in exchange for Chronicle's NBC-affiliated Bay Area flagship station,
KRON-TV KRON-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to San Francisco, California, United States, serving the San Francisco Bay Area as an affiliate of MyNetworkTV. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, KRON-TV maintains studios on Front Street in the c ...
(now a
MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...
affiliate), which Chronicle had built and signed on in 1949. The transaction was contingent on Gannett selling its Oakland-based newspaper, ''East Bay Today'' (which served as the prototype for ''
USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...
''), to comply with cross-ownership restrictions that prohibit the common ownership of newspapers and full-power television stations in the same market, and was part of an attempt by the company to concentrate its television station holdings to major markets. On September 28, 1983, Chronicle and Gannett "mutually agreed" to terminate the sale agreement, after Chronicle management decided to retain ownership of KRON. Under Gannett, KOCO became heavily involved in community outreach initiatives; from 1981 to 1997, the station held the "5 Who Care Awards," an annual awards telecast recognizing outstanding public service contributions by local volunteers, businesses and
non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
s and was expanded in 1989 to offer the "Kids Who Care Awards" to honor volunteerism by Oklahoma youth. The station expanded upon these initiatives in 1989, with the creation of the "Project Challenge" campaign, which included the "Oklahoma's Best" honors for academic excellence and dedication to the teaching profession. On September 5, 1985, Gannett announced that it would purchase the Evening News Association for $717 million. However, the purchase created an ownership conflict between KOCO-TV and NBC-affiliated rival KTVY, as FCC rules in effect at the time had prohibited a single company from owning two commercial television stations in the same market. (Even today, that combination would have been forbidden as their respective total-day viewership falls among the agency's threshold prohibiting co-ownership of any of the four highest-rated television stations within a single media market.) Gannett ultimately chose to keep KOCO on November 15, 1985, when it sold KTVY, along with fellow NBC affiliate
WALA-TV WALA-TV (channel 10) is a television station licensed to Mobile, Alabama, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for southwest Alabama and northwest Florida. Owned by Gray Television, the station maintains studios on Satchel Paige Drive ...
(now a Fox affiliate) in Mobile, Alabama and CBS affiliate
KOLD-TV KOLD-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Tucson, Arizona, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Gray Television, which provides certain services to Fox affiliate KMSB (channel 11) and MyNetworkTV affiliate KTTU (channel 18 ...
in
Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...
to
Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
-based Knight Ridder Broadcasting for $160 million. However, Gannett was allowed to jointly own KOCO and KTVY under a temporary waiver until the Knight-Ridder transaction was completed in February 1986, one month after the KTVY sale was finalized. On May 14, 1990, three days after KFOR-TV adopted a similar schedule, channel 5 began maintaining a 24-hour-a-day programming schedule, adding a mix of syndicated programming and infomercials as well as hourly local news updates to fill overnight timeslots. (KOCO resumed daily overnight sign-offs on December 27, 1991; it permanently instituted a 24-hour schedule on November 28, 1993, offering ABC's overnight newscast ''
World News Now ''World News Now'' (or WNN) is an American overnight news broadcast seen on ABC. Airing during the early morning hours each Monday through Friday, the program features a mix of general news and off-beat stories, along with weather forecasts, ...
'' on most nights and an all-night classic film block on Fridays and Saturdays, the latter of which had previously been offered by KOCO from September 1981 until it resumed signing off on weekends in September 1987.) After having phased out the name from its news branding the previous September, when it began identifying its newscasts as ''5 News'', KOCO dropped the "5 Alive" moniker from general promotional use in May 1994, in conjunction with the debut of a new logo (which was inspired by the
Paul Rand Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum; August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) was an American art director and graphic designer, best known for his corporate Logotype, logo designs, including the logos for IBM, United Parcel Service, UPS, Enron, Morn ...
-designed
circle 7 logo The Circle 7 logo is an often-used television station logo in the United States. Designed in the early 1960s for the American Broadcasting Company's five owned-and-operated stations (all of which broadcast on VHF channel 7), the logo, or a v ...
, and was replaced with the current "circle 5" logo following a subsequent rebranding in February 1995) and on-air graphics for its newscasts and station promotions; prior to that time, KOCO and WXIA (which briefly retired the "11 Alive" brand in 1993, only to begin restoring it upon viewer demand) were the only Gannett stations that had continued to use the "Alive" moniker. On July 24, 1995, the Gannett Company announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire Multimedia, Inc. for $1.7 billion, plus $539 million in long-term debt. When the FCC approved the merger in late November 1995, the agency's Broadcast Bureau stipulated that Gannett would have to sell KOCO and NBC-affiliated sister station
WLWT WLWT (channel 5) is a television station in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Hearst Television. The station's studios are located on Young Street, and its transmitter is located on Chickasaw Street, both in the ...
in
Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wi ...
to comply with cross-ownership regulations. (Gannett was also required to sell CBS affiliate
WMAZ-TV WMAZ-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Macon, Georgia, United States, affiliated with CBS and The CW Plus. The station is owned by Tegna Inc., and maintains studios on Gray Highway on the northeast side of Macon; its transmitter is l ...
and sister radio stations WMAZ ow_WMAC.html"_;"title="WMAC.html"_;"title="ow_WMAC">ow_WMAC">WMAC.html"_;"title="ow_WMAC">ow_WMACand_WAYS_(AM).html" ;"title="WMAC">ow_WMAC.html" ;"title="WMAC.html" ;"title="ow WMAC">ow WMAC">WMAC.html" ;"title="ow WMAC">ow WMACand WAYS (AM)">WAYS in Macon, Georgia; however, the company was ultimately able to retain WMAZ-TV after the FCC modified its national ownership cap to allow broadcasters to own any number of television stations with a combined reach of up to 35% of all U.S. households.) However, since it could not legally own both a broadcast television station and a cable provider in the same market under FCC rules of the time period, Gannett was granted a waiver that gave the company until December 1996 to divest itself of either Multimedia Cablevision—which, at the time, was the major cable provider for most of Oklahoma City's suburban communities (except for Forest Park, which has historically had its public utilities aligned with Oklahoma City and, therefore, was the only area suburb that was part of Cox Communications's Oklahoma City service area at the time)—or KOCO-TV; the sale was finalized on December 4, 1995. (Gannett would retain ownership of its Oklahoma-based Multimedia systems until it sold most of the cable provider's assets to Cox in January 2000, resulting in the integration of Multimedia's suburban Oklahoma City operations with Cox's main city-area system.)


Hearst Television ownership

On November 20, 1996, Gannett announced that it would sell KOCO-TV and WLWT to
San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...
-based Argyle Television Holdings II (the successor company to the original Argyle Television, which sold most of its television stations to New World Communications in May 1994) for $20 million, in exchange for fellow ABC affiliate
WZZM WZZM (channel 13) is a television station licensed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States, serving West Michigan as an affiliate of ABC. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station has studios on 3 Mile Road NW in Walker (with a Grand Rapids mailing ...
in
Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is the ...
and NBC affiliate
WGRZ WGRZ (channel 2) is a television station in Buffalo, New York, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on Delaware Avenue in downtown Buffalo, and its transmitter is located on Warner Hill ...
in
Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...
. The sale – which required Gannett to sell the Niagara Falls, New York-based ''
Niagara Gazette The ''Niagara Gazette'', also referred to as ''The Gazette'', is a morning daily newspaper published in Niagara Falls, New York, United States, which covers several parts of Niagara County, including the Town of Niagara, and the City of Niagara ...
'' to alleviate a cross-ownership conflict with WGRZ – was approved by the FCC on January 27, 1997, and finalized on January 31. Subsequently, on March 27, 1997, the Hearst Corporation announced that it would purchase five of the seven Argyle Television stations—KOCO-TV, WLWT, ABC affiliates
KHBS KHBS (channel 40) is a television station in Fort Smith, Arkansas, United States, affiliated with ABC and The CW Plus. It is simulcast full-time over satellite station KHOG-TV (channel 29) in Fayetteville. Owned by Hearst Television and joint ...
in Fort Smith (and its Fayetteville satellite KHOG-TV), KITV in
Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
(and its satellites KHVO in Hilo and KMAU in
Wailuku, Hawaii Wailuku is a census-designated place (CDP) in and county seat of Maui County, Hawaii, United States. The population was 17,697 at the 2020 census. Wailuku is located just west of Kahului, at the mouth of the Iao Valley. In the early 20th cent ...
), and
WAPT WAPT (channel 16) is a television station in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, affiliated with ABC. The station is owned by Hearst Television, and maintains studios and transmitter facilities on Channel 16 Way (off MS 18) in southwest Jacks ...
in
Jackson, Mississippi Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the capital of and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, along with Raymond. The city had a population of 153,701 at t ...
, and the non-license assets of Fox affiliate
WNAC-TV WNAC-TV (channel 64), branded on-air as Fox Providence, is a television station in Providence, Rhode Island, United States, affiliated with Fox and The CW. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) ...
in
Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...
—for $525 million. The merger was approved by the FCC on June 2, 1997, and finalized in August of that year; the combined group of Hearst's six existing television stations and the five it acquired from Argyle became known as Hearst-Argyle Television (renamed
Hearst Television Hearst Television, Inc. (formerly Hearst-Argyle Television) is a broadcasting company in the United States owned by Hearst Communications. From 1998 to mid-2009, the company traded its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ...
in May 2009). The acquisition marked Hearst's return to the Oklahoma City market; the company owned radio station KOMA (1520 AM, now KOKC) from 1932 until 1938, when Hearst sold that station to John T. Griffin (who founded KWTV in 1953). (Gannett would re-enter the Oklahoma City market in November 2019, when the now mainly publishing-centered firm acquired ''
The Oklahoman ''The Oklahoman'' is the largest daily newspaper in Oklahoma, United States, and is the only regional daily that covers the Greater Oklahoma City area. The Alliance for Audited Media (formerly Audit Bureau Circulation) lists it as the 59th large ...
''—which, ironically, was co-owned with KFOR-TV from that station's June 1949 sign-on until founding owner
Gaylord Broadcasting Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc. () is a hotel, resort, entertainment, and media company named after National Historic Landmark the Ryman Auditorium, built as a tabernacle by Captain Thomas G. Ryman in 1892 and later the home of the Grand Ole Op ...
's sale of channel 4 to the Evening News Association was completed in October 1975—through its merger with GateHouse Media.) On June 13, 1998,
rear flank downdraft The rear flank downdraft (RFD) is a region of dry air wrapping around the back of a mesocyclone in a supercell thunderstorm. These areas of descending air are thought to be essential in the production of many supercellular tornadoes. Large hail ...
winds approaching struck the station's Britton Road studio, causing minor damage that included a toppled backyard fence and a large dent to the dome of its
weather radar Weather radar, also called weather surveillance radar (WSR) and Doppler weather radar, is a type of radar used to locate precipitation, calculate its motion, and estimate its type (rain, snow, hail etc.). Modern weather radars are mostly pulse- ...
. The event was broadcast live as the station was providing wall-to-wall coverage of the accompanying supercell thunderstorm, which spawned seven tornadoes across
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
and northern Oklahoma counties, while a KOCO photojournalist positioned in the studio's garage was shooting video of the storm as it approached the Britton Road facility. Believing a tornado had touched down because of the apparent cloud-based mesocyclone rotation, Mike LaPoint (who was the station's weekend evening meteorologist from 1997 to 2001) yelled to then-chief meteorologist Rick Mitchell, "Rick, it's on the ground!" as the three men ran to take shelter inside the building. Electricity was knocked out to the studio and transmitter facilities, taking the KOCO broadcast signal off-the-air for almost 24 hours; the station remained available to Cox Communications and Multimedia Cablevision subscribers via a direct auxiliary feed transmitted by
fiber optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means t ...
to the cable providers. In September 1998, when
KTEN KTEN (channel 10) is a television station licensed to Ada, Oklahoma, United States, serving the Sherman, Texas–Ada, Oklahoma market as an affiliate of NBC, The CW Plus, and ABC. The station is owned by Lockwood Broadcast Group, and maintain ...
—which had been affiliated with ABC on a part-time basis since its sign-on in June 1954—disaffiliated from the network, KOCO-TV began serving as a default ABC station for areas on the Oklahoma side of the adjacent Sherman
Ada Ada may refer to: Places Africa * Ada Foah, a town in Ghana * Ada (Ghana parliament constituency) * Ada, Osun, a town in Nigeria Asia * Ada, Urmia, a village in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Ada, Karaman, a village in Karaman Province, ...
market (including the cities of Ada,
Pauls Valley Pauls Valley is a city in and the county seat of Garvin County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 5,992 at the 2020 census, a decline of 3.2 percent from the figure of 6,187 in 2010. It was settled by and named for Smith Paul, a North ...
and Sulphur) through its existing availability on most cable providers in the region (
WFAA WFAA (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Dallas, Texas, United States, serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex as an affiliate of ABC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Decatur-licensed Estrella TV affiliate KMPX (channel 29), ...
in
Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
Fort Worth served as the primary default affiliate for counties in far southern Oklahoma and extreme north-central Texas within the DMA). However, residents in southern Oklahoma could view most ABC programs that were preempted by KTEN via KOCO for several years beforehand, particularly after the former switched to a primary NBC affiliation in 1986 (resulting in the steady reduction of ABC-provided content on KTEN's schedule to select daytime and prime time programs by 1994, when it added an additional primary affiliation with Fox). The Sherman-Ada market would regain an ABC station of its own when KTEN launched a digital subchannel affiliated with the network on May 1, 2010. Despite this, KOCO remains available on cable and
satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioi ...
providers within that market. Through this former default status, it was the only Oklahoma City television station to provide extensive live coverage of an
EF4 tornado The Enhanced Fujita scale (abbreviated as EF-Scale) rates tornado intensity based on the severity of the damage they cause. It is used in some countries, including the United States, Canada, China, and Mongolia. The Enhanced Fujita scale repla ...
that killed eight people in Lone Grove on February 10, 2009. Due partly to its strong syndicated programming lineup, KOCO has grown to become one of ABC's strongest affiliates in recent years; it ranked as one of the network's highest-rated affiliates from 2009 to 2012, according to
Nielsen Media Research Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rati ...
, sharing this distinction with two of its Hearst-owned sister stations,
WISN-TV WISN-TV (channel 12) is a television station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by Hearst Television, it is the second-oldest television station to remain with the company in all of its various iterations behind f ...
in
Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...
and
KMBC-TV KMBC-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, affiliated with American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside The CW, CW affiliate KCWE (channel 29). Both stations share stud ...
in Kansas City; the station had also made the claim of ranking as the highest-rated ABC affiliate overall from 2007 to 2009. In December 2010, KOCO became the second television station in the Oklahoma City market (after KWTV-DT) and the sixth station in Oklahoma to carry syndicated programming in high definition.


Subchannel history


KOCO-DT2

KOCO-DT2, branded as "MeTV Oklahoma City", is the
MeTV MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television program ...
-affiliated second digital subchannel of KOCO-TV, broadcasting in
widescreen Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...
standard definition on channel 5.2. In addition to carrying MeTV programming, KOCO-DT2 is also designated as an alternate ABC affiliate, and carries network (and occasionally, syndicated) programs that KOCO must preempt to carry extended
breaking news Breaking news, interchangeably termed late-breaking news and also known as a special report or special coverage or news flash, is a current issue that broadcasters feel warrants the interruption of scheduled programming or current news in orde ...
or
severe weather Severe weather is any dangerous meteorological phenomenon with the potential to cause damage, serious social disruption, or loss of human life. Types of severe weather phenomena vary, depending on the latitude, altitude, topography, and atmos ...
coverage or special event programming on its main channel. KOCO launched a digital subchannel on virtual channel 5.2 in 2005, which originally carried a live feed of the station's Doppler radar—then known as "Advantage Doppler HD" (now branded as "First Alert Dual-Pol Doppler")—accompanied by an audio simulcast of
NOAA Weather Radio NOAA Weather Radio NWR; also known as NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards is an automated 24-hour network of VHF FM weather radio stations in the United States (U.S.) that broadcast weather information directly from a nearby National Weather Servi ...
station
WXK85 National Weather Service - Norman, Oklahoma (office identification code: OUN) is a Weather Forecast Office (WFO) of the National Weather Service based in Norman, Oklahoma, which is responsible for forecasts and the dissemination of weather warni ...
. In April 2008, the subchannel became an affiliate of
The Local AccuWeather Channel AccuWeather Inc. is an American media company that provides commercial weather forecasting services worldwide. AccuWeather was founded in 1962 by Joel N. Myers, then a Pennsylvania State University graduate student working on a master's degree ...
, under the brand "First Alert Weather 24/7". Alongside carrying regional and national forecast segments provided by the
AccuWeather AccuWeather Inc. is an American media company that provides commercial weather forecasting services worldwide. AccuWeather was founded in 1962 by Joel N. Myers, then a Pennsylvania State University graduate student working on a master's degree ...
-operated network, KOCO also produced pre-recorded local forecast segments presented by meteorologists from the station's "First Alert Weather" team—which were updated two to three times per day—for the subchannel (the radar imagery and NOAA Weather Radio feed continued to be shown after the local forecast segments, along with serving as a transition segment between its AccuWeather and E/I programming). In addition, KOCO-DT2 carried a half-hour block of syndicated children's programs compliant with FCC educational programming guidelines on Monday through Saturday afternoons, and was occasionally used to air special weather coverage from its sister stations during tropical weather events (in particular, in September 2008, it simulcast coverage of
Hurricane Gustav Hurricane Gustav () was the second most destructive hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. The seventh tropical cyclone, third hurricane, and second major hurricane of the season, Gustav caused serious damage and casualties in Haiti, ...
from NBC-affiliated sister station
WDSU WDSU (channel 6) is a television station in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with NBC and owned by Hearst Television. The station's studios are located on Howard Avenue in the city's Central Business District, and its transmitt ...
in
New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
to provide information on the storm for
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
residents who evacuated inland to Oklahoma City). On January 24, 2011, KOCO-DT2 became an affiliate of
This TV This TV (also known as This TV Network and alternately stylized as thisTV) is an American free-to-air television network owned by Allen Media Broadcast Networks, LLC, part of the Allen Media Group division of Entertainment Studios. Originally f ...
, through an affiliation agreement between Hearst Television and network co-parent
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 ...
, which handled affiliate distribution for the movie-focused network on behalf of original managing partner
Weigel Broadcasting Weigel Broadcasting Co. is an American television broadcasting company based in Chicago, Illinois, alongside its flagship station WCIU-TV (Channel 26), at 26 North Halsted Street in the Greektown neighborhood. It currently owns 25 television s ...
(as
Cookie Jar Group Cookie Jar Entertainment Inc. (also known as Cookie Jar Group and originally known as CINAR; renamed as DHX Cookie Jar Inc. from 2012 until 2014, or simply just Cookie Jar) was a Canadian media production and distribution company owned by DHX ...
programmed a daily block of educational and entertainment-focused children's programs for This TV at the time, KOCO dropped the syndicated E/I programming that Hearst acquired for its stations' DT2 feeds to comply with educational content regulations for multicast services). On July 24, 2012, Hearst Television and Weigel Broadcasting announced that Hearst had renewed affiliation agreements with MeTV for eight of the group's affiliates through 2015, and agreed to add the classic television network on digital subchannels of KOCO-TV and sister stations
WCVB-TV WCVB-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Hearst Television. The station's studios are located on TV Place (off Gould Street near the I-95/ MA 128/Highland Avenue ...
in
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
WBAL-TV WBAL-TV (channel 11) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is the flagship property of Hearst Television, which has owned the station since its inception, and is sister to the company's sole r ...
in
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
,
KCRA-TV KCRA-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Sacramento, California, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside Stockton-licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate KQCA (channel 58). Both stations share studios on Tel ...
in
Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
and
WXII-TV WXII-TV (channel 12) is a television station licensed to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States, serving the Piedmont Triad region as an affiliate of NBC. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside Lexington-licensed CW affiliate WCWG (c ...
in
Greensboro Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte, North Car ...
. The This TV affiliation rights for the Oklahoma City affiliation were subsequently acquired by Family Broadcasting Group, then-owner of independent station
KSBI KSBI (channel 52) is a television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. It is owned by locally based Griffin Media alongside CBS affiliate and company flagship KWTV-DT (channel 9). Both stations share ...
(channel 52, now a MyNetworkTV affiliate); however, because KOCO's MeTV contract did not commence for another two weeks, KSBI was forced to share the This TV affiliation with KOCO-DT2 after KSBI-DT2 began carrying the latter network on September 17, 2012. KOCO-DT2 affiliated with MeTV on October 1, 2012, at which time, KSBI became the market's exclusive This TV affiliate. On August 28, 2017, KOCO-DT2 switched to a 16:9 widescreen standard definition format; prior to the upgrade, ABC and syndicated programs presented in widescreen were transmitted on KOCO-DT2 in a horizontally compressed format to fit the subchannel's 4:3 aspect frame.


KOCO-DT3

KOCO launched a digital subchannel on virtual channel 5.3 on April 19, 2021, serving as an affiliate of
home shopping Home shopping is the electronic retailing and home shopping channels industry, which includes such billion dollar television-based and e-commerce companies as Shop LC, HSN, Gemporia, TJC, QVC, eBay, ShopHQ, Buy.com and Amazon.com, as well as ...
network Shop LC (which had previously been available in the market through the DT6 subchannel of Enid-licensed
KBZC-LD KBZC-LD, virtual channel 42 and UHF digital channel 20, is a low-powered Quest- affiliated television station serving Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States. The station is owned by the DTV America Corporation, as part of a duopoly with Buzzr af ...
hannel 42 which disaffiliated from the network on May 1, 2021, two weeks after KOCO launched the DT3 subchannel). As of May 2022, KOCO-DT3 is inactive.


KOCO-DT4

KOCO-DT4 is the Story Television-affiliated fourth digital subchannel of KOCO-TV, broadcasting in widescreen standard definition on channel 5.4. KOCO launched a digital subchannel on virtual channel 5.4 in August 2021, serving as an affiliate for
getTV getTV is an American digital multicast television network owned by the Sony Pictures Television Networks subsidiary of Sony Pictures Television. Originally formatted as a movie-oriented service, the network has since transitioned into a genera ...
until 2022. On March 28, 2022,
Weigel Weigel is a German surname. Notable people with this name include: * Beverly Weigel (born 1940), New Zealand Olympic athlete *Christian Ehrenfried Weigel, German scientist *Christoph Weigel the Elder (1654–1725), German engraver, art dealer and p ...
launched Story Television on the subchannel and other Hearst and Weigel-owned stations.


KOCO-DT5

KOCO-DT5 is
TheGrio TheGrio, styled as thegrio, is an American television network and website with news, opinion, entertainment and video content geared toward Black Americans. The website originally launched in June 2009 as a division of NBC News, it became a di ...
-affiliated fifth digital subchannel of KOCO-TV, broadcasting in widescreen standard definition on channel 5.5. KOCO launched a digital subchannel on virtual channel 5.5 on August 26, 2021, serving as an affiliate of African-American-oriented entertainment network TheGrio.


KOCO-DT6

KOCO-DT6 is the
getTV getTV is an American digital multicast television network owned by the Sony Pictures Television Networks subsidiary of Sony Pictures Television. Originally formatted as a movie-oriented service, the network has since transitioned into a genera ...
-affiliated sixth digital subchannel of KOCO-TV, broadcasting in upscaled-widescreen standard definition on channel 5.6. While KOCO-DT6 itself is not currently available on cable providers within the Oklahoma City market, getTV is available locally on Dish Network channel 373 and on subscription live TV streaming services
Philo Philo of Alexandria (; grc, Φίλων, Phílōn; he, יְדִידְיָה, Yəḏīḏyāh (Jedediah); ), also called Philo Judaeus, was a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. Philo's de ...
,
fuboTV FuboTV Inc. (stylized as fuboTV) is an American streaming television service serving customers in the United States, Canada, and Spain that focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports. Depending on country, channels offered by Fub ...
and Frndly TV. KOCO originally launched a digital subchannel on virtual channel 5.4 on August 26, 2021, serving as an affiliate of classic television network getTV (which had previously been available in the market through the DT4 subchannel of Enid-licensed KBZC-LD, which had carried the network since April 1, 2017, two months after getTV was displaced by the DT2 subchannel of original Oklahoma City affiliate
KOCB KOCB (channel 34) is a television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside Fox affiliate KOKH-TV (channel 25). The stations' studios and transmitter facilitie ...
hannel 34to become a charter affiliate of
TBD To be announced (TBA), to be confirmed (TBC), to be determined or decided or declared (TBD), and other variations, are placeholder terms used very broadly in event planning to indicate that although something is scheduled or expected to happen, a ...
). The subchannel was deleted for unknown reasons on August 30; following a five-day hiatus, on September 3, 2021, KOCO subsequently placed getTV programming on an additional subchannel over virtual channel 5.6.


Programming

KOCO-TV currently broadcasts the majority of the ABC network schedule, although the station airs the second hour of '' Good Morning America Saturday'' (which it originally preempted from October 2019, when that edition expanded into a two-hour broadcast, until November 2020) on a one-hour delay from its Central Time feed; by effect, it also preempts the third hour of the ''
Litton's Weekend Adventure Weekend Adventure (originally known as ABC Weekend Adventure and Litton's Weekend Adventure) is an American syndicated programming block that is produced by Hearst Media Production Group, and airs weekend mornings on the owned-and-operated stat ...
'' block, the remainder of which airs on a two-hour delay from its "live feed" to accommodate the two-hour-long 5:00 a.m. and one-hour 8:00 a.m. editions of its Saturday morning newscast and both non-consecutively-aired hours of ''GMA Saturday''. (Midday college football games that ABC carries during the fall may subject ''Weekend Adventure'' programs normally aired on Saturdays in the 11:00 a.m. hour, as well as the syndicated '' Teen Kids News'', to be deferred to Sundays to fulfill educational programming obligations. Since KOCO began clearing the second hour of ''GMA Saturday'', it has deferred the additional preempted ''Weekend Adventure'' hour to KOCO-DT2, airing in place of MeTV programming on Sunday mornings.) Channel 5 may preempt some ABC programs to provide long-form breaking news or severe weather coverage when necessary, or air specials produced by the station's news department (such as its ''KOCO 5 Chronicle'' series or weather and sports specials). The preempted programs may either be rebroadcast over KOCO in place of regularly scheduled overnight programs or diverted to KOCO-DT2 on a live-to-air basis in place of MeTV programming, although station personnel also gives viewers—particularly, subscribers of
AT&T U-verse U-verse TV is a DirecTV brand of IPTV service. Launched on June 26, 2006, U-verse included broadband Internet (now AT&T Internet or AT&T Fiber), IP telephone (now AT&T Phone), and IPTV (U-verse TV) services in 48 states.DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. I ...
, Dish Network and some smaller cable systems within the Oklahoma City DMA that do not carry KOCO-DT2—the option of watching them for free on ABC's website and
mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
, or via subscription through Hulu (of which ABC parent
The Walt Disney Company The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment industry, entertainment conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios (Burbank), Walt Disney Stud ...
holds a controlling interest) or the network's cable/satellite
video-on-demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...
service the day after their initial airing. Syndicated programs broadcast by KOCO-TV include ''
Tamron Hall Tamron Hall (born September 16, 1970) is an American broadcast journalist and television talk show host. In September 2019, Hall debuted her self-titled syndicated daytime talk show, which earned her a Daytime Emmy Award. Hall was formerly a ...
'', ''
The Kelly Clarkson Show ''The Kelly Clarkson Show'' is an American daytime television variety talk show hosted by American singer Kelly Clarkson. It is produced and distributed by NBCUniversal Syndication Studios and features Clarkson interviewing celebrities and seg ...
'', ''
Access Hollywood ''Access Hollywood'', formerly known as ''Access'' from 2017 to 2019, is an American weekday television entertainment news program that premiered on September 9, 1996. It covers events and celebrities in the entertainment industry. It was create ...
'', '' Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien'' (which is distributed by parent company Hearst), ''
The Real In continental philosophy, the Real refers to the remainder of reality that cannot be expressed, and which surpasses reasoning. In Lacanianism, it is an "impossible" category because of its opposition to expression and inconceivability. I ...
'' and '' Wheel of Fortune''. Oklahoma City is one of a small number of U.S. television markets in which ''Jeopardy!'' and ''Wheel'' are carried on separate stations: ''Jeopardy!'' airs on NBC affiliate KFOR-TV, which has carried the program locally since January 2000 after CBS affiliate KWTV initially dropped the program in September 1999 when that station moved its 4:30 p.m. newscast back to 4:00 p.m. and expanded it to an hour, only to bring ''Jeopardy!'' back a few days later in an early-morning, 4:30 a.m. timeslot. Both ''Wheel'' and ''Jeopardy!'' were seen on KWTV from their respective debuts in 1983 and 1984 until the former moved to KOCO in September 1992. Channel 5 served as the Oklahoma City affiliate of the '' Children's Miracle Network Telethon'' from its inception in May 1983 until June 2016. Until 2004, KOCO typically aired the first hour of the telethon on tape delay after the Saturday edition of its late-evening newscast, depending on the telethon's airdate, on the last weekend of May or first weekend of June; the remainder of the telecast (including local segments hosted by KOCO on-air personalities) would then air through its conclusion the following Sunday afternoon. It also served as the local broadcaster of the '' United Cerebral Palsy Star-athon'', a telethon to raise money for the
cerebral palsy Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be problems with sens ...
research organization, from 1962 to 1996.


Past program preemptions and deferrals

Historically, KOCO-TV has either preempted or given out-of-pattern clearances to certain ABC programs to air local, syndicated or special event programs. After it debuted a noon newscast in September 1978, the station aired '' All My Children'' (which ABC concurrently moved to the aforementioned slot with the
soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
's expansion to a full hour) on a day-behind basis at 11:00 a.m., which resulted in the preemption of ABC Daytime shows that normally occupied that hour in the
Central Time Zone The North American Central Time Zone (CT) is a time zone in parts of Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America, some Caribbean Islands, and part of the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Central Standard Time (CST) is six hours behind Coordina ...
(such as the network version of ''
Family Feud ''Family Feud'' is an American television game show created by Mark Goodson. It features two families who compete to name the most popular answers to survey questions in order to win cash and prizes. The show has had three separate runs, th ...
'') until it was ceded to ABC's affiliates in September 1992; KOCO began carrying ''AMC'' live-to-air at noon on January 2, 2008, where the soap remained until it was replaced by ''
The Chew ''The Chew'' is an American cooking-themed talk show that aired for seven seasons from September 26, 2011 to June 28, 2018, having replaced the soap opera ''All My Children'', on ABC as part of the network's weekday daytime lineup. The name wa ...
'' on September 27, 2011. '' Loving'' also aired mid-mornings on a one-day delay until September 1990, when the station replaced it with the hour-long version of '' Home'' (which KOCO had aired in the talk show's optional half-hour abbreviated format since it debuted two years earlier); KOCO preempted ABC's half-hour soap operas (''Loving'', '' The City'' and, until the station began clearing it in September 1998, ''
Port Charles ''Port Charles'' (commonly abbreviated as ''PC'') is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from June 1, 1997, to October 3, 2003. It was a spin-off of the series ''General Hospital'', which has been running since 1963 and takes pl ...
'') for most of the 1990s in favor of first-run syndicated shows and, after September 1994, an expanded midday newscast in its standard network slot. Until ABC discontinued the afternoon newsbriefs in 2012, the station also did not clear the ''ABC News Brief''—which aired during
ABC Daytime ABC Daytime (sometimes shortened to ABC-D or ABCD) is a division responsible for the daytime programming block on the ABC Network and syndicated programming. The block has historically encompassed soap operas, game shows and talk shows. Histor ...
programming—in order to run additional local advertising. Beginning with the
newsmagazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories, in greater depth than do newspapers or n ...
's debut in February 1980, KOCO ran '' Nightline'' on a half-hour tape delay from the ABC network feed (at 11:00 p.m.) to air syndicated ''
M*A*S*H ''M*A*S*H'' (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) is an American media franchise consisting of a series of novels, a film, several television series, plays, and other properties, and based on the semi-autobiographical fiction of Richard Hooker. Th ...
'' reruns following its late newscast. In the summer of 1983, station management sought ABC's permission to further delay ''Nightline'' by 90 minutes (to 12:30 a.m.), so it could air ''
Thicke of the Night ''Thicke of the Night'' is an American late-night talk show starring Alan Thicke and broadcast in first-run syndication during the 1983–1984 TV season. Among the regulars on ''Thicke of the Night'' were Richard Belzer, Arsenio Hall, Rick Duco ...
'' after ''M*A*S*H'' once the syndicated late-night talk show premiered that September. ABC vetoed the request and moved ''Nightline'' to then-independent station KOKH-TV, which agreed to carry the program live-to-air; KOCO relented and received permission to resume airing ''Nightline'' on a one-hour delay beginning in April 1984, pushing back the near-cancellation ''Thicke'' by an extra half-hour. (The station eventually shifted ''Nightline'' to its network slot in September 1995.) Similarly, channel 5 tape-delayed other ABC late night shows that directly followed ''Nightline'' to air additional syndicated programming in late access: ''
Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher ''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
'' aired on a half-hour delay from its then-recommended 11:05 p.m. Central timeslot from its ABC debut in September 1995 until it ended in December 2002; its replacement, '' Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' (which has preceded ''Nightline'' since the network switched the scheduling order of the two programs in January 2013), aired on a one-hour delay from its January 2003 premiere, in favor of a same-day ''
Oprah Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', b ...
'' rebroadcast, until KOCO pushed ''Kimmel'' to the show's network "live" slot in September 2011. Because it signed off during the overnight hours at the time, KOCO also preempted the ABC News program ''World News Now'' from its January 6, 1992 premiere until the station permanently instituted a 24-hour schedule on November 28, 1993. Channel 5 also preempted portions of ABC's Saturday morning lineup intermittently through September 2006 (as an example, ''
The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show ''The Bugs Bunny Show'' is a long-running American animated anthology television series hosted by Bugs Bunny that was mainly composed of theatrical '' Looney Tunes'' and '' Merrie Melodies'' cartoons released by Warner Bros. between 1948 and 196 ...
'' and ''
Ewoks The Ewoks (singular: Ewok) are a fictional species of small, furry, mammaloid, bipeds in the ''Star Wars'' universe. They inhabit the forest moon of Endor and live in arboreal huts and other simple dwellings, being seen as primitive in compa ...
'' were preempted in favor of the local
real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...
program ''Home Showcase'' in 1987). The station also preempted all but 90 minutes of the then four-hour-long lineup between April 1992 and September 1996, in order to accommodate a local Saturday morning newscast and other syndicated programming. From September 1996 until December 2007, the ABC children's programs that were recommended to air during the 10:00 a.m. hour aired instead on a one-week delay at 7:00 a.m.; KOCO aired the remaining two hours in pattern from the ABC off-air feed. The various ''
Power Rangers ''Power Rangers'' is an entertainment and merchandising franchise built around a live-action superhero television series, based on the Japanese tokusatsu franchise '' Super Sentai''. Produced first by Saban Entertainment, second by BVS E ...
'' series that aired as part of the ABC Kids block were also aired on a one-week delay from 5:00 to 6:00 a.m., instead of the network's "live"-fed slot during the 11:00 a.m. hour, from September 2003 until September 2006; as Hearst's other ABC stations opted to do with the series, KOCO preempted ''Power Rangers'' thereafter until the series was dropped by the network on August 28, 2010, due to the program's lack of educational content. (For similar reasons, the station tape-delayed '' Kim Possible'' and ''
Power Rangers SPD ''Power Rangers S.P.D.'' is the thirteenth season of the television series, ''Power Rangers'', and is based on the 28th Super Sentai series ''Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger''. The season shares its title with the Korean dub of ''Dekaranger'' in South ...
'' for broadcast on early Monday mornings before ''World News Now'' during the 2005–06 season.) It was also among the more than 20 stations that declined to air ABC's November 2004 telecast of ''
Saving Private Ryan ''Saving Private Ryan'' is a 1998 American epic war film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat. Set during the Battle of Normandy in World War II, the film is known for its graphic portrayal of war, especially its depicti ...
'', amid concerns that the intense war violence and strong profanity retained from the 1998
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
-set film's theatrical cut would subject stations that aired it to being fined by the FCC, which initiated a crackdown on indecent material following the wardrobe malfunction incident during Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson's Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show performance that February. KOCO, along with the eight other Hearst-owned ABC stations—out of the eleven it owned at the time—that also refused to air ''Saving Private Ryan'', chose to air the 1992 film ''
Far and Away ''Far and Away'' is a 1992 American epic Western romantic adventure drama film directed by Ron Howard from a screenplay by Bob Dolman and a story by Howard and Dolman. It stars Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. This was the last cinematography cr ...
'' in its place. (The FCC eventually determined that, even though content typically prohibited from being shown on broadcast television was not expurgated from the film's network cut, the movie's broadcast did not violate agency regulations.)


Sports programming

Sports programming on KOCO-TV is sourced solely through ABC's
ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
-managed sports programming unit,
ESPN on ABC ESPN on ABC (formerly known as ABC Sports from 1961 to 2006) is the branding used for sports event and documentary programming televised by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States. Officially, the broadcast network retains ...
. Through ABC's television contract with the
Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...
, channel 5 serves as the primary over-the-air rightsholder to college football games involving the
Oklahoma Sooners The Oklahoma Sooners are the athletic teams that represent the University of Oklahoma, located in Norman. The 19 men's and women's varsity teams are called the "Sooners", a reference to a nickname given to the early participants in the Land Ru ...
and the
Oklahoma State Cowboys The Oklahoma State Cowboys and Cowgirls are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Oklahoma State University, located in Stillwater. The program's mascot is a cowboy named Pistol Pete. Oklahoma State participates at the National Col ...
. The station's sports department also produces local pre-game and
post-game show A post-game, postgame, or post-match show is a TV or radio presentation that occurs immediately after the live broadcast of a major sporting event. Contents may include: * replays of key moments in the game. * interviews with players, coaches and ...
s that air around ABC-televised Sooners and Cowboys games, as well as a regular season preview show covering both teams that airs each August. (Over-the-air regular season Sooners and Cowboys games not shown on KOCO air instead on KOKH-TV by way of
Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...
's partial broadcast television rights to the Big 12.) In September 1982, after the Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a stay of a district court order that ruled network and cable contracts for college football telecasts reached by the
National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...
(NCAA) to be in violation of antitrust rules, the University of Oklahoma sold KOCO-TV the local television rights to a game between the Sooners and the
USC Trojans The USC Trojans are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Southern California (USC), located in Los Angeles, California. While the men's teams are nicknamed the ''Trojans'', the women's athletic teams are referred ...
under arrangement with the Katz Agency sports management firm. The court's delay in acting on the case and time constraints thereof led to the university abandoning its effort to telecast the game on KOCO. After NCAA regulations restricting the number of college football games that could be televised live in a single season were overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1984, KOCO acquired the local rights to a Katz Sports-syndicated package of college football games involving Big Eight Conference teams. (Katz subsequently sold the rights to the college football games and certain other sports events to Raycom Sports after the 1985 NCAA Division I college football season.) From 1988 to 1991 and again from 1993 to 1995, KOCO also maintained a programming agreement with the Sooners to air various team-related programs during the regular season, including the head coach's weekly analysis program ''Oklahoma Football'', which was co-hosted by then-
sports director The title of sports director can refer to the director of a live sports broadcast. It can also refer to an individual at a television or radio station who is in charge of the sports department. Director {{Job-stub ...
Dean Blevins and Sooners football coach
Gary Gibbs Gary Gibbs (born August 13, 1952) is an American football coach and former player who previously served as the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma for six years, compiling a record of 44–23–2. Gibbs spent the first half of his a ...
. (Fox affiliate KOKH held the local rights to the Sooners magazine programs for the 1992 season, with KOCO carrying select Oklahoma State Cowboys programs such as analysis program ''The Pat Jones Show'' in the interim.) From 1992 to 1994, KOCO carried select basketball games involving the city's now-defunct Continental Basketball Association (CBA) franchise, the
Oklahoma City Cavalry The Lawton-Fort Sill Cavalry was a professional basketball team based in Lawton, Oklahoma. They played in the Premier Basketball League after having been in the Continental Basketball Association. They have one PBL championship and also were ...
, with Blevins also providing color commentary for the telecasts. Since the team's relocation from Seattle in
2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
, under ABC's share of sister network ESPN's television contract with the
National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United St ...
(NBA), channel 5 has also carried certain ABC-televised regular season and
playoff The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...
games featuring the
Oklahoma City Thunder The Oklahoma City Thunder are an American professional basketball team based in Oklahoma City. The Thunder compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Northwest Division. The team plays i ...
. Notably, in
2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...
, the station aired the Thunder's first NBA Finals appearance as an Oklahoma City-based franchise (their fourth overall, counting the pre-relocation
Seattle SuperSonics The Seattle SuperSonics (commonly known as the Seattle Sonics) were an American professional basketball team based in Seattle. The SuperSonics competed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member club of the league's Western Confe ...
' previous appearances in 1978,
1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the '' International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the '' Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the so ...
and 1996), which saw the
Miami Heat The Miami Heat are an American professional basketball team based in Miami. The Heat compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Southeast Division. The club plays its home games at FT ...
defeat the Thunder to win the championship title four games to one.


News operation

, KOCO-TV broadcasts 44 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with seven hours each weekday and 4 hours each on Saturdays and Sundays); the station also produces an additional 3 hours of newscasts each week (consisting of a half-hour nightly) for its MeTV-affiliated DT2 subchannel. During the fall months, channel 5 regularly preempts its early evening newscasts on Saturdays—the 5:00 p.m. edition since August 2009, and the 6:00 p.m. edition (previously the 10:00 p.m. edition), which had previously been subject to frequent overrun-related programming delays, since ABC bridged its football coverage upon moving the start time of its '' Saturday Night Football'' telecasts ahead by a half-hour in August 2019—to accommodate ABC's college football game coverage. Through a content agreement with Community Newspaper Holdings, KOCO also contributes news content featured in two of the group's Oklahoma newspaper properties, ''
The Norman Transcript ''The Norman Transcript'' is a daily newspaper published in Norman, Oklahoma, United States, covering Cleveland and McClain counties, in the southern suburbs of Oklahoma City. It is owned by Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. The newspaper is the ...
'' and the ''Enid News & Eagle''.


News department history

Channel 5's news department began operations when the station signed on as Enid-based KGEO-TV on July 2, 1954, initially consisting of a half-hour, weekday-only 12:30 p.m. newscast. By the time the station moved to Oklahoma City in 1958, the re-called KOCO was running a five-minute newscast at 6:25 p.m. and a half-hour newscast at 10:00 p.m. each weeknight (later evolving into half-hour newscasts at 5:30 p.m. weeknights and at 10:00 p.m. seven nights a week by 1964). Ernie Schultz (who would later serve as a
news director A news director is an individual at a broadcast station or network or a newspaper who is in charge of the news department. In local news, the news director is typically in charge of the entire news staff, including journalists, news presenters, ...
for WKY-TV and KWTV) served as the original main anchor of the Monday through Friday editions. As part of the condition of the station's license transfer to Oklahoma City that required it to maintain an auxiliary studio in its original city of license, KOCO maintained a news bureau at its original Randolph Street facility in Enid; the bureau would eventually be closed by station management in 1995. From September 1965 until September 1970, the station produced a Sunday evening news and features program, ''Sundayscope'', which also featured a regular viewer mail segment hosted by general manager Ben K. West. The weeknight newscasts were reformatted in 1968 as ''The Hickox-Halburnt Report'', anchored by news director Richard Hickox and assistant news director Joe Halburnt Jr.; they were replaced by Dean Swanson in 1971, at which point, the newscasts were retitled ''The News on 5''. In 1974, as the '' Eyewitness News'' format was growing in popularity in television markets throughout the nation, KOCO-TV renamed its newscasts to ''Channel 5 Eyewitness News''. (It was the second station in the Oklahoma City market to have utilized the format, following a previous run at KWTV between 1966 and 1971; the format was later re-used by KOCO, as ''Eyewitness News 5'', from July 1998 to April 2013.) By this time, Swanson and chief meteorologist Fred Norman were joined weeknights by sports director Jerry Park, who would become the station's longest-serving on-air personality, working there for 25 years. Under the helm of news director Tom Kirby (who was later promoted to president and general manager of KOCO, remaining in that role until his resignation to pursue consulting work in 1993), the station made aggressive moves to improve its standing among the market's television news operations by highlighting investigative reporting and extensive coverage of breaking news events—among which, included live and filmed coverage of a July 1973 riot at the
Oklahoma State Penitentiary The Oklahoma State Penitentiary, nicknamed "Big Mac", is a prison of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections located in McAlester, Oklahoma, on . Opened in 1908 with 50 inmates in makeshift facilities, today the prison holds more than 750 male o ...
in McAlester, which was compiled into a one-hour documentary that received a commendation by the
National Council on Crime and Delinquency Evident Change, formerly the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), is an American nonprofit social research organization. NCCD was organized by fourteen probation officers who met at Plymouth Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 1 ...
. The station also acquired a private airplane to transport reporters and camera crews to news stories and pick up edited film reels. In 1973, Ben Tipton—a former radio host at KBYE (890 AM, now KTLR)—joined KOCO as the station's first African American on-air personality and the first black news anchor in the Oklahoma City market. Tipton served as a weekend evening anchor and political reporter and also created and hosted ''The Black Review'', a weekly public affairs program focusing on community events and topical discussions focusing on Oklahoma's African-American community that aired on channel 5 under various titles (later as ''Saturday Review'' lternately titled ''Sunday Review'' whenever ABC Sports telecasts bumped the program from its Saturday midday timeslotfrom September 1979 to March 1989 and ''Oklahoma Collage'' thereafter until its cancellation) from January 1976 until November 1993. After Tipton left KOCO in 1977 to become the Ward 7 councilman on the Oklahoma City Council, representing the city's predominately African-American northeast section, Joyce Jackson-Combs—who began at KOCO as a clerical assistant in 1970 and eventually rose the ranks to become an assignment reporter until her departure in 1989—took over as host of the retitled ''Saturday Review'' (remaining in that role until the program was cancelled by KOCO station management) and became the station's public service director. After being acquired by Gannett, the company made substantial investments in KOCO's news operations—among them, the acquisition of an Aerospatiale Astar 350 (branded as "Sky 5"), which was the first helicopter to be used for aerial newsgathering in the Oklahoma City market upon its introduction in February 1978. The format changes during the 1970s ultimately did not reward the station's newscasts with a ratings win, as KOCO remained at a distant third place in the ratings for many years against the then-long-dominant channel 4 and the perennially second-place KWTV. In 1977, KOCO began airing "Wednesday's Child", a weekly feature segment on its 10:00 p.m. newscast that was presented by Jack Bowen (who served as an anchor/reporter at the station from 1974 to 1987 and again from 1990 to 1995), which profiled children in need of an adoptive family. In June 1979, while on assignment at a
Public Service Company of Oklahoma American Electric Power (AEP), (railcar reporting mark: AEPX) is a major investor-owned electric utility in the United States, delivering electricity to more than five million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation's largest gen ...
(PSO)
press conference A press conference or news conference is a media event in which notable individuals or organizations invite journalists to hear them speak and ask questions. Press conferences are often held by politicians, corporations, non-governmental organ ...
, KOCO anchor/reporter Ron Stahl and photographer Bill Collard were arrested on a
trespassing Trespass is an area of tort law broadly divided into three groups: trespass to the person, trespass to chattels, and trespass to land. Trespass to the person historically involved six separate trespasses: threats, assault, battery, wounding, ...
complaint after crossing a utility fence to cover a protest against the construction of a nuclear power plant in Inola. Stahl (who contended that he and Collard would have been unable to return for the press conference in time had they chosen to hike more than over rough terrain to reach a sanctioned area to view the demonstrators' arrests) and nine other reporters who were taken into custody—including Tom Newcomb and Susie Welsh of KTVY, and Vicki Monks of KWTV—were convicted and individually levied a $25 fine in January 1980. The convictions were appealed on press freedom infringement complaints, but were upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Western District of Oklahoma. The Supreme Court declined to review the case upon consideration in January 1984, letting stand the convictions of Stahl and the other reporters. KOCO's ratings fortunes improved from 1980 to 1982, when its newscasts briefly overtook KWTV for second place following the installment of Jack Bowen and Mary Ruth Carleton as its primary anchor team, alongside Norman and Park. The station's newscasts—then titled ''5 Alive NewsCenter'', eventually being shortened to ''5 Alive News'' in January 1984—even battled longtime powerhouse KTVY for first in the market. On May 31, 1982, the station's early-evening newscast – which had been airing at 5:30 p.m. (instead of the 6:00 p.m. timeslot then used exclusively by most network stations, including some ABC affiliates) since September 1972, following ABC's initial 5:00 p.m. Central Time feed of the ''ABC Evening News'' – was shifted to 5:00 p.m., where it had previously aired from 1968 to 1972, and retitled ''Live at Five''. (Around this time, ABC had begun requiring affiliates located outside of the
Eastern Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...
and Pacific Time Zones to swap the airtimes of the successor '' World News Tonight'' and their local early evening newscasts – then also aired in that order on ABC's other Oklahoma-based affiliates, KTUL, KTEN and
KSWO-TV KSWO-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Lawton, Oklahoma, United States, serving the western Texoma area as an affiliate of ABC and Telemundo. It is owned by Gray Television, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) wi ...
in Lawton – to allow the former to compete directly with
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
and
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
's evening newscasts.) A separate half-hour newscast at 6:00 p.m. (originally titled ''Newsplus at 6:00'') subsequently premiered on September 20 of that year. (All three broadcasts ranked the market's most-watched news programs in those time periods during the November 2006 sweeps period.) In 1984, the station was sued for defamation by local
OB-GYN Obstetrics and Gynaecology (also spelled as Obstetrics and Gynecology; abbreviated as Obs and Gynae, O&G, OB-GYN and OB/GYN) is the medical specialty that encompasses the two subspecialties of obstetrics (covering pregnancy, childbirth, and ...
William Crittendon, who claimed a report on a
medical malpractice Medical malpractice is a legal cause of action that occurs when a medical or health care professional, through a negligent act or omission, deviates from standards in their profession, thereby causing injury or death to a patient. The neglige ...
case he was being tried for had misquoted an expert witness who said that a patient had a "perfectly healthy" (rather than "perfectly normal")
uterus The uterus (from Latin ''uterus'', plural ''uteri'') or womb () is the organ in the reproductive system of most female mammals, including humans that accommodates the embryonic and fetal development of one or more embryos until birth. The ...
; the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that station management must pay Crittendon $550,000 in damages; an appeal of the ruling, charging
First Amendment First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...
violations, gained the support of the National Association of Broadcasters, which contended that the court did not establish negligence or causation. The station also collaborated with ABC News' '' 20/20'' on the 1981 undercover investigative report " Throwaway Kids". Reported locally by then-assignment reporter Pam Henry, the investigative series—which went on to earn Peabody and Emmy Awards—looked into abuse, neglect and preventable deaths of children, elderly and
mentally ill A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitt ...
persons in the care of the
Oklahoma Department of Human Services The Oklahoma Department of Human Services (OKDHS) is an agency of the government of Oklahoma. Under the supervision of the Oklahoma Secretary of Health and Human Services, OKDHS is responsible for providing help to individuals and families in need ...
(OKDHS) that would lead to the resignation of agency director Lloyd Rader. By 1983, channel 5's newscasts had settled into a solid second place as a series of anchor changes helped propel KWTV from a distant third all the way to first place, displacing KTVY from the #1 ratings position it held for decades. On September 12, 1983, the 5:00 p.m. newscast adopted the ''Newscope'' format, a customizable syndicated news concept for local stations that featured local perspectives on major national and international news stories as well as consumer and entertainment news; KOCO reformatted the 5:00 show as a traditional local newscast after ''Newscope'' was discontinued nationally in September 1984. A main weakness of KOCO has been the turnover rate of its on-air news department staff. Massive staffing changes took place during 1984 under newly appointed vice president of news operations Gary Long (a former general manager at ex-sister station
KARK-TV KARK-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KARZ-TV (channel 42); Nexstar also provides certain services to Fox aff ...
in
Little Rock ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...
). Anchors Mary Ruth Carleton and Gan Matthews, farm reporter Gene Wheatley, assignment reporter Jennifer Eve, and sports anchor Tony Sellars (the latter four of which had joined KWTV by the end of 1984) left or had their contracts not be renewed, while longtime weeknight meteorologist Fred Norman was shifted to the weekend evening newscasts, where he would remain until his retirement in 1987. In addition, Gerry Harris (who joined channel 5 from
WTNH WTNH (channel 8) is a television station licensed to New Haven, Connecticut, United States, serving the Hartford–New Haven market as an affiliate of ABC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate WCTX (channel 59), ...
in Hartford, Connecticut) and meteorologist Wayne Shattuck (who had been working as a primary weather anchor at
KDFW KDFW (channel 4) is a television station licensed to Dallas, Texas, United States, broadcasting the Fox network to the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNe ...
in Dallas for four years, following a prior stint at KOCO from 1977 to 1980) were hired to join Bowen and Park on the weeknight newscasts. In an effort to improve KOCO's newscast ratings, which had declined to a distant third place over the preceding years as a result of the changes, the station lured away several anchors from rival KTVY, including
Jane Jayroe Jane Anne Jayroe-Gamble (born October 30, 1946) is a well known broadcaster, author and public official and former American beauty queen from Laverne, Oklahoma, who was Miss Oklahoma in 1966 and Miss America in 1967. Jayroe worked as an anchor i ...
(who, at the start of her first tenure at KOCO from 1978 to 1980, became the station's first female news anchor) and Jerry Adams (who replaced Bowen after he left channel 5 to replace Roger Cooper as KWTV's main co-anchor), both of whom joined Harris (who had been moved to the noon and 5:00 p.m. newscasts, and became a feature reporter for the nightly segment "Oklahoma Pride") as the station's primary evening anchors. Brothers Butch and
Ben McCain Ben McCain (born 25 June 1955) is an American actor, broadcaster, producer and one half of The McCain Brothers, a singing-songwriting duo. McCain appeared as news anchor Aries West in MGM's comedy Bio-Dome, the character, Travis, in Roger Corma ...
were also hired to anchor the noon newscast as well as a new hour-long weekday news and features program, ''Good Morning Oklahoma'', which debuted on August 3, 1987, and maintained a similar—albeit slightly more news-driven—format as their short-lived KTVY program ''AM Oklahoma''. (The McCains also hosted two
music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device ...
programs for KOCO, ''Hot Country Hits'' from May 1992 to May 1994 and ''Chartbusters'' in 1993, as well as the local academic quiz show ''Challenge
owl Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...
' from September 1988 to September 1994.) The late 1980s also saw the station's newscasts shift toward a "softer, entertainment-influenced approach" that incorporated more infotainment and special interest segments alongside
hard news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. N ...
content. In 1988, Dean Blevins was hired as KOCO's sports director, resulting in Jerry Park being relegated to the weekend evening newscasts. (Park—who retired from KOCO in May 1999—was later shifted to the Saturday morning newscast upon its 1992 debut, with Myron Patton replacing him on weekend evenings.) On September 2, 1988, the station premiered ''Prep Sports Extra'', a Friday night program that covered
high school football High school football (french: football au lycée) is gridiron football played by high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both countries, but its popularity is declining, part ...
games from around the state during the fall season (which, depending on the year, aired anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes); the program's brief suspension for the fall of 1996—attributed to longtime sports anchor and co-host
Mick Cornett Michael Earl Cornett Sr. (born July 16, 1958) is an American politician and former television personality who served as the 35th mayor of Oklahoma City, from 2005 until 2018. A member of the Republican Party, he was only the fourth mayor in Ok ...
's promotion to weekday morning news anchor that year—led to such viewer outcry that the station reinstated ''Prep Sports Extra'' (eventually renamed ''High School Playbook'' in September 2012) midway through that year's academic football season. On May 14, 1990, KOCO-TV implemented the "24-Hour News Source" concept, producing 30-second-long news updates during commercial breaks outside of long-form newscasts near the top of each hour throughout the day as well as weather updates on weekend mornings. It also provided a weekdaily overnight news feed consisting of a simulcast of
All News Channel All News Channel (ANC) was an American satellite television news channel that was owned by CONUS Communications, a joint venture between Viacom and Hubbard Broadcasting. The channel was carried mainly on direct-broadcast satellite provider D ...
's overnight programming and additional content sourced from its then-sister stations WXIA in Atlanta and fellow ABC affiliate
KUSA-TV KUSA (channel 9) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside MyNetworkTV affiliate KTVD (channel 20). Both stations share studios on East Speer Boulevard in Denver's S ...
(now an NBC affiliate) in
Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
. Later that month, KOCO filed a trademark lawsuit against KFOR and its owner at the time, Des Moines-based Palmer Communications, seeking $208,000 in damages and an injunction to stop KFOR from promoting itself as the "24-Hour News and Information Station." KOCO representatives claimed that it had been the exclusive owner of the "24-Hour News Source" moniker in Oklahoma City since 1980, and KFOR's three-day jump in adopting the format and slogan upon its switch to a 24-hour schedule caused viewer confusion that denied KOCO immediate recognition with its rollout. Oklahoma County District Court Judge Bana Blasdel denied the station's request for an emergency temporary restraining order to prevent KFOR, which contended it was using a slogan that could not be trademarked, from using the term on May 25. The parties would later settle the suit, with KOCO continuing to air round-the-clock news updates until December 27, 1991, when it discontinued the All News Channel block to reinstate an overnight sign-off period. KFOR also continued to use the "24-Hour News Source" concept until 1999, but changed its slogan in November 1990 to reference its use of the format obliquely. (KOCO utilized a retooled version of the concept from 1998 to 1999, providing top-of-the-hour weather updates from the newly branded "24-Hour First Alert Weather" team.) Channel 5's implementation of the format won it a first place honor for innovation at the Best of Gannett Awards in 1990. 1990 also saw KOCO become the first television station in the Oklahoma City market to offer
closed captioning Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a transcription of the audio po ...
of its newscasts for deaf and hearing-impaired viewers. In addition, Tom McNamara (previously with
KTVK KTVK (channel 3) is an independent television station in Phoenix, Arizona, United States. It is owned by Gray Television alongside CBS affiliate KPHO-TV (channel 5) and low-power LATV affiliate KPHE-LD (channel 44). KTVK and KPHO-TV share ...
in Phoenix, Arizona) joined Jayroe as co-anchor of KOCO's weeknight newscasts; Jerry Adams was reassigned to the weekend evening newscasts, co-anchoring alongside Jennifer Eve in a pairing that saw the weekend broadcasts being tongue-in-cheekily marketed as ''The Adams & Eve Report''. (Adams left the station in 1991, later to be replaced as Eve's weekend co-anchor by assignment reporter Jeff Mirasola, with whom she co-anchored the weekend editions from 1988 until Adams' move from the weeknight newscasts.) On April 18, 1992, KOCO debuted a three-hour-long Saturday morning newscast—the first local newscast in the Oklahoma City market to be offered on weekend mornings—from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., taking over part of the timeslot occupied by ABC's Saturday cartoon lineup. (The newscast—by then, reduced to two hours—would shift to 8:00 a.m. on September 9, 1995, and then to 10:00 a.m. on September 13, 1997.) Then on September 11, 1995, the noon newscast was expanded to one hour, replacing first-run syndicated shows that had been occupying the 12:30 half-hour locally since the ABC soap opera '' Ryan's Hope'' ended in December 1988. (The midday newscast would revert to a half-hour on September 7, 1998, to accommodate the ABC soap opera ''Port Charles''.) The weekday morning newscast was expanded into a 90-minute broadcast (starting at 5:30 a.m.) on February 2, 1998; it would subsequently expand again to two hours (starting at 5:00) on February 1, 1999. During the early- and mid-1990s, KOCO maintained an investigative unit—known as the "I-Team"—led by investigative and assignment reporter Terri Watkins, who worked at channel 5 from 1982 until she retired from broadcasting in 2006. During her tenure at KOCO, Watkins was nominated for and won multiple awards for her various reports including two Peabody Awards, several Edward R. Murrow Awards, Houston International Film and Video Festival,
New York International Film Festival New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
,
Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. ne ...
and Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters awards, and six Emmy nominations (most notably, for her coverage of the 1995 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing and the trial and execution of bombing co-conspirator
Timothy McVeigh Timothy James McVeigh (April 23, 1968 – June 11, 2001) was an American domestic terrorist responsible for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, 19 of whom were children, injured more than 680 others, and destroyed one-third ...
). The 1990s saw continued changes to its anchor team that included the move of weekend anchor Jennifer Eve—who rejoined KOCO in 1987, after a reporting stint from 1982 to 1984—replacing the departing Jane Jayroe (in 1992) and Gerry Bonds ( née Harris, in 1993) on the weeknight newscasts, a position Eve remained in until she left television news in 2001; Ben and Butch McCain being pulled from ''Good Morning Oklahoma'' in May 1994, after the station decided to switch its morning show to a conventional news format (the McCains would file a
wrongful termination In law, wrongful dismissal, also called wrongful termination or wrongful discharge, is a situation in which an employee's contract of employment has been terminated by the employer, where the termination breaches one or more terms of the contra ...
lawsuit against KOCO centering on their firing in September 1996); and Jack Bowen departing for Fox affiliate KOKH in November 1995 to become co-anchor of its then soon-to-launch 9:00 p.m. newscast. In September 1991, KOCO premiered ''Hollywood Spotlight'', a movie review and interview program hosted by entertainment reporter Dino Lalli (who joined the station in 1988, after a four-year stint at KNBC in Los Angeles, and had worked at KTVY beforehand); the program—which usually aired Saturdays, in either an afternoon or early evening slot—ended in August 1997, following Lalli's departure from channel 5. In July 1998, KOCO rebranded its newscasts from ''Oklahoma's 5 News'' to ''Eyewitness News 5'', a moniker which remained until April 18, 2013, when the newscasts began utilizing the current ''KOCO 5 News'' identity. Though the "circle 5" logo introduced in the last years of Gannett ownership was retained, the Hearst-Argyle generic GFX package in use at the time (with a visual appearance of swirling light and patterns intended to resemble a camera lens) was instituted. However, the music package intended to accompany this, the "A Package" from Gari Communications (composed for Hearst in 1995), was unable to be used, as rival KWTV had begun to use said music package in 1997; this necessitated the commissioning of the "B Package" from Gari for KOCO's use (designed to sound similar to the "A Package", Hearst-Argyle stations began to use either package from then on into 2003; these music packages would later be renamed by Gari Media to "Image News" and "Revolution", respectively) In 1999, then-weekend evening anchor/reporter Cherokee Ballard—who worked at the station from 1989 to 2005, and was the first person of Native American descent to anchor a local newscast in the Oklahoma City market—became the focus of a series of reports chronicling her battle with non-Hodgkin's large-cell lymphoma (for which she had been diagnosed with that June) to educate viewers about the disease. (Ballard's cancer went into remission the following year.) KOCO has increased its commitment to news and weather coverage in recent years, with these efforts helping propel the station's 5:00 p.m. newscast to first place in the ratings in 2004, followed by its first-ever outright win at 6:00 p.m. in November 2006. In February 2006, the station extended its weekend morning news programming to Sundays, with the addition of a two-hour 7:00 a.m. newscast. That same year, the Sunday edition of the 10:00 p.m. newscast expanded to a full hour, resulting in ''Sunday Sports Xtra''—a sports wrap-up program that debuted on September 4, 1994, as ''Sports Final'', and was relaunched after a seven-month hiatus as ''Sports Extra'' in August 1997—converting from a standalone program to a 15-minute tail-end segment within the newscast (the ''Sports Extra'' moniker was used as the umbrella title for its sports segments from 2006 to February 2012). After more than two decades of turnover with its evening anchor team, the station eventually gained stability with its primary anchor team when it paired Jessica Schambach (the longest-serving member of channel 5's current on-air news staff, who joined the station in 2002 as a reporter, and was promoted to the evening newscasts in 2005 as 5:00 p.m. co-anchor) and Paul Folger (who joined the station from WTEV ow_WJAX-TV.html"_;"title="WJAX-TV.html"_;"title="ow_WJAX-TV">ow_WJAX-TV">WJAX-TV.html"_;"title="ow_WJAX-TV">ow_WJAX-TVin_Jacksonville,_Florida.html" "title="WJAX-TV">ow_WJAX-TV.html" ;"title="WJAX-TV.html" ;"title="ow WJAX-TV">ow WJAX-TV">WJAX-TV.html" ;"title="ow WJAX-TV">ow WJAX-TVin Jacksonville, Florida">Jacksonville Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...
) on the weeknight newscasts in 2008. The two were later joined in August 2017 by Abigail Ogle (daughter of KFOR evening anchor Kevin Ogle, and who joined KOCO as a sports reporter in 2012) as co-anchor of the 6:00 p.m. newscast. Folger left KOCO in July 2018 to become lead anchor at fellow ABC affiliate KSTP-TV in Minneapolis– Saint Paul, Minnesota, St. Paul; Ogle temporarily served as Schambach's weeknight co-anchor on a full-time basis until March 2019, when Evan Onstot (formerly an evening anchor at
KSEE KSEE (channel 24) is a television station in Fresno, California, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside CBS affiliate KGPE (channel 47). Both stations share studios on McKinley Avenue in eastern Fresn ...
in
Fresno Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...
) was added as co-anchor, relegating Ogle to 6:00 p.m. anchor and 5:00 and 10:00 p.m. field reporter. The week of January 2, 2008 saw further changes to its news schedule: the noon newscast was cancelled, the 5:00 p.m. newscast was expanded to Saturday evenings, and the Saturday and Sunday morning newscasts were moved to an earlier, uniform timeslot from 5:00 to 7:00 a.m. (In lieu of a midday newscast, a 30-second weather update airs before ABC Daytime programming in that timeslot; the Saturday 5:00 p.m. newscast is preempted during the fall to accommodate ABC's college football coverage.) In October 2009, KOCO upgraded its severe weather, school closings and news tickers to be overlaid on high definition programming without having to downconvert HD content to standard-definition television, standard definition. An hour-long extension of the station's weekend morning newscasts debuted on July 31, 2010, airing from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. (The expansion coincided with ABC turning over one hour of its ABC Kids Saturday morning block, which would be replaced by Litton's Weekend Aventure that September, to its owned-and-operated and affiliated stations.) This was followed on September 22, with the expansion of the weekday morning newscast to 4:30 a.m., becoming the first television station in Oklahoma to expand its morning newscasts to a pre-5:00 a.m. timeslot. On April 18, 2013, KOCO became the third commercial station in Oklahoma City to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. (Prior to the move, KOCO utilized a pillarboxing, pillarboxed presentation for its newscasts from October 5, 2009, to October 11, 2010; the station transmitted in-studio segments in and upconverted field news video to the 16:9 widescreen format thereafter.) With the conversion to HD, KOCO implemented a standardized graphics package (designed by the Hearst graphics hub at Orlando, Florida, Orlando sister station WESH) and music package ("Strive" by inthegroovemusic) unveiled in November 2012 on Baltimore sister station WBAL-TV. On April 8, 2016, KOCO launched an hour-long, weekday newscast at 9:00 a.m. (which, though not technically an extension of its 4:30–7:00 a.m. newscast, uses that broadcast's on-air staff), and a nightly, half-hour 9:00 p.m. newscast for KOCO-DT2 (which directly competes against a nightly hour-long newscast on KOKH-TV—which debuted in May 1996 as Oklahoma City's first local prime time newscast, and is subject to overrun-caused delays by prime time Fox Sports (United States), Fox Sports game telecasts—and a KFOR-produced half-hour newscast on KAUT-TV, which has aired only on weeknights since its June 2006 launch). (The latter program was part of an effort by Hearst around this timeframe to launch prime time newscasts on the MeTV subchannels of its non-duopoly stations.) On April 4, 2016, beginning with a special into the investigation and arrest of convicted former Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw (who was convicted in December 2015 of multiple counts—including rape, sexual battery and forcible oral sodomy—committed against eight African American women in traffic stops he conducted in the majority-Black northeast Oklahoma City), the station premiered ''KOCO 5 Chronicle'', a recurring series of hour-long prime time specials focusing on state and community issues. (The program is titled after ''Chronicle (American TV program), Chronicle'', a half-hour weeknightly newsmagazine that debuted on Boston sister station WCVB-TV in January 1982, which has also loaned its title for use by other Hearst stations for daily or recurring newsmagazine programs that debuted during the second half of the 2010s.) When ''The Dr. Oz Show'' ended on January 14, 2022, KOCO announced that it would expand its news coverage to 11 a.m. the following Monday as a lead-in to ''GMA3: What You Need To Know''. When ''The Ellen DeGeneres Show'' ended in May 2022 and has aired repeats during the summer, KOCO announced that it would move its news coverage from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (along with the other Big Three affiliates in Oklahoma City), leading out of ''The Kelly Clarkson Show''.


Weather coverage

Although not as well known as its two principal competitors in this arena, KOCO-TV has made continual efforts over the years to improve its coverage of severe weather affecting Oklahoma. The station's Doppler weather radar system, branded on-air as "KOCO 5 First Alert Dual-Pol Doppler", utilizes data from a radar site at the station's Britton Road studios as well as live Volumetric Imaging and Processing of Integrated Radar, VIPIR data from radars operated by regional National Weather Service forecast offices. KOCO's ''First Alert Weather'' meteorologists provide local weather updates and, in the event of significant severe weather situations (such as a tornado warning) affecting Central Oklahoma, audio simulcasts of long-form severe weather coverage for University of Oklahoma-owned NPR member station KGOU (106.3 FM) and Champlin Broadcasting-owned country radio station KNAH (99.7 FM). In addition, through a content agreement with Community Newspaper Holdings, KOCO also provides forecast data for the weather page inserts in the ''Enid News & Eagle'' and ''The Norman Transcript''. (Both newspapers erroneously continue to use the station's 1998–2013 news logo under the ''Eyewitness News 5'' brand in their forecast pages.) When Fred Norman was hired as the station's chief meteorologist in 1972, he became known among viewers for his quirky colloquialisms and lively on-air delivery, but also sought to improve channel 5's weather coverage. During the mid-to-late 1970s, the station offered "Weather Watch", a nightly post-sign-off feature consisting mainly of live imagery of the station's weather radar, along with any cut-ins from the station's meteorologists in the event that the National Weather Service issued severe weather alerts for the KOCO viewing area during the overnight sign-off period. Following the 1989 promotion of Mike Morgan (meteorologist), Mike Morgan to chief meteorologist, amid the departure of Wayne Shattuck (who was also succeeded in that capacity by Morgan at KFOR in 1993), KOCO's weather department invested the development of new technology to relay warnings and footage of inclement weather from the field. In July 1990, "5 Alive WeatherTrack" (later known as "WeatherPhone 5" until it was discontinued in 2004), a toll phone service providing local and worldwide weather information, was launched. In 1989, the station developed First Alert, the first automated weather warning system for television use (which was based on the manual-input First Warning system developed by KWTV around that time); it also assembled crews of storm chasing units, the "First Alert Storm Teams" (or "F.A.S.T. units"), which utilized custom vehicles equipped with video cameras and pioneering technology that enabled still photographs to be transmitted over cellular telephone using a dash-mounted computer combined with Data compression, photo compression codecs. Developed in conjunction with station engineers, chief photographer Chris Lee (who joined KOCO in 1977) and Cellular One, "First Pix" was unveiled on April 9, 1992, to transmit photographs of a tornado. ("First Pix" as well as "First Alert" would earn the station a Regional News Emmy Award in 1991.) Morgan—who was later sued for breach of contract and accusations of taking storm-related videotapes, computer programs and forecasting equipment without the station's permission—left KOCO to become chief meteorologist at KFOR-TV in August 1992, and was later briefly replaced by former The Weather Channel, Weather Channel severe weather expert Vince Miller. During Miller's brief tenure, in April 1993, the station became the first in the United States to disseminate live storm footage utilizing Night vision#Night vision technologies, night vision technology. (This concept was later revived in 2015 as a feature of the "First Alert Storm Command," a mobile storm tracking unit that contains a roof-mounted 360° camera and a large monitor that is occasionally used to provide real-time radar data from the field.) After Rick Mitchell took over as chief meteorologist in 1994, it would become the first station to utilize a mobile Doppler radar system, to send video over cellular telephone (earning the station a Regional Emmy nomination) and to distribute full-screen video over cell phones. KOCO's coverage of an 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado, F5 tornado that killed 36 people in several of Oklahoma City's southern suburbs on May 3, 1999, earned the station a special recognition award from Governor of Oklahoma, Governor Frank Keating. Mitchell remained with KOCO until July 2012, when he became an evening meteorologist at KXAS-TV in Dallas–Fort Worth. In March 2000, the station unveiled the "Neighborhood Network," a network of sensors that relayed real-time weather observations from sites throughout central Oklahoma, and "Predictor," which compiles computer model data to display hour-by-hour forecasts up to 48 hours in advance. In October 2012, Mitchell was succeeded by Damon Lane (who had been with the station since 2009 as a weekday morning meteorologist), who just eight months later on May 20, 2013, covered an 2013 Moore tornado, EF5 tornado that killed 24 people in Moore, Oklahoma, Moore, narrowly missing the home he lived in with wife Melissa Newton (formerly a reporter at KOCO from 2004 to 2006). The station's coverage of that tornado earned KOCO a Regional Emmy nomination, and chronicled in part by Lane in a 2016 episode of the ABC docu-series ''20/20: In an Instant, In an Instant''.


Notable former on-air staff

* Ed Birchall (a.k.a. "Ho Ho the Clown") – children's television personality (1959–1988; deceased) * Dean Blevins – sports director (1988–1994; now at KWTV in same position) *
Mick Cornett Michael Earl Cornett Sr. (born July 16, 1958) is an American politician and former television personality who served as the 35th mayor of Oklahoma City, from 2005 until 2018. A member of the Republican Party, he was only the fourth mayor in Ok ...
– sports anchor/morning news anchor/reporter (1981–1999; later Mayor of Oklahoma City from 2004 to 2018 and Oklahoma Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2018) * Bill Geddie – news photographer (1978–1991; later co-creator/executive producer of ''The View (talk show), The View'') * Jane Jayroe – anchor/reporter (1977–1980 and 1987–1992; former Miss America 1967) *
Ben McCain Ben McCain (born 25 June 1955) is an American actor, broadcaster, producer and one half of The McCain Brothers, a singing-songwriting duo. McCain appeared as news anchor Aries West in MGM's comedy Bio-Dome, the character, Travis, in Roger Corma ...
– weekday morning anchor (1987–1994; now actor and producer/host/reporter at Spectrum (cable service), Spectrum in Los Angeles) * Butch McCain – weekday morning meteorologist (1987–1994; now actor/weather anchor at KKCO in Grand Junction, Colorado) * Rick Mitchell (meteorologist), Rick Mitchell – chief meteorologist (1994–2012; now at KXAS-TV in
Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...
Fort Worth) * Mike Morgan (meteorologist), Mike Morgan – chief meteorologist (1989–1992; now at KFOR-TV in same position) * Chad Myers – weekend evening meteorologist (1990–1992; now at CNN) * Milissa Rehberger – weekday morning and noon anchor/reporter (1996–2002; now at MSNBC) * Cameron Sanders (aka Ron Sanders) – reporter (1982–1983; later correspondent for CNN and host of American Public Media's ''Marketplace'')


Technical information


Subchannels

The station's digital signal is Multiplex (TV), multiplexed: KOCO-TV is one of several ABC-affiliated stations owned by Hearst (including, among others, WCVB-TV in
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, WMUR-TV in Manchester, New Hampshire, WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, KETV in Omaha, Nebraska, Omaha and KMBC-TV in Kansas City) that transmit the primary feed of its digital signal and all high definition programming it carries in the 1080i HD format, instead of ABC's preferred 720p format.


Analog-to-digital conversion

KOCO-TV began transmitting a digital terrestrial television, digital television signal on Very high frequency, VHF channel 7 on November 1, 2002. The station discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 5, on June 12, 2009, as part of the Digital television transition in the United States, federally mandated transitioned from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition VHF channel 7, using PSIP to display KOCO-TV's virtual channel as 5 (corresponding to its analog channel) on digital television receivers. After the switchover, the marginal reductions to the broadcast radius of KOCO's digital signal created some reception gaps in parts of southern and north-central Oklahoma that previously, at best, received Broadcast range, Grade B coverage from its analog signal. In May 2010, the station installed a new digital transmitter antenna and dish on the Britton Road tower to help extend KOCO's signal reception to the affected areas. As part of the Short-term Analog Flash and Emergency Readiness Act, SAFER Act, KOCO-TV kept its analog signal on the air until July 12 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.


ATSC 3.0 deployment

On October 8, 2020, KOCO commenced ATSC 3.0 digital transmissions over the signal of local NextGen TV host station KAUT-TV; KOCO was among five Oklahoma City-area stations owned by broadcasters associated with the Pearl NextGen TV consortium—accompanied by the respective duopolies of NBC affiliate KFOR-TV and independent station KAUT (owned by Nexstar Media Group), and Fox affiliate KOKH-TV and CW affiliate KOCB (owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group)—that deployed the fledgling ATSC 3.0 standard on that date. The station's 3.0 signal transmits over UHF digital channel 19.5005, using PSIP to display KOCO's virtual channel as 5.1 on digital television receivers.


Translators

To reach viewers throughout the 34 counties comprising the Oklahoma City market, KOCO-TV extends its over-the-air coverage area through a network of five Low-power broadcasting, low-power Broadcast relay station#Broadcast translators, digital translator stations – all of which transmit using PSIP virtual channel 5 – encompassing much of Western Oklahoma that distribute its programming beyond the range of its broadcast signal.


Notes


References


External links


koco.com
- KOCO-TV official website

- KOCO-DT2 ("MeTV Oklahoma City") official website {{DEFAULTSORT:Koco-Tv Television stations in Oklahoma City, OCO-TV ABC network affiliates MeTV affiliates Story Television affiliates TheGrio affiliates GetTV affiliates Television channels and stations established in 1954 Peabody Award winners Hearst Television 1954 establishments in Oklahoma Former Gannett subsidiaries