KOKH-TV

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

KOKH-TV
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Branding	Fox 25 / Fox Oklahoma City
Channels	25 (UHF) analog, 24 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	Fox
Owner	Sinclair Broadcast Group
Founded	1959
Call letters meaning	K OKlaHoma
Former affiliations	Independent (until 1990)
Website	www.kokh.com

KOKH-TV (known as FOX25 or FOX Oklahoma City) is the FOX broadcasting affiliate for Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group of Maryland, LLC in a duopoly with CW affiliate KOCB-TV 34. The station broadcasts its analog signal on UHF channel 25, and its digital signal on UHF channel 24, and is carried on channel 12 on most Central Oklahoma cable systems including Cox Communications. The station is also available to DirecTV and Dish Network customers within the Oklahoma City market.

Contents 1 History 2 News Operation 3 Personalities 3.1 Current On-Air Talent 3.2 Former On-Air Talent 4 News/Station Presentation 4.1 Newscast Titles 4.2 Station Slogans 5 Trivia 6 External links

[edit] History

Prior to 1959, channel 25 operated as the ABC affiliate in the Oklahoma City market as the short-lived KTVQ from 1953 until its demise in 1956. Current ABC affiliate KOCO Channel 5 was then operating out of Enid, Oklahoma using the call letters KGEO-TV but moved its operations to Oklahoma City in 1958 in a move similar to Tulsa's ABC affiliate, KTUL-TV Channel 8, which moved its operations from Muskogee, Oklahoma (under the callsign KTVX) to Tulsa in 1957.

KOKH resumed operation of channel 25 as an independent educational station in 1959. In the fall of 1979, KOKH was bought by Blair Broadcasting. At that point it became a general entertainment independent station featuring cartoons, classic sitcoms, and a lot of movies. Shortly after KGMC Channel 34 (Now KOCB) signed on with a similar format.

By 1983 Oklahoma City had three commercial independent stations and they all struggled for the best programming. Blair Broadcasting restructured into Gillett Broadcasting by 1985. In 1987, Pappas Broadcasting made a proposal to purchase KOKH. At the same time they would buy programming inventories of KGMC and KAUT 43 and combine assets on KOKH making one strong station. Fox affiliation would also move from KAUT to KOKH. Channel 34 would switch to Home Shopping programming while KAUT would become an educational station. In 1988 this sale was canceled. The three stations then continued on until 1991. In 1989 KOKH was sold to Busse Broadcasting.

In 1991, KAUT 43's owner, Heritage Broadcasting bought KOKH. Channel 43 was sold to Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA) and became KTLC The Literacy Channel. Heritage merged KAUT's programming onto KOKH as well as Fox affiliation. A few years later, though, KTLC became a commercial station and owned by Paramount and known as KPSG. They reverted to the KAUT calls in 1998 after the death of founder Gene Autry. Today that station is owned by New York Times.

In 1996, KOKH was sold to its current owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group. In the late 1990s, KOKH evolved and moved away from cartoons and classic sitcoms while still running some more recent sitcoms. The station moved toward more talk and reality shows as well as court shows. Also in 1996, KOKH also began a local marketing agreement with KOCB-TV, and a year later, the station began a independent local news operation.

In the fall of 2002, after 12 years of being known on the air only as FOX25, station promos began identifying the station as FOX Oklahoma City (or Oklahoma City's FOX) alternating back-and-forth between the two brandings due to the fact that many Central Oklahomans watch KOKH via cable (channel 12 or channel 3 on most area cable systems). Despite this, the FOX25 logo still remains in use.

Sinclair and Fox cut a six-year affiliation contract extension for Sinclair's 19 Fox affiliates; thus, Fox will remain on KOKH at least through March 2012.

KOKH airs lottery drawings from the Oklahoma Lottery nightly after their 9PM newscast. KOKH's sister station KOCB 34 simulcasts the drawings.

[edit] News Operation

KOKH broadcasts a total of 9.5 hours of local news per week. It is also one of a few Fox stations (with an independent news operation) not to have its own investigative unit and their newscasts have less of a tabloid feel compared to other Fox stations.

One setback KOKH has is that the station usually doesn't cover breaking news during the daytime hours unlike other stations, including several Fox stations, though they do cover severe weather outside of the newscasts. The station also only occasionally covers breaking news during a newscast. The station also has somewhat heavy turnover in regards to reporters.

In the 1980s, KOKH aired brief news capsules under the title Newstouch 25. Ronnie Kaye anchored the updates.

In May 1997, KOKH launched a nightly newscast titled The Nine O'Clock News, originally anchored by Jack Bowen and Kirsten McIntyre. The Nine O'Clock News was expanded to one hour in August 1998. The newscast ran only on Monday through Friday until September 1999, when it began airing seven nights a week. The FOX Primetime News at 9:00, as the newscast was rebranded in 2001, became part of Sinclair's News Central in March 2003, adding News Central's national news updates and weather forecasts in the newscasts, resulting in layoffs of several meteorologists, sports reporters and other select staffers at KOKH and other Sinclair-owned local news operations. This also significantly decreased the amount of time in the newscast devoted to local news stories, as was such the case on other Sinclair stations.

In early 2004, KOKH launched a companion newscast, FOX25 Late Edition a half-hour newscast at 10:00PM weeknights, making it one of the few non-O&O Fox stations to have a newscast at 10pm in the Central and Mountain time zones in competition with the Big Three (ABC, CBS and NBC) affiliates' late newscasts. Fox O&Os KSAZ in Phoenix, KMSP in Minneapolis/St. Paul, WDAF-TV in Kansas City, WBRC in Birmingham and KDFW in Dallas/Fort Worth are among the minority of Fox stations to have a 10 p.m. newscast in either the Central and Mountain Time Zones. WTVT in Tampa and WTTG in Washington, D.C. are experimenting with newscasts in the Eastern Time Zone equivalent timeslot of 11pm. In 2005, KOKH started Oklahoma's Most Wanted, a local equivalent of America's Most Wanted, airing during their Saturday evening newscast profiling wanted fugitives in Oklahoma, one of several local incarnations of America's Most Wanted on Fox stations.

In 2006, News Central was acknowledged as a failure and KOKH resumed an entirely local newscast. In December of that year, KOKH launched a 15-minute sportscast called FOX25 Sports Sunday. Only three months later, it was moved to 10PM and expanded to a half-hour. On March 14, 2007, KOKH announced that it will be adding a weekday morning newscast slated to premiere on April 2nd, running from 6:00 to 9:00 AM as other Fox stations do as a local alternative to nationwide morning programming (which for now mainly syndicated cartoons and informercials air).

The station for reasons unknown occasionally, though rarely, preempts the second half of the 9PM newscast. It is likely the only television station with an hour-long primetime newscast that does not air the entire newscast as scheduled, which is highly uncommon among Fox affiliates.

[edit] Personalities

[edit] Current On-Air Talent

FOX25 ANCHORS

• Jaime Cerreta, Weeknight Anchor/Reporter
• Andrew Speno, Weeknight Anchor/Reporter
• Matt Austin, Weekend Anchor/Fill-in Anchor/Reporter
• Britten Follett, Weekend Anchor/Fill-in Anchor/Reporter

FOX25 REPORTERS

• Courtney Coates, General Assignment Reporter/Producer
• Phil Cross, General Assignment Reporter
• Katie Delaune, General Assignment Reporter
• Lisa Monahan, Freelance Reporter/Producer
• Sana Syed, General Assignment Reporter
• Phyllis Williams, Crime Reporter

FOX25 WEATHER/FOX FIRST FORECAST CENTER METEOROLOGISTS

• Scott Padgett (AMS Certified), Weekday Chief Meteorologist
• Greg Whitworth, Weekend Forecaster

FOX25 SPORTS ANCHORS

• Liam McHugh, Sports Anchor/FOX25 Sports Sunday Co-Host
• Myron Patton, Fill-in Sports Anchor/FOX25 Sports Sunday Co-Host (formerly weekend sports anchor from 2000 to 2001)

[edit] Former On-Air Talent

• Chuck Bell, Chief Meteorologist (1999-2002 and 2004-2005; now at WTTG in Washington)
• Jack Bowen, Weeknight Anchor/Reporter (1996-2000)
• Ross Dixon, Meteorologist (1997-1999; worked simultaneously at OETA)
• Zach Klein, Sports Director/Sports Anchor (1999-2001)
• Kirsten MacIntyre, Weeknight Anchor (1996-2001; now at KWTV)
• Kris Roberts, Anchor/Reporter (1996-1999 and 2001-2006)
• Tim Ross, Chief Meteorologist (1996-1999; now at WSMV in Nashville)
• Brent Skarky, Sports Anchor/Weekend News Anchor/Reporter (1999-2001 and 2006);
• Mike Steely, Sports Director/Sports Anchor (1996-1999; now at WWLS Radio and host of The Locker Room)

[edit] News/Station Presentation

[edit] Newscast Titles

Morning

• FOX25 Morning News (starting April 2nd, 2007)

Evening

• The Nine O'Clock News (1996-2000)
• FOX Primetime News @ Nine (2000-present)
• FOX25 Late Edition (2005-present)

NOTE: Although the newscasts are currently known individually as "FOX Primetime News @ Nine" and "FOX25 Late Edition", reporters identify the newscast at the end of reports as "FOX25 News".

[edit] Station Slogans

• We're Your Fox in Oklahoma City (1996-1997)
• Where Local News Is First (2001-2003)
• All the News You Need, One Hour Earlier (2004-present)
• We Love TV (2005-present (also used as a slogan for ABC in the late 1990s))

[edit] Trivia

• As of 2006, KOKH-TV currently airs all eight syndicated courtroom shows and is the only television station in the market airing court shows.

[edit] External links

• KOKH Homepage
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KOKH-TV

Broadcast television in the Metropolitan Oklahoma City market  (Nielsen DMA #46)
KFOR 4 (NBC) - KOCO 5 (ABC) - KOHC 7 (AZA) - KWTV 9 (CBS) - KETA 13 / KWET 12 (PBS / OETA) - KTBO 14 (TBN) - KLHO 17 (LFN) - KUOT 19 (Almavision) - KTOU 21 (HSN) - KOKH 25 (Fox) - KGBN 27 (A1) - KTUZ 30 (TMD) - KWEM 31 (A1) - KXOK 32 (A1) - KOCB 34 (The CW) - KUOK 35 (UNI) - KCHM-LP 36 (UNI) - KOHC 38 (AZA) - KXOC 41 (A1) - KAUT 43 (MNTV) - KOCM 46 (DS) - KWDW-LP 48 (UNI) - KSBI 52 (Ind) - KOPX 62 (ION)
Local cable television channels City Channel 20 -  News Now 53