Oklahoma Educational Television Authority

OETA (Oklahoma Educational Television Authority), is a statewide network of PBS member television stations covering the entire state of Oklahoma.

The network is primarily broadcast from facilities located on North Kelley Avenue in Oklahoma City (across the street from the studios of Oklahoma City's CBS affiliate KWTV), and operates a satellite studio in Tulsa.

History

OETA traces its history to 1953, when the Oklahoma state legislature created a statute forming the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, to provide educational programming to Oklahomans on a coordinated statewide basis; made possible with cooperation from the state's educational, government and cultural agencies. After securing a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and funding from various groups, KETA was finally able to sign on the air as the flagship on April 13, 1956, as the nation's 11th educational television station, and the first noncommercial station in the state. It was originally associated with National Educational Television until it became the Public Broadcasting Service in 1970, taking over many of the functions of its predecessor.

From 1959 to 1978, three more stations signed on, extending OETA's signal to portions of Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas. A satellite station, KOED, channel 11 in Tulsa, went on the air January 12, 1959. When KOED came online, OETA became the second operational educational television network in the United States (after the present-day Alabama Public Television).

On December 1, 1977 KOET, Channel 3 in Eufala joined the network, as a satellite of KOED to serve areas of east-central Oklahoma (in some areas of east-central Oklahoma, KOET's signal runs into the signal of its Tulsa satellite KOED, and in other areas, runs into the signal of Oklahoma City's KETA). Finally, on August 6, 1978 KWET, channel 12, in Cheyenne signed on to serve west-central and southwestern Oklahoma and a small portion of the eastern Texas panhandle.

OETA's full-power stations cover roughly 80 percent of Oklahoma's population. The only portions of Oklahoma not served by a full-power over-the-air OETA member station are the panhandle, and northwest, south-central and southeast parts of the state; however these areas are served by low-power translators of the network.

OETA's flagship news program is the weeknightly Oklahoma News Report, which has aired since 1976. In 2003, the stations began their first digital television broadcasts, in 2005 they began broadcasting select PBS programs in high definition, and in 2006 the organization launched a full-time digital channel, OETA OKLA, devoted to local and regional programs.

In December 2008, OETA began producing most of its local productions in High Definition, including the Oklahoma News Report, OKC Metro, Stateline and Tulsa Times.

On February 17, 2009 at 1PM, KETA-TV's (Oklahoma City) and KOED-TV's (Tulsa) analog transmitter was shut down for the DTV conversion. On March 31, 2009 at 9:00AM, KWET-TV (Cheyenne) and KOET-TV (Eufala) shut down their analog signal. All the state translators went digital-only on June 12, 2009.

Purchase of KAUT and conversion to "The Literacy Channel" (1991-1998)

From 1991 to 1998, OETA owned and ran KAUT (channel 43; now a MyNetworkTV affiliate, owned by Local TV LLC, a subsidiary of Oak Hill Capital Partners, in a duopoly with NBC affiliate KFOR-TV (channel 4)) as secondary PBS member station KTLC. Then-independent station KOKH (channel 25) was sold to KAUT's former owner Heritage Broadcasting in 1991, and KAUT's programming moved to KOKH, who assumed that station's Fox affiliation. Heritage then sold KAUT to OETA in a similar deal to one Pappas Telecasting made in 1988, in which KGMC (channel 34, now KOCB) and KAUT (channel 43)'s programming inventories (along with KAUT's Fox affiliation) would move to KOKH. As part of the deal, KOCB would become a Home Shopping Network affiliate, while KAUT would become an educational station. The original sale fell through in 1989, and the three stations continued on as rival independents until 1991, when Heritage traded KAUT to OETA.

In the summer of 1991, KAUT changed its callsign to KTLC, meaning "The Literacy Channel", which the station used as its branding. Despite the name, however, its emphasis wasn't entirely on literacy. After the switch to a secondary PBS member station, KTLC's schedule included fitness programs weekday mornings from 7 to 8:30 a.m., instructional programming and select PBS series (including The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer) in the late evenings, and children's programming from mid-morning to early evening (PBS member stations typically air children's programming from sunrise until late afternoon). Most of the programs were rebroadcasts from KETA.

KTLC scaled back its broadcast schedule, ending its broadcast day at midnight, as OETA did at the time. The weekend lineup initially retained the same broadcast day period as it did on weekdays, but KTLC reduced its program hours on weekends from 4:00 p.m. to midnight in 1995. The city's cable operator, Cox Communications filled non-programming hours with QVC programming on cable Channel 13 (the station now airs on Cox channel 16). OETA eventually found it hard to run two stations in Oklahoma City, so it decided to sell KTLC. In January 1998, KOCB announced that it would switch its affiliation from UPN to The WB, as a result of an deal by Sinclair Broadcast Group (which operated the station under a Local Marketing Agreement at the time) in which its UPN affiliates and independent stations would affiliate with The WB, Paramount Stations Group (now CBS Television Stations Group) then later agreed to buy KTLC.

Channel 43 returned to a general entertainment format on June 20, 1998 at 5 a.m. as KPSG, named after its new owner. KPSG still aired educational shows from 7 a.m. to noon, followed by a general entertainment format consisting of classic sitcoms, cartoons, UPN primetime shows, and movies. That fall, the station became a full-time general entertainment station, removing PBS educational shows (though the station would continue to simulcast OETA pledge drives until 2003). The station changed its callsign back to the original KAUT in November 1998, following the death of station founder Gene Autry.

Stations

Translators

Direct repeaters of KETA:

• K38AK-D in Ponca City
• K30AE-D in Alva
• K28AC-D in Ardmore
• K47KI-D in Duncan
• K46AI-D in Durant
• K36AB-D in Lawton
• K46AH-D in Medford

Direct repeaters of KOET:

• K15AA-D in Hugo
• K23HY-D in Idabel

Direct repeaters of KWET:

• K19AA-D in Altus
• K20IT-D in Boise City
• K34IN-D in Beaver
• K48KE-D in Buffalo
• K34IM-D in Frederick
• K16AB-D in Guymon

KOED in Tulsa has no translators relaying its over-the-air signal, as KOED's signal adequately covers northeastern Oklahoma, coupled along with the overlapping signals of fellow PBS member stations KOZJ in Joplin, Missouri and KAFT in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

OETA's translators reach into portions of Kansas and Texas, while KOET's over-the-air signal reaches parts of Western Arkansas and is carried by Cox Cable in Fort Smith on channel 9. Some of the donations for OETA's Festival and AugustFest pledge drives come from those states.

Digital television

The digital channels of OETA's main stations are multiplexed:

Digital channels^{[citation needed]}

OETA Kids and OETA You were also carried as the third and fourth digital subchannels of all four full-power OETA digital stations until 2008. Since then, they are currently operating as cable-only channels and are available on Cox Digital Cable in these areas.

Programming

OETA airs 17½ hours of instructional programming a week. Instructional programming airs weekdays from 5:00 (or 6:00am) to 7:00am and 10:00am to 12 (or 12:30pm) and weekends from 6:00 to 8:00am.

OETA is one of several PBS member stations to produce programming for syndication to other PBS stations around the country as well as to the OETA network itself. OETA produces series under the banner, OETA: The Oklahoma Network. It distributes The Kalb Report, hosted by Marvin Kalb.^[1]

In September 1986, OETA began syndication of episodes of The Lawrence Welk Show, after that series left commercial syndication. The Lawrence Welk Show is OETA's most-watched series. OETA has also produced Lawrence Welk specials.

OETA also is known for the OETA Movie Club hosted by B.J. Wexler, for more than two decades. OETA Movie Club features classic movies from the 1930s to the 1980s.

OETA also produces Stateline which deals with issues important to Oklahoma and also the United States and Gallery, focusing on Oklahoma's art community.

During the early 2000s, on cable outlets around the state, OETA aired programming from PBS' national feed to fill the time from sign-off at night to sign-on in the morning. The national feed began broadcasting over the air in April 2006 making OETA one of the few broadcast stations in the last decade to switch to a 24-hour format.

News operation

OETA is one of only a handful of PBS stations to produce a local newscast. The Oklahoma News Report is anchored by Gerry Bonds and George Tomek and meteorologist Ross Dixon. It originally featured clips of special reports from newscasts in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa area. The newscast airs weekdays (except on Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day and the day after, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve and New Year's Day). The newscast features reports from its offices in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, OETA's Stateline and Gallery units, the State Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education and Oklahoma's commercial television stations.

The newscast features the traditional news and weather format but also the following:

• The newscast has no sports coverage, but occasionally features sports related stories.
• The newscast airs a stock market segment featuring the day's closing numbers of the Dow Jones and NASDAQ markets and stocks on businesses that do business in Oklahoma (Kerr-McGee, ConocoPhillips, etc.)

News/station presentation

Newscast titles

• Oklahoma News Report (1980-present)

Station slogans

• The Oklahoma Network (2004-present; also name for OETA's production/syndication unit)

On-air staff

Current on-air staff

(as of May 22, 2010)

Anchors

• Gerry Bonds - Oklahoma News Report anchor; also host of OKC Metro
• George Tomek - Oklahoma News Report anchor
• Dick Pryor - Oklahoma News Report substitute anchor; also host of Oklahoma Forum

Weather

• Ross Dixon (AMS Seal of Approval) - chief meteorologist
• Will Bakula (AMS Seal of Approval) - substitute meteorologist

Reporters

• Lori Rasmussen - general assignment reporter
• Angela Rosecrans - general assignment reporter
• Cathy Tatom - Tulsa reporter; also host of Tulsa Times

Office location

OETA is located on 7403 North Kelley Ave. in Oklahoma City, next door to the studios of CBS affiliate KWTV (channel 9). The phone number is 405-848-8501.

References

1. ^ http://kalb.gwu.edu/series.html

External links

• OETA
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KETA
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KOED
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KOET
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KWET
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K15AA
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K16AB
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K19AA
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K20IT
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K23HY
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K28AC
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K30AE
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K34IM
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K34IN
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K36AB
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K38AK
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K46AH
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K46AI
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K47KI
• Query the FCC's TV station database for K48KE
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KETA-TV
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KOED-TV
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KOET-TV
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KWET-TV

Categories: PBS member networks | State agencies of Oklahoma | Education in Oklahoma | Television stations in Oklahoma | Television stations in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma | Channel 8 digital TV stations in the United States | Channel 31 digital TV stations in the United States | Channel 32 digital TV stations in the United States | Channel 38 digital TV stations in the United States