KFOR-TV

KFOR-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside CW outlet KAUT-TV (channel 43). The two stations share studios in Oklahoma City's McCourry Heights section, where KFOR-TV's transmitter is also located. As Oklahoma's first television station, KFOR-TV signed on in June 1949 as WKY-TV, the television extension to WKY (930 AM). In its early years, WKY-TV boasted several regional and national technical firsts: it was the first independently-owned network affiliate to directly originate color programs, the first station to operate a mobile broadcasting unit for live event coverage, the first station to broadcast legislative sessions and cover court proceedings, and the first television station to broadcast a tornado warning. Originally owned by the Oklahoma Publishing Company, a direct predecessor to Gaylord Broadcasting, the station became KTVY in 1976 and KFOR-TV in 1990. There is no outlook now for telecasting here, developments are coming every day, but the time is yet fairly distant... When television is practicable on a local scale, WKY, which led the radio field here, will install the necessary machinery. Fascinated with the medium since the late 1930s, Edward K. Gaylord's April 13, 1936, dedication of new studios at the Skirvin Tower Hotel for his radio station, WKY, ended with a public pledge to bring television to Oklahoma when it and other related inventions had been perfected. With his Oklahoma Publishing Company (OPUBCO), Gaylord published both the morning Daily Oklahoman and evening Oklahoma Times newspapers, and had purchased WKY—established in 1922 as Oklahoma's first radio station—in 1928, successfully turning a profit for the station within two years.