| Oklahoma City, Oklahoma | |
|---|---|
| Branding | CW 34 |
| Slogan | TV to Talk About |
| Channels | Digital: 33 (UHF) Virtual: 34 (PSIP) |
| Subchannels | (see article) |
| Affiliations | The CW The Cool TV (DT2) |
| Owner | Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (KOCB Licensee, LLC) |
| First air date | November 28, 1979 |
| Call letters' meaning | Oklahoma City's Best (reference to former slogan) -or- Oklahoma City Broadcasting |
| Sister station(s) | KOKH-TV |
| Former callsigns | KGMC (1979-1990) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 34 (UHF, 1979-2009) |
| Former affiliations | independent (1979-1995) UPN (1995-1998) The WB (1998-2006) |
| Transmitter power | 1000 kW |
| Height | 457.6 m |
| Facility ID | 50170 |
| Website | CWOKC.com |
KOCB, virtual channel 34 (digital channel 33), is the CW-affiliated television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group of Maryland, LLC, in a duopoly with Fox affiliate KOKH-TV (channel 25). The station's studios and transmitter are co-located with sister station KOKH at 1228 East Wilshire Boulevard in northeast Oklahoma City.
The station broadcasts its digital signal on UHF channel 33, using its former analog assignment of UHF channel 34 as its virtual digital channel via PSIP, and is carried on channel 11 in standard definition and channel 711 in high definition on Cox Oklahoma City and also on channel 11 on most other Central Oklahoma cable systems. The station is also available to DirecTV and Dish Network customers within the Oklahoma City market.
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KOCB went on the air on November 28, 1979 as independent station KGMC-TV. The call letters came from its owner, General Media Corporation. It was the first new commercial station to sign on in Oklahoma City in 25 years. The station featured cartoons, classic sitcoms, westerns, dramas, religious shows and some old movies. By only a matter of months, KGMC was the second independent station in Oklahoma, having signed on shortly after competitor and now-sister station KOKH-TV. The station's studios were originally located at 1501 NE 85th, until the station's purchase of KOKH by Sinclair Broadcast Group.
In 1983, KGMC was sold to Seraphim Media, with the format remaining unchanged. In 1987, Pappas Telecasting Companies sought to buy both KGMC and KOKH as well as then-Fox affiliate KAUT (channel 43). Pappas planned to merge the three stations' schedules on KOKH, which would take the Fox affiliation. KGMC was to be sold to the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA) and become a second public television station. KAUT was to become a Home Shopping Network affiliate eighteen hours a day, along with six hours a day of religious shows.[1] In 1988, the sale was canceled, but KGMC would be sold to Maddox Broadcasting in 1989. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, KOCB adopted a very slick on-air look by middle-market independent standards. It was known for using CGI graphics of near network-quality.
On February 9, 1989 KOCB's licensee Oklahoma City Broadcasting, Inc., which was controlled by the family of Ivan F. Boesky, a stock speculator sentenced to a three-year prison sentence in December 1987 for his involvement in an insider trading scandal, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection;[2][3] that May, KOCB co-founder Ted Baze, the station's general manager at the time, made an attempt to gain full percent ownership of station licensee Oklahoma City Broadcasting Co.[4] In September 1990, the station's call letters became the current KOCB, named after its licensee[5] (the KGMC call letters are now used by channel 43 in Clovis, California, an independent station). In 1991, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Oklahoma approved a reorganization plan in which KOCB's licensee Oklahoma City Broadcasting, Inc. would pay most of its creditors in full with interest within 21 months.[6]
In 1993, KOCB was sold again, this time to Superior Broadcasting.[7] They continued with a general entertainment format while becoming a UPN affiliate on January 16, 1995,[8] retaining the name "TV 34". Being that UPN initially only had a few nights of shows per week, KOCB (along with other UPN stations) was basically independent. In 1996, KOCB was purchased by current owner Sinclair Broadcast Group. After three years as a UPN station, KOCB became a WB affiliate on January 25, 1998, as part of an affiliation agreement between The WB and Sinclair that saw five of the company's stations drop their UPN affiliates and switch to the fledgling WB network.[9] This left Oklahoma City without a UPN affiliate until June 1998, when channel 43, then a secondary PBS member station under the calls KTLC, was bought by Paramount Stations Group and picked up the UPN affiliation under the calls KPSG; it reverted back to its old KAUT calls later that year.
Starting in 1998, Sinclair began a Local Management Agreement with Sullivan Broadcasting-owned KOKH, until late in 2003 when the duopoly ownership was approved by the FCC. After the KOKH-KOCB duopoly was approved, KOCB left its studios at 1501 N.E. 85th St. and moved into KOKH's studios at 1228 E. Wilshire Boulevard. KOCB and KOKH cross-promote each other. In the fall of 2002, after four years of being known on the air as "WB34", the station rebranded itself as "The WB Oklahoma City" because many Central Oklahomans watch KOCB via cable (channel 11 on most area cable systems). Eventually the station forwent the use of the over-the-air channel allocation in the station logo.
It was confirmed on May 2, 2006 that KOCB would affiliate with The CW, probably because it was ranked as one of the highest-rated WB affiliates in the nation at the time.[10] The affiliation switch took place on September 18, 2006. A few months before that, KOCB rebranded as "The CW Oklahoma City". In August 2007, KOCB rebranded as "CW34".
Since the CW does not air programming on Saturday or Sunday nights, KOCB usually airs movies between 7 and 9 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. KOCB had simulcast KOKH's official drawings for the Oklahoma Lottery nightly during the 9 p.m. newscast, starting with the introduction of the online game Pick 3 in October 2006, but discontinued the simulcast after September 19, 2009, when the Oklahoma Lottery dropped all televised drawings in favor of doing computerized drawings. The station however still simulcasts the Powerball drawings on Wednesday and Saturday evenings from KOKH.
Late in the evening on August 28, 2007, the transmission line to KOCB's antenna failed, while KOCB was airing a Dallas Cowboys exhibition football game. Due to the failure, those people receiving an over-the-air signal, both analog and digital, were not able to see the rest of the game or any other station programming that aired afterwards. KOCB's analog and digital signal briefly returned to the air around 3 p.m. the following afternoon only for the transmission line to fail again around midnight early Saturday, August 30. KOCB's studio signal was interrupted only a short time on Cox Communications' Oklahoma City systems due to a direct fiber-optic feed from the KOCB studios to Cox. KOCB's over-the-air signal returned a little less than two weeks later, just in time for those without the ability to receive KOCB via cable or satellite to be able to see The CW's 2007–2008 prime-time lineup.
Similarly, fellow Sinclair-owned station KDNL in St. Louis (that city's ABC affiliate) also suffered a transmitter failure in the spring of 2001 that left KDNL off the air for a number of days (or at least was broadcasting at lower power than it did), which both affected over-the-air and cable broadcasts. What little audience there was for KDNL's news switched to other sources and never returned, causing the shutdown of its news division (it still does not have an in-house news operation today although it now airs outsourced newscasts on weeknights), and KDNL is one of the lowest-rated ABC stations in the country. However, KOCB was not negatively affected by its transmission line failure due to its direct studio feed to area cable systems, also the fact that KOCB did not have a news division as sister station KOKH does.
On July 19, 2011, Sinclair Broadcast Group and The CW cut a five-year affiliation contract extension for Sinclair's 10 CW affiliates; thus, The CW's programming will remain with KOCB at least through August 2016.[11]
| Channel | Video | Aspect | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|
| 34.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | Main KOCB programming / The CW |
| 34.2 | 480i | 4:3 | The Cool TV |
KOCB discontinued regular analog programming and converted to a digital-only signal on February 17, 2009.[12] The station remained on its pre-transition digital channel 33, using PSIP to display KOCB's virtual channel as 34.
On October 4, 2010, KOCB began carrying The Cool TV, a 24-hour digital music video network, on digital subchannel 34.2. KOCB digital subchannel 34.2 was the Oklahoma City affiliate of The Tube Music Network, which ceased operations October 1, 2007.
Syndicated programming on the station includes: The Andy Griffith Show, Jerry Springer, The Steve Wilkos Show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, The Tyra Show, Two and a Half Men, The New Adventures of Old Christine, That '70s Show, My Name is Earl, Don't Forget The Lyrics, Scrubs, Family Feud, According to Jim, Frasier, Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns, and America's Funniest Home Videos with latenight and weekend telecasts of Cheaters, Punk'd, The Andy Griffith Show, American Dad and the station's weekday sitcom offerings.
The station carries the minimum amount of educational and informational children's programming, as the The CW4Kids lineup includes an hour of E/I shows, and the station airs a half-hour of E/I programming every weekday morning with Noonbory and the Super 7 on Mondays and Tuesdays, Wimzie's House on Wednesdays, Missing on Thursdays and Made in Hollywood: Teen Edition on Fridays.
KOCB broadcasts Dallas Cowboys preseason games airing three preseason games per year. KOCB also airs college basketball games from the Big 12 Conference via ESPN Plus, airing up to ten regular season games per year as well as the Big 12 Tournament.
For much of KOCB's history, it did not broadcast its own local newscasts, and was the only general-entertainment commercial station in the Oklahoma City market never to regularly air its own local newscasts. Since 2005, the station occasionally airs half-hour special editions of KOKH's 9 p.m. newscast live, in the event that Fox sports or other programming delays the newscast at its regular time on KOKH. On August 9, 2010, KOCB began airing a rebroadcast of sister station KOKH's 10 p.m. newscast at 12:30 a.m. weeknights.
Fox 25 Late Edition
(weeknights 12:30-1 a.m.)
KOCB's newscast features additional news personnel from KOKH. See that article for a complete listing.
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