Channels Analog: 25 (UHF) Last air date 1956 Former affiliations ABC (1953–1956) | First air date November 1953 Call letters' meaning Television Quality Licensing authority | |
KTVQ, UHF analog channel 25, was an ABC-affiliated television station located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States. The station operated from 1953 to 1956. Channel 25 currently operates as Fox affiliate KOKH-TV.
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History
The station first signed on the air in 1953, and operated as the first full-time ABC affiliate for the Oklahoma City television market, and at the time was one of the relatively few ABC-affiliated stations operating on the UHF dial. KTVQ was the first television station to sign on in Oklahoma City since the Federal Communications Commission-imposed freeze on television broadcast licenses was lifted in 1953; it took the ABC affiliation from primary NBC affiliate WKY-TV (channel 4, now KFOR-TV).
As with many early UHF stations, KTVQ was hampered by low viewership as only a small percentage of television sets in the Oklahoma City area were even capable of receiving UHF stations since set manufacturers were not required to equip televisions with UHF tuners until the Congress passed the All-Channel Receiver Act in 1961, with UHF tuners not included on all newer sets until 1964. The station ceased operations in 1956. ABC programming returned to WKY-TV shortly afterward as a secondary affiliation. The Oklahoma City market would not have a full-time ABC affiliate until 1958, when KGEO-TV (channel 5) – which signed on from the Garfield County city of Enid in July 1954 – moved its operations and city of license to Oklahoma City as KOCO-TV (in a move similar to KTVX – channel 8, also an ABC affiliate – which moved its operations from Muskogee to Tulsa as KTUL-TV in 1957).
Current history of UHF channel 25 in Oklahoma City
The current licensed station on UHF channel 25 signed on the air on February 2, 1959, as educational independent station KOKH-TV (now owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group), after Oklahoma City Public Schools applied for a new station license on that allocation. After the school district sold the station to Blair Broadcasting, KOKH became a general entertainment independent station on October 1, 1979, featuring a mix of cartoons, classic sitcoms and movies. KOKH became a Fox affiliate on August 15, 1991, as a result of the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority's purchase of KAUT (channel 43, now an independent station), the market's original Fox affiliate, which became a PBS member station as a companion to OETA flagship station KETA-TV (channel 13).