21 Facts About KTUL

KTUL is a television station in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group.

KTUL began auxiliary operations at the Lookout Mountain building on November 1,1955, with that evening's airing of the local book review program Lewis Meyer Bookshelf.

KTUL radio was sold to the Wichita Falls, Texas–based Texoma Broadcasting Company—a group co-owned by Raymond Ruff and Charles A Sammons that, in compliance with a since-repealed FCC rule that prohibited separately owned radio and television stations based in the same city from sharing the same base call letters, changed its calls to KELI after the sale was finalized—for $450,000 in July 1961; the Griffin-Leake interests retained ownership of KTUL-TV.

Shortly afterward, KTUL upgraded its transmission equipment to allow carriage of ABC programming in color; the station would later begin producing its local programming in color on February 21,1967.

Concurrent with the unveiling of the newsroom-studio combination, the station changed its on-air branding to Oklahoma's NewsChannel 8; at that time, KTUL became the second Tulsa-area television station to have used the "NewsChannel" moniker, which had previously been used by KJRH-TV for its news branding – as NewsChannel 2 – from August 1992 until November 1994, when that station adopted a short-lived watered-down version of WSVN's newscast format.

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KTUL-DT2 is the Comet-affiliated second digital subchannel of KTUL, broadcasting in standard definition on channel 8.

On October 31,2015, KTUL-DT2 converted into a charter affiliate of Comet, a science fiction-focused network owned by Sinclair in conjunction with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

KTUL-DT3 is the Antenna TV-affiliated third digital subchannel of KTUL, broadcasting in standard definition on channel 8.

On December 15,2008, KTUL-DT3 became an affiliate of the Retro Television Network, through a groupwide agreement between Allbritton Communications and the then-owner of the classic television network, Equity Media Holdings.

KTUL-DT4 is the TBD-affiliated fourth digital subchannel of KTUL, broadcasting in letterboxed standard definition on channel 8.

KTUL currently carries the entire ABC network schedule, with program preemptions only occurring on the station to accommodate extended breaking news and severe weather coverage.

KTUL aired several popular local non-news programs over the years, several of which helped make channel 8 the leading television station in the Tulsa market and one of ABC's strongest affiliates for 35 years under Griffin-Leake and Allbritton ownership, even as ABC would not improve its viewership to become America's most-watched broadcast network until the late 1970s.

KTUL replaced Mr Zing and Tuffy in 1969 with another children's program, Uncle Zeb's Cartoon Camp.

The local daytime program featured a mix of interviews with Tulsa area newsmakers, community affairs and women's topics; the program – which ran until Boyd left channel 8 in 1980 to serve as the director of information for Tulsa Vo-Tech – helped KTUL reach first place among female viewers at a time when ABC had remained lagged in third place among the three national networks in the Nielsen ratings.

KTUL preempted Good Morning America for the first three years of its run from November 1975 to December 1978, in favor of airing The John Chick Show .

KTUL ran the entire Saturday morning cartoon lineup from ABC until July 1992, when it began preempting the lineup in favor of running a two-hour-long Saturday edition of Good Morning Oklahoma and informational syndicated programs.

KTUL declined carriage of ABC's World League of American Football game broadcasts during the league's 1992 season, after complaints from some viewers about the games preempting its weekly broadcast of the Boston Avenue United Methodist Church Sunday services in the spring of 1991 as well as ABC declining a request by station management to join the games in progress.

KTUL launched a community outreach initiative in October 1980 with the debut of the "Waiting Child" series of feature segments produced in conjunction with the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, which profile children in OKDHS custody that either have had difficulty being placed in a permanent home or have special needs that are in need of an adoptive family.

In November 1999, KTUL began utilizing "Live Doppler 8000", a Doppler radar system that utilizes live VIPIR data from radars operated by National Weather Service radar sites out of Tulsa; Oklahoma City; Wichita; Fort Smith, Arkansas and Springfield, Missouri for use by station meteorologists for weather segments within its newscasts and for severe weather cut-ins.

In recent years, KTUL has traditionally ranked second in terms of total day news viewership, behind CBS affiliate KOTV.

KTUL operates a digital fill-in translator on UHF channel 24, which serves the southern part of the viewing area, including McAlester.