KAUT-TV, virtual channel 43 (digital channel 40), is the MyNetworkTV-affiliated television station for Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Owned by Local TV, KAUT is sister station to NBC affiliate KFOR-TV (channel 4). The two stations share studios at 444 East Britton Road, along U.S. 77, east of the Britton section of Oklahoma City and broadcasts from a transmitter in the northern area of the city along the John Kilpatrick Turnpike.

The station operates its digital signal on UHF channel 40, using its former analog channel assignment of 43 as its virtual channel via PSIP. The station can also be seen on Cox cable channel 16 in standard definition and in high definition on digital channel 714 in Oklahoma City.

Digital programming [link]

KAUT-TV is currently the only full-power broadcast station in the Oklahoma City market that does not have multiplexed digital subchannels.

KAUT-TV discontinued regular analog programming and converted to a digital-only signal on June 12, 2009.^[1] The station remained on its pre-transition digital channel 40, using PSIP to display KAUT-TV's virtual channel as 43.

History [link]

Early history [link]

Founded by actor Gene Autry, KAUT signed-on September 24, 1980. It was the sixth television station and the fourth UHF outlet in Oklahoma City after KGMC (now KOCB), KOKH-TV, and the short-lived KTVQ. The station was owned by his Golden West Broadcasters that also owned Los Angeles' legendary KTLA (channel 5, now a CW affiliate owned by Tribune Company) and its original studios were located at 11901 N. Eastern Ave. in northern Oklahoma City. It was a groundbreaking station airing an all-local news format called Newswatch 43 which ran initially from 9 in the morning to 5 at night before expanding to 7 in the evening. VUE, a scrambled subscription-based service also owned by Golden West, initially signed on at 5 and then 7 after the expansion of news programming.

In late 1981, the plug was pulled on Newswatch and KAUT introduced a temporary format of old Western films most of them starring Autry. Innovation continued in early 1982 with the launch of a two-hour local dance show called TMC 43 which ran from 4 to 6 p.m. From 6 to 7, KAUT aired a live local country dance show from a local bar called Oklahoma Country Live. Both shows were gone by the fall of 1982. By then, some dramas and sitcoms had been added. The station dropped VUE in 1983. Initially, it added programming from Financial News Network at night and Independent Network News. Later in the year, FNN was dropped and KAUT added more prime time movies and drama shows. In 1984, it added morning cartoons as well as a few more sitcoms in the evening.

On June 11, 1985, Golden West sold KAUT to Atlanta-based Rollins Communications, Inc. The station became a charter Fox affiliate on October 6, 1986 carrying The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers and other early original series of the fourth network such as Married... with Children and 21 Jump Street. In addition, more afternoon cartoons were added, and the station also broadcast Midnight Shopper, a locally-produced late night home shopping program on weekends.^[2] Rollins Communications sold KAUT to Heritage Broadcasting on November 1, 1986.^[3][4] In 1987, Pappas Telecasting made a proposal to buy KOKH (channel 25). In the deal, it would also buy the programming of KAUT and KGMC (channel 34, now KOCB) and merge them into KOKH's schedule; KGMC would switch to a religious/home shopping format while Heritage would agree to sell KAUT to the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, the state's PBS member network. KOKH would then take over as Oklahoma City's Fox affiliate.^[5] In 1988, the deal fell through; with uncertainty over the station's future, sixteen of KAUT's employees chose to leave the station to work at other Heritage-owned stations and the station's sales department saw a reduction in advertising sales.^[6] All three stations continued on with general entertainment schedules.

As a PBS member station, then back to a general entertainment station [link]

KOKH went on the market in 1991 and was purchased by Heritage which was completed in August 1991. At that time, the Fox affiliation and syndicated programming, as well as thirty KAUT station staff members, production equipment, operating files and records, were moved to that station; Heritage then sold KAUT to OETA.^[7] On August 15, 1991, channel 43 became the city's second PBS member station, and the following year, the station's callsign changed to KTLC.^[8] It was known as "The Literacy Channel"; however despite the name, its emphasis was not entirely on literacy. Following the switch to becoming a secondary PBS station, KTLC's schedule included fitness programs such as Body Electric, Homestretch and Sit and Be Fit on weekday mornings from 7 to 8:30, instructional programming and select PBS series (including The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer) during late evenings and children's programming for much of the rest of the day.

Unlike many PBS stations, KTLC aired children's programs from mid-morning to early evening. Most of them were rebroadcasts from KETA. KTLC's schedule was trimmed back from its earlier lineup and ended its programming day at Midnight like OETA. KTLC's weekend lineup initially retained the same broadcast day period as it previously did on weekdays, but in 1995, KTLC trimmed back its program hours on weekends to begin the day at 4:00 in the afternoon and end the broadcast day at midnight. Cox Communications filled non-programming hours with QVC programming on cable channel 13. OETA eventually found it too hard to run two stations in Oklahoma City so it decided to put channel 43 up for sale.^[9][10]

After KOCB announced in January 1998 that it would drop its UPN affiliation to become the Oklahoma City affiliate of The WB television network, Paramount Stations Group agreed to buy KTLC for an estimated $23.5 million, with OETA using the proceeds from the sale to fund development of a high-definition digital broadcast signal.^[10][11] Channel 43 signed-off as a full-time educational station at midnight for the last time on June 19, 1998. It returned the next morning at 5 a.m. as KPSG,^[12][13] named after its new owner. The switch to a general entertainment schedule had originally been slated for June 1, 1998; which was then pushed back to June 13, but was delayed again due to technical difficulties unrelated to a tornado outbreak that occurred in the Oklahoma City area that evening.^[12] The station continued to air PBS educational shows from 7 a.m. to noon (as part of several conditions of the sale, which also included channel 43 agreeing simulcast OETA's March and August fund-raising drives in an eight hour block for the next five years), followed by a general entertainment format consisting of off-network classic sitcoms, cartoons, UPN first-run primetime shows and movies. That fall, the station became a full-time general entertainment station. When the station's founder Gene Autry died that November, the station changed its calls back to "KAUT-TV" to honor him. Viacom, parent company of Paramount since 1994, acquired CBS in 1999. This made the station the only network owned-and-operated one in the entire state of Oklahoma that time.

Gradually, classic sitcoms were replaced with talk, reality and court shows. Cartoons were also phased out and gone by the Fall of 2003. At the end of 2005, Viacom's broadcasting assets and other "slow-growth" businesses became part of a new company called the CBS Corporation. In the meantime, CBS sold KAUT to The New York Times Company making it a sister station to KFOR-TV.^[14] On September 12, 2006, less than a year after closing on its purchase of KAUT, The New York Times Company announced its intention to sell all of its television stations.

As a MyNetworkTV affiliate [link]

On January 24, 2006, the CBS Corporation and Warner Bros. made the decision to merge UPN and The WB to form a new network called The CW. On February 22, News Corporation announced a new competing network, MyNetworkTV. On May 1, KAUT removed UPN branding from its logo becoming one of a few non-Fox owned-and-operated UPN stations to do so. It was then referred to as "43". The station also announced that it would no longer promote any network programing.

Ironically, KAUT was erroneously mentioned as a CW affiliate in the first press statements about the new network. What was not realized then was the sale of the station from CBS to The New York Times Company.^[14] On May 2, KOCB was announced as Oklahoma City's CW affiliate. For months, it was unclear whether KAUT would go independent or affiliate with MyNetworkTV. Finally on August 22, the station was added to the roster of MyNetworkTV's stations on their website as Oklahoma City's affiliate while station personnel also confirmed the affiliation via email. The word came just two weeks before the new network aired its first program.^[15]

When the announcement of MyNetworkTV's formation was made, a promotional video shown on the day of the network's announcement on New York City flagship WWOR-TV (channel 9) showed that the branding of their affiliated stations would be "My (channel number)". However, KAUT opted instead to brand itself as "OK 43" making it one of eight MyNetworkTV affiliates (the others being Portland, Oregon's KPDX, Little Rock, Arkansas's KARZ-TV, Portland, Maine's WPME-TV, Cincinnati's WSTR-TV, Seattle's KZJO, Philadelphia's WPHL-TV and a digital subchannel of WISC-TV in Madison, Wisconsin) not to use the "My" branding, logos, trademarks, or any other elements of the channel. The new branding was accompanied by a new marketing campaign with the slogan "OK43: An Oklahoma Original" focusing on the station's history and origins with Gene Autry. KAUT is one of a few stations in the country to have been affiliated with both News Corporation-owned networks, Fox and MyNetworkTV.

On January 4, 2007, The New York Times Company entered into an agreement to sell the stations to affiliates of the private equity group Oak Hill Capital Partners.^[16] KAUT officially became part of Local TV, a subsidiary of Oak Hill Capital, on May 7. The station now airs sitcoms and talk/reality shows in the late morning and afternoons, off-network sitcoms in the evenings and late nights, and dramas and movies on weekends along with some college and professional sports. It may also take on the responsibility of airing NBC programs when KFOR is not able to as in a news-related emergency.

On April 11, 2011, KAUT rebranded once again, dropping the "OK43" identity in favor of "Freedom 43 TV," an approach made to cater to, in the words of KFOR/KAUT President-GM Jim Boyer, "all Oklahomans who believe in faith, freedom and patriotism," specifically the large military population in the Oklahoma City market. The news content on "Freedom 43 TV" was tweaked to include stories and profiles on those of interest to conservatives and the military community.^[17][18]

Programming [link]

Syndicated programming on the station includes: Maury, E! True Hollywood Story, Friends, Everybody Hates Chris, Everybody Loves Raymond, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, South Park, Cops, The Wild, Wild West, Bonanza, Little House on the Prairie, The 700 Club, How I Met Your Mother, M*A*S*H*, and The Office with weekend telecasts of Criminal Minds, Stargate Universe, Ugly Betty, Stargate Atlantis, The Unit, Cold Case, Heartland and NUMB3RS. In addition to airing local newscasts produced by KFOR-TV, it also will take on the responsibility of preempting regular programming and simulcasting severe weather information from KFOR in the event a tornado warning is in effect for any part of its main over-the-air viewing area.

KAUT also produces and airs comedic wraparound segments during the station's Saturday primetime movie, called 2 Movie Guys, hosted by Lucas Ross and Ryan Bellgardt (Bellgardt also serves as the station's announcer). Ross and Bellgardt are also seen on the Friday morning edition of Rise and Shine Oklahoma, reviewing movies that are being released that week. The station also rebroadcasts KFOR-TV's Sunday morning political talk show Flash Point on Sundays at 11:30 a.m.

Sports programming [link]

Since 2004, KAUT had been broadcasting Oklahoma Sooners sports including basketball games (mostly women). In addition, it also airs Sooners-related basketball and football shows. The station aired the Oklahoma High School Sports Express, a weekly high school sports program hosted by former KFOR sports reporter Van Shea Iven, from January 2006 through May 2008 (since August 2008, the series has aired on KOKH). It had also been the Oklahoma City broadcast home of Texas Rangers major league baseball since April 6, 2007. These games are simulcasted from fellow MyNetworkTV affiliate KDFI in Dallas which is the official over-the-air broadcast flagship station for the team (before moving to independent KTXA). This deal ended after the 2007 season.

Newscasts [link]

KAUT's sale to The New York Times Company brought local news to this station's lineup. On June 5, 2006, sister station KFOR-TV began producing a weeknight 9 o'clock newscast on KAUT to compete against KOKH's long-running 9 p.m. newscast, which began ten years earlier.^[19] On April 9, 2007, KOKH launched what at the time was a three-hour weekday morning newscast, running from 6 to 9 a.m.; it has since expanded to four hours from 5-9 a.m. To compete with this, KAUT launched a two-hour extension of KFOR's weekday morning newscast on September 8, 2008, called Rise and Shine Oklahoma. Rise & Shine was the broadcast outlet of KFOR Producer Dave Klein from conception until March 2012.

In total, KFOR produces 12.5 hours of local newscasts each week for KAUT; there are no weekend newscast on the station, at the time being. In July 2009, KFOR became the first in the market to broadcast their local news in high definition. In order to make the change, it upgraded its studios. The KAUT broadcasts were included in the switch.

In addition, from July 2004 to September 2010, the station also ran the nationally syndicated morning show The Daily Buzz; it initially aired on the station from 5 to 8 a.m., though the third hour of the program was dropped after KAUT debuted the Rise and Shine Oklahoma newscast (as of September 2010, KAUT has replaced the program with classic westerns; The Daily Buzz moved to area independent station KSBI in February 2011).

News/station presentation [link]

Newscast titles [link]

• Newswatch 43 (1980–1981)
• Oklahoma's NewsChannel 4 at 9 on 43 (9 p.m. newscast; May–August 2006)
• Oklahoma's NewsChannel 4 at 9 on OK43 (9 p.m. newscast; 2006–2008)
• Rise and Shine Oklahoma (morning newscast; 2008–present, shortened to simply Rise and Shine since April 2011)
• NewsChannel 4 at 9 on OK43 (9 p.m. newscast; 2008–2011)
• Freedom 43 News (2011–present)

Station slogans [link]

• "TV-43, Your Newswatch Station" (1980–1983)
• "Central Oklahoma's Rising Star" (1983–1990)
• "Don't Let Fox 43 Weekends Pass You By" (1987–1988; localized version of Fox ad campaign)
• "KTLC, Public Television for Central Oklahoma" (1991–1998)
• "Oklahoma's Favorite" (2001–2002)
• "It's On!" (2002–2003)
• "It's U!" (2003–2006; reference to its UPN affiliation at the time)
• "An Oklahoma Original" (2006–2009)
• "Turn Us On!" (2009–2011)
• "Red, White and You" (2011–present)

Movie umbrella titles [link]

• Paramount Teleplex / Prime / Matinee Movie (1998–2000)
• UPN 43 Matinee / Prime / Late Movie (2000–2006)
• Channel 43 Matinee / Prime / Late Movie (May–September 2006)
• OK 43 Matinee / Late Movie (September 2006 – 2011)
• Two Movie Guys (2007–present; Saturday primetime features)
• Freedom 43 Matinee Movie (2011–present)

[edit] News team^[20]

Anchors

• Sara Celi - weeknights at 9 p.m.; also reporter
• Lance West - weekday mornings Rise and Shine (7-9 a.m.); also reporter

4WARN Storm Team

• Mike Morgan (member, AMS; member, NWA) - chief meteorologist; weeknights at 9 p.m.
• David Payne (NWA and AMS Seals of Approval) - meteorologist; weekday mornings Rise and Shine (7-9 a.m.)
• Troy Christensen (member, AMS) - meteorologist; weekday morning fill-in
• Emily Sutton - meteorologist; weeknight 9 p.m. fill-in

Reporters

• Meg Alexander - general assignment reporter; also fill-in 9 p.m. anchor
• Britnee Bryles - Rise and Shine social media correspondent
• Linda Cavanaugh - general assignment reporter; also fill-in 9 p.m. anchor
• Joleen Chaney - general assignment reporter
• Ed Doney - general assignment reporter
• Shane Faulkner - weekday morning traffic reporter; also managing editor
• La'Tasha Givens - general assignment reporter
• Marika Lorraine - general assignment reporter
• Tina McGarry - freelance reporter
• Adam Mertz - general assignment reporter
• Chellie Mills - weekday morning reporter
• Kent Ogle - weekday morning fill-in anchor
• Kevin Ogle - general assignment reporter
• Ian Parker - general assignment reporter
• Sarah Stewart - freelance reporter
• Jesse Wells - general assignment reporter

Contributors

• Cody Crouch - "Game On!" video game reviews
• Rich DiMuro - technology reporter
• Jerry Ramsey - "The Drop" DVD, CD and movie reviews

Local program hosts [link]

Flash Point

• Kevin Ogle - moderator
• Kirk Humphreys - commentator
• Mike Turpen - commentator; also KFOR-TV political analyst

2 Movie Guys

• Ryan Bellgardt - co-host; also station announcer
• Lucas Ross - co-host

References [link]

External links [link]

• KAUT-TV "Freedom 43 TV"
• KFOR-TV "NewsChannel 4"
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KAUT-TV