Oklahoma's News 4

KFOR-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside independent station KAUT-TV (channel 43). Both stations share studios in Oklahoma City's McCourry Heights section, where KFOR-TV's transmitter is also located.

As Oklahoma's first television station, KFOR-TV signed on in June 1949 as WKY-TV, the television extension to WKY (930 AM). In its early years, WKY-TV boasted several regional and national technical firsts: it was the first independently-owned network affiliate to directly originate color programs, the first station to operate a mobile broadcasting unit for live event coverage, the first station to broadcast legislative sessions and cover court proceedings, and the first television station to broadcast a tornado warning. Originally owned by the Oklahoma Publishing Company, a direct predecessor to Gaylord Broadcasting, the station became KTVY in 1976 and KFOR-TV in 1990.

History

WKY-TV

Edward K. Gaylord's vision

Fascinated with the medium since the late 1930s, Edward K. Gaylord's April 13, 1936, dedication to new studios at the Skirvin Tower Hotel for his radio station, WKY, ended with a public pledge to bring television to Oklahoma when it and other related inventions had been perfected. With his Oklahoma Publishing Company (OPUBCO), Gaylord published both the morning '' Daily Oklahoman'' and evening '' Oklahoma Times'' newspapers, and had purchased WKY—established in 1922 as Oklahoma's first radio station—in 1928, successfully turning a profit for the station within two years. His pledge soon manifest itself on an exhibitory basis in mid-November 1939 when OPUBCO sponsored a six-day demonstration of telecasts and broadcast equipment at the Oklahoma City Municipal Auditorium in downtown Oklahoma City, now the Civic Center Music Hall. With equipment set up and operated by RCA engineers, the event featured appearances by performers from NBC and WKY with attendees given an opportunity to be "televised" to other attendees watching television sets throughout the auditorium. OPUBCO executive Edgar T. Bell downplayed the immediate outlook for local television as "distant" despite well-received attendance for the exhibition; estimates had as many as 25,000 attendees on Thursday, taxing the auditorium's capacity. During November and early December 1944, OPUBCO conducted a similar, 19-city television exhibition tour across central and western Oklahoma—open to residents who had purchased war bonds, as well as for attendees that wished to purchase them—that included performances from WKY personalities and demonstrations by television technicians. The tour was attended by a total of 50,000 bond buyers with crowd size regarded as large throughout, several cities even saw encore performances due to overwhelming demand.

Gaylord submitted a permit application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on April 14, 1948 for a television station on VHF channel 4. Upon filing, Gaylord estimated any financial loss for the TV station would be offset within two years, echoing how WKY turned a profit two years after being purchased by OPUBCO. The FCC granted the license to Gaylord on June 2, 1948 with the station assigned the WKY-TV call sign, joining WKY and WKY-FM (98.9), which signed on in July 1947. Studio facilities for WKY-TV were based at the Municipal Auditorium—WKY's studios remained at the nearby Skirvin Tower Hotel—with production facilities on the second floor in the Little Theatre. Prior to launch, a fire to the theatre on November 17, 1948, resulted in $150,000 in damage with most of the technical and production equipment replaced during renovations to the theatre that followed; soundproofing material was also added to limit disruptions between television productions and stage productions.

While assembling the TV transmitter antenna onto WKY's broadcast tower in April 1949, an accident occurred when the antenna fell while being hoisted upward; the antenna suffered minimal damage but added to delays earlier in the month due to inclement weather. Daily test broadcasts over WKY-TV began on April 21 consisting of music played over a test pattern slide, enabling television set owners in Oklahoma and neighboring states to contact the station to report signal reception. The test signal operated at low power for three days following a lightning strike to a junction box on the tower on April 27. Closed-circuit transmissions began on May 27 with a wrestling match at the Stockyards Coliseum along with two weeks worth of dress rehearsals between the local performers and show producers.

A 'pioneer station'

WKY-TV's inaugural broadcast on June 6, 1949, included speeches from Gaylord, executive vice president/general manager Proctor A. "Buddy" Sugg and Governor Roy J. Turner, a short feature on the new medium by Gaylord and Sugg and a film outlining programs WKY-TV would air. Gaylord boasted during his on-air address that WKY-TV had both the finest television studio in the country and the tallest transmission tower outside of NBC's transmitter for WNBT atop the Empire State Building. The station was the first to sign on in the state of Oklahoma and the 65th station in the United States to sign on. "Television parties" occurred throughout the city and state as people suspended or heavily curtailed their regular activities to watch the new station in homes, laundromats, bars, appliance stores and other businesses; in Tulsa, approximately 1,000 people sat outside of a store to watch the transmissions.

Broadcasting over WKY-TV was originally limited to two and a half hours every night, Saturday excluded. Saturday transmissions began on February 11, 1950, and a morning schedule was added by 1951, giving the station 90 cumulative hours of weekly programming. As WKY had been an NBC Radio Network affiliate since December 1928, WKY-TV debuted with the market's NBC-TV affiliation along with supplemental CBS-TV and ABC-TV clearances. Due to Oklahoma City not being connected yet to transcontinental coaxial cables, a process AT&T estimated could take another two years to complete, all network programming had to be via film and kinescope. A short feature NBC prepared welcoming WKY-TV to the network aired on the station's debut night, while the first NBC program, '' Who Said That?'', was broadcast via kinescope on June 17. The station additionally carried select programming from DuMont and the Paramount Television Network, the latter from 1950 until ceasing operations in 1953.

Channel 4's initial local programming included some WKY shows that were adapted for television, including variety series ''Wiley and Gene'' hosted by Wiley Walker and Gene Sullivan, and children's program ''The Adventures of Gismo Goodkin'' hosted by puppeteer—and high school senior—Robert Jerkins. ''Oklahoma Times'' scribe R. G. Miller hosted the weekly ''Smoking Room'' that was an extension of his newspaper column. Danny Williams joined WKY-TV in 1950 to host a daily talk show, announce professional wrestling telecasts, and appear as Spavinaw Spoofkin on ''Gismo Goodkin''. Williams later fronted children's program ''The Adventures of 3-D Danny'' as "Supreme Galaxy Chief Dan D. Dynamo", incorporating science fiction and time travel elements derived from ''Flash Gordon'' with cartoon short subjects. Airing on WKY-TV from 1953 to 1959, the ratings for ''3-D Danny'' often beat those of ABC's ''The Mickey Mouse Club'', making it the first local television program in the country to achieve that feat.

Sports quickly became a fixture at the station, with high school basketball, football, golf and softball matches all broadcast within the first year. WKY-TV reached a deal to broadcast all ten Oklahoma Sooners football games for the 1949 season, with all home games airing live starting with the October 1 Texas A&M Aggies matchup at Owen Field. Oklahoma A&M Aggies football was subsequently added, but with all of their games recorded on film. WKY-TV also originated ''Bud Wilkinson's Football'' starting in September 1953. The first college football analysis program, it featured the Sooners' three-time national championship head coach discussing the previous week's game, a necessity after the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) enacted guidelines limiting live television coverage of college football. Wilkinson also hosted ''Sports for the Family'' starting in 1954 that focused on a variety of sports, filmed and packaged for syndication to television stations around the U.S. Among the play-by-play announcers for these shows was Ross Porter, starting with the 1960 season at age 21; already a WKY news reporter, Porter would soon emerge as WKY-TV's sports director until leaving for Los Angeles in 1966. Under varying titles to 1963, Wilkinson's shows on WKY-TV helped boost awareness of the Sooners' football program and encourage physical fitness, with Wilkinson rejecting most advertising in favor of National Guard PSAs. Football was not the only college sport WKY-TV covered, a 1966 wrestling match between the Sooners and the Oklahoma State University Cowboys became the first of its kind to be televised live.

After OPUBCO declined to renew the lease for WKY's studios in the Skirvin, plans were made to combine it and WKY-TV's operations into a combined studio facility on Britton Road east of the transmission towers for both stations, as well as WKY-FM. Ground was broken for the studios on July 10, 1950, with WKY moving into the facility on March 26, 1951; WKY-TV followed suit by July 17. The new facility included television soundstages engineered to also allow origination of radio programs over WKY. The AT&T coaxial cable network was completed in 1952, WKY-TV was able to link to the network via microwave relays from Dallas. The milestone was inaugurated the morning of July 1, 1952, with Gaylord giving a short message and pressing a button to activate the network connections, joining NBC's '' Today'' live in progress. With this, WKY-TV was able to sign on at 7 a.m. daily, increasing its programming to 111 hours per week. Gaylord's predictions of financial shortfalls for the station being offset after two years came to pass, as WKY-TV lost $270,000 between 1949 and 1950, then turned a profit in 1951.

OPUBCO successfully challenged the FCC over their ''Sixth Report and Order'' that proposed the channel 4 allocation be reassigned to Tulsa and WKY-TV move to channel 7, citing engineering costs, possible effects on the AM station's transmissions, and a need for viewers to replace existing outdoor antennas. The FCC rescinded the frequency change request in April 1952, noting WKY-TV would have enough feasible co-channel assignment separation from Dallas's KRLD-TV; the channel 7 allocation was reassigned to Lawton for use by KSWO-TV. Due to the FCC's 1948 licensing freeze, WKY-TV was the only television station in Oklahoma City until 1953, when UHF-based competitors—KTVQ and KMPT "KLPR-TV"—debuted on October 28 and November 8. Though KTVQ and KMPT respectively signed on as basic ABC and DuMont affiliates, channel 4 continued to carry selected programs from both networks; in contrast, WKY disaffiliated from CBS on November 14, one month prior to KWTV (channel 9) signing on. At the same time, OPUBCO donated $150,000 worth of existing WKY-TV equipment to the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA) for its proposed Oklahoma City station, KETA-TV (channel 13), which signed on in April 1956. WKY-TV carried select DuMont fare until that network discontinued operations in August 1956, while ABC programming left in March 1958 when Enid-licensed ABC affiliate KGEO-TV (channel 5) changed call letters to KOCO-TV and refocused its coverage area to include Oklahoma City.

Broadcasting in living color

WKY-TV was the first television station not owned by a network to produce and transmit local programs in color. Before the FCC had even approved a color transmission standard, Gaylord ordered color equipment from RCA—including two TK-40 color cameras—in September 1949. By March 1954, the equipment was delivered and installed, and WKY-TV was successfully receiving color programming from NBC via a separate microwave relay system, as the coaxial cable network was incompatible for color.

* OPUBCO had a special exhibition at the Municipal Auditorium's Home Show on April 4, 1954, where 30 patrons watched a color set displaying '' The Paul Winchell Show'', one of three color programs NBC was regularly transmitting for testing purposes and the station's first color telecast. The station's first local colorcast occurred on April 8 with a live five-minute message from E. K. Gaylord, followed by a half-hour sponsored variety show on April 21. With the hour-long ''Cook's Book'' becoming the first regularly scheduled weekday colorcast on April 26, WKY-TV carried more programming in color than all of the networks combined. NBC's color coordinator Barry Wood even remarked that WKY-TV's color output was of better quality than the network itself.

The station became the first network affiliate to provide live color programming to a network on August 17, 1954, when a feed of the American Indian Exposition in Anadarko was sent to NBC; the ten-minute segments on ''Today'' and ''Home'' featured participants dressed in tribal "war dance" regalia. On April 23, 1955, WKY-TV produced ''Square Dance Festival'' for NBC, showcasing the National Square Dance convention at Municipal Auditorium, the first full-length color program fed to a network by an affiliate. Also in 1955, the station transmitted to the network a surgical procedure in color via closed-circuit four years after becoming the first station in Oklahoma to broadcast a surgery on-air. In 1958, WKY-TV became one of the first local television stations in the U.S. to acquire a videotape recorder, intended for the news department but also used for some show production. One videotaped show, the ''Stars and Stripes Show'', premiered on NBC that year as the first network television program to be produced by a local station.

WKY-TV and the Lions Club of Oklahoma collaborated on ''Gift of God'', a December 2, 1957, program profiling medical and legal aspects of corneal transplants through the perspective of an organ donor's eyes transported to an operating room, concluding with a film of a successful transplant. An appeal then aired for viewers wishing to become organ donors to join a statewide eye bank established by the Lions Sight Conservation Foundation initiative; 700 donor card requests were received by the bank 90 minutes after the program aired, including one signed by then-Oklahoma governor Raymond Gary, the number increased to 2,000 cards after 48 hours. The WKY-TV/Lions partnership lasted for four years with more than 16,400 volunteer donor cards signed, with 346 Oklahomans—including two who underwent surgery within 48 hours of the broadcast—having successful corneal transplants.

Long-running local shows

Another children's show with a similar local impact to ''3-D Danny'' was ''Foreman Scotty's Circle 4 Ranch'', hosted by Steve Powell as the titular cowboy. Airing from 1957 to 1971, Scotty's supporting characters included Danny Williams as sidekick Xavier T. Willard; Powell, with Williams, had additionally teamed up to host WKY-TV's ''The Giant Kids Matinee''. The show also featured prize giveaways including the Golden Horseshoe, whose winner was selected through the "Magic Lasso," a cut-out slide that was superimposed on-screen over the audience, and honorary rides on a wooden horse named Woody for children in the studio audience who were celebrating their birthday. At its peak, the show had a 1½-year backlog of kids who wanted to be part of the show's audience.

During this era, the station featured an assortment of other noted locally-oriented fare. In 1965, WKY host Don Wallace began hosting ''The Wallace Wildlife Show'', a weekly fishing show that was the highest-rated program of its kind in the country from 1974 to 1975 and ended after 920 episodes with Wallace's 1988 retirement. ''The Scene'', a Saturday afternoon music and dance show hosted by WKY personality Ronny Kaye, aired from 1966 to 1974. ''The Jude 'n' Jody Show'', a country-variety program hosted by singers/furniture salespeople Jude Northcutt and Jody Taylor, aired on channel 4 and other Oklahoma City stations between 1954 and 1982. Danny Williams returned to channel 4 in 1967 to host the local midday talk-variety show ''Dannysday'', which enjoyed a 17-year run. Among Williams' co-hosts included Mary Hart, who became a fan favorite on ''Dannysday'' from 1976 until leaving for Los Angeles at the end of 1979, later becoming the co-host of ''Entertainment Tonight''. John Ferguson hosted three distinct horror movie showcases at the station under the horror host persona "Count Gregore": a local version of ''Shock Theater'' from 1958 to 1962, ''Thriller Theater'' from 1962 to 1964 and ''Sleepwalker's Matinee'' from 1973 to 1979. WKY-TV originated ''The Buck Owens Ranch Show'' from 1966 to 1973; seen in over 100 U.S. markets, the half-hour country-variety show was the most successful of its kind not produced in Nashville. In addition to hosting the ''Ranch Show'', Owens was paired with Roy Clark in 1969 to host the similar-themed '' Hee Haw'' on CBS, which was relaunched as a syndicated show in 1971. As the result of a renegotiated contract, Yongestreet Productions forced Owens to discontinue the ''Ranch Show'' due to heavy music and content duplication with ''Hee Haw''.

Through its WKY Radiophone Company subsidiary, the Oklahoma Publishing Company eventually acquired or launched other television and radio stations during and after its stewardship of WKY-TV, including Montgomery's WSFA-TV and WSFA (1440 AM) in 1955, Tampa's WTVT in 1956, Milwaukee's WUHF-TV in 1966, KTVT in Fort Worth in 1962, Houston's KHTV in 1967, and Tacoma's KTNT-TV in 1973. WKY-TV served as the company's flagship station, and in October 1956, OPUBCO renamed its broadcast group the WKY Television System. After Edward K. Gaylord's death at the age of 101 on May 30, 1974, control of OPUBCO was transferred to son Edward L. Gaylord.

KTVY

OPUBCO sold WKY-TV to the Evening News Association on July 16, 1975, for $22.697 million; this included $197,000 for upgrades to the studio building. WKY-TV was sold after the FCC adopted cross-ownership rules preventing the same company from owning newspapers and broadcast outlets in the same market. While Oklahoma City was not one of 16 markets the FCC had planned to strictly enforce this rule, the sale happened under the possibility, with OPUBCO preferring Evening News as the buyer since it also was a newspaper publisher-turned-broadcaster. Additionally, Oklahoma City was the smallest market in which the company owned a TV station. WKY, the ''Oklahoman'', and the ''Times'' were all retained by OPUBCO, which planned to purchase additional TV and radio stations with the sale proceeds under the newly renamed Gaylord Broadcasting division. As OPUBCO/Gaylord retained the rights to the WKY call sign, WKY-TV was rechristened as KTVY on January 5, 1976.

Starting with the 1978 Oklahoma Sooners season, KTVY debuted ''The Oklahoma Playback'', a next-day hour-long condensed recap of the most recent Sooners football game with wraparound segments co-hosted by then-head coach Barry Switzer. Also regarded as a continuation of the Bud Wilkinson coaches shows by sponsor Kerr Magee, Tulsa's KTUL handled production for the 1980 season but became a KTVY production again in 1981 with sportscaster Ron Thulin as host. This program—which was also syndicated throughout the Southwest and on cable—ended in 1984 after a successful legal challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court by the University of Oklahoma and then-Oklahoma City mayor Andy Coats against the NCAA restrictions over the number of games that could be televised live in a single season. KTVY was occasionally granted exceptions to this rule, most notably with the 1983 Oklahoma-Texas rivalry game, which aired live on the station. KTVY added Sooners college basketball coverage to the lineup in 1982. Originally produced by KTVY and the university under a revenue-sharing deal, production subsequently was taken over by Raycom Sports under a larger deal with the Big Eight Conference in 1985; the station continued to air ESPN Plus, though with KOCB airing more games to allow KFOR to fulfill NBC obligations, until KOCB became the exclusive carrier in 2001.

KTVY became the first television station in Oklahoma to broadcast in stereo on June 6, 1985; initially, the station broadcast NBC network programs, local programs and certain syndicated shows that were transmitted in the audio format. Taking advantage of the new format, channel 4's daily sign-ons and sign-offs began to feature music videos, some of which were tailored to the station's public service campaigns. That September, the station debuted another local talk show in the vein of ''Dannysday'', which had ended its run the previous year: ''AM Oklahoma'', hosted by brothers Ben and Butch McCain, who were also KTVY's morning news and weather anchors, respectively. The program was canceled in May 1986 after nine months, and the McCains ultimately left KTVY in June 1987 for KOCO-TV. A local version of '' PM Magazine'' had much better success, airing on KTVY from 1980 to 1988 with hosts Stan Miller, Karen Carney, Dan Slocumb, Dave Hood, Kelly Robinson and Becky Corbin.

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