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''Fox 25'' / ''Fox Oklahoma City''
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25 ( UHF )
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24 ( UHF )
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Fox
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1953 (as KTVQ)<br> 1959 (current incarnation)
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Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
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'''K''' '''OK'''la'''H'''oma
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Sinclair Broadcast Group
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KTVQ (1953-1956)
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ABC (1953-1956), Educational independent (1959-1979), Independent (1979-1990)
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3470 kW/4756 m (analog)<br>22 kW/844 m (digital)
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(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.
KOKH is a typical Fox station with about 30 hours a week of news along with syndicated first run talk/court/reality shows, off-network sitcoms and dramas, Fox primetime network programming and Saturday morning children's programming, and sports.
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
Local TV .
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 an 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.
KOKH broadcasts a total of 29.5 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 , 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 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 11 pm. 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
April 9th ,
2007 , KOKH launched ''FOX25 Morning News''
{Link without Title} , running from 6:00 to 9:00 AM as other Fox stations do as a local alternative to nationwide morning programming.
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.
- Weekend Anchor/Fill-in Anchor/Reporter
- 9PM and 10PM Anchor/Reporter
- Weekend Anchor/Fill-in Anchor/Reporter
- Weekday Morning Anchor
- Saturday Evening Anchor/Reporter
- 9PM and 10PM Anchor/Reporter
- Weekday Morning Anchor
- Political Analyst
- Special Assignment Reporter/Producer
- General Assignment Reporter
- General Assignment Reporter
- Traffic Reporter
- Freelance Reporter/Producer
- General Assignment Reporter, seen weekday mornings
- Film Critic, seen Friday mornings
- General Assignment Reporter
- Crime Reporter
- Weekday Chief Meteorologist
- Weekday Morning Meteorologist
- Weekend Weather Anchor/Fill-in Evening Meteorologist
- Weeknight Sports Anchor/FOX25 Sports Sunday Co-Host
- Weekend Sports Anchor/Fill-in Sports Anchor/FOX25 Sports Sunday Co-Host (formerly weekend sports anchor from 2000 to 2001)
- Sports Reporter
- , Chief Meteorologist (1999-2002 and 2004-2005; now at WTTG in Washington)
- , Weeknight Anchor/Reporter (1996-2000)
- , Meteorologist (1997-1999; worked simultaneously at OETA)
- , Sports Director/Sports Anchor (1999-2001; now at WFTV in Orlando)
- , Weeknight Anchor (1996-2001; now at KWTV)
- , Anchor/Reporter (1996-1999 and 2001-2006)
- , Chief Meteorologist (1996-1999; now at WSMV in Nashville)
- , Sports Anchor/Weekend News Anchor/Reporter (1999-2001 and 2006);
- , Sports Director/Sports Anchor (1996-1999; now at WWLS Radio and host of ''The Locker Room'')
- ''FOX25 Morning News'' (2007-present)
- ''The Nine O'Clock News'' (1996-2000)
- ''FOX Primetime News @ Nine'' (2000-present)
- ''FOX25 Late Edition'' (2005-present)
''Although the newscasts are currently known individually as'' "FOX25 Morning News", "FOX Primetime News @ Nine" ''and'' "FOX25 Late Edition", ''reporters identify the newscast at the end of reports as'' "FOX25 News".
- ''We're Your Fox in Oklahoma City, FOX 25'' (1996-2000)
- ''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))
- ''First When It Matters'' (2006-present; weather slogan)
- As of 2006, KOKH-TV currently airs all eight syndicated courtroom shows and is the only television station in the market airing court shows.
- KOKH is currently the only known television station who uses different names for each of its newscasts. KOKH's naming conventions for its newscasts are similar to that of CBS O&O KYW in Philadelphia did at one point in the early 1990s. That station abandoned their longstanding Eyewitness News name in 1991 (restoring it in 1998) and experimented with giving each newscast different names. The morning and noon news became "Newsday," the 6 p.m. news became "Newsbeat" and the 11 p.m. news became "The News Tonight." Unlike KOKH, however, KYW's experiment with different newscast names ended three years later.
KOKH-TV's studios and transmitter are located at 1228 East Wilshire Boulevard, which also serves as the studios of sister station KOCB-TV.
