KTEN

KTEN

Ada/Ardmore, Oklahoma/ Sherman/Denison, Texas United States
City	Ada, Oklahoma
Branding	KTEN (general) KTEN News (newscasts) (pronounced as "K-Ten") Texoma CW (DT2) ABC Texoma (DT3)
Slogan	No One Gets You Closer
Channels	Digital: 26 (UHF) Virtual: 10 (PSIP)
Subchannels	10.1 NBC 10.2 The CW 10.3 ABC
Affiliations	NBC (1977–present) The CW (DT2; 2006–present) ABC (DT3; 2010–present)
Owner	Lockwood Broadcast Group (Channel 49 Acquisition Corporation)
First air date	June 1, 1954
Call letters' meaning	Channel TEN (former analog channel assignment)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 10 (VHF, 1954–2009)
Former affiliations	Primary: ABC (1954–1998; secondary from 1977) Secondary: NTA (late 1950s) Fox (1994–1998)
Transmitter power	1,000 kW
Height	426 m
Facility ID	35666
Transmitter coordinates	34°21′32.8″N 96°33′32.7″W / 34.359111°N 96.559083°W / 34.359111; -96.559083
Licensing authority	FCC
Public license information:	Profile CDBS
Website	kten.com

KTEN, virtual channel 10 (UHF digital channel 26), is an NBC-affiliated television station located in Ada, Oklahoma, United States which also serves Ardmore, Oklahoma, Sherman and Denison, Texas. The station is owned by the Lockwood Broadcast Group. KTEN maintains studios located on High Point Circle in Denison, Texas, and its transmitter is located north of Milburn, Oklahoma (along State Highway 7).

History

The station first signed on the air on June 1, 1954 as the first local television station to serve the Texoma region. KTEN was originally based in Ada (which continues to serve as its city of license to this day). Originally, it was a primary ABC affiliate and a secondary affiliate of NBC. This was very unusual for a two-station market, especially one as small as Sherman-Ada. During the late 1950s, it was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.^[1]

By 1977, as competitor KXII (channel 12) was switching its primary network affiliation from NBC to CBS, KTEN began adding a larger proportion of NBC programming to its schedule. Gradually, it aired most of both networks' daytime and primetime schedules. At one point, it aired both networks' evening newscasts (ABC's World News Tonight at 5:00 and NBC Nightly News at 5:30 p.m.) in the hour preceding its local newscast at 6:00 p.m. from 1977 to 1980. The station even received national attention in 1983 when on NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Doc Severinsen (sitting in for Carson's sidekick Ed McMahon) welcomed KTEN as the newest station to broadcast the late night talk show. This move was made after KXII, by this time down to just two NBC programs on its schedule, had switched to CBS's late night schedule in a move that eventually led that station toward exclusively aligning with CBS in 1985.

Although KTEN and KXII had theoretically been direct competitors for many years, the 50-mile difference between the locations of the two stations' transmitters created unequal over-the-air reception with viewers receiving a fair to poor signal of KTEN in locations close to KXII's transmitter (such as Ardmore, Madill and Durant) as well as almost non-existent coverage in some adjoining areas of Texas. Meanwhile, KXII's over-the-air reception in Ada and surrounding areas was poor due to the northern fringe location of that station's signal coverage radius. To become more equally competitive reception-wise, KTEN moved its transmitter from Ada to Milburn in 1984 to provide better over-the-air reception to far Southern Oklahoma near the Red River and to reach across the river to the Sherman-Denison area and adjoining areas of North Texas (including Gainesville, Bonham, and Paris). The station's main studios were relocated to Denison in 1986.

By that time, KTEN was on its way to becoming a primary NBC affiliate, but still carried a large proportion of ABC's schedule, incorporating both networks' promotional campaigns. Although KTEN's program schedule appeared to be headed toward an exclusive NBC affiliation by the early to mid-1990s, another network move was made along the way.

In September 1994, KTEN added Fox as another secondary affiliation just after that network had won the rights to broadcast football games from the NFL's National Football Conference, which were previously seen on CBS (airing locally on KXII) for many years. KTEN's owners were in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings at the time and gained additional monetary compensation from Fox. It also allowed KTEN the unique ability to show every single Dallas Cowboys game that was not available on cable television. However, the downside was that channel 10 was becoming even more of a hybrid with three network affiliations (NBC, ABC, and Fox) and even more confusing to viewers.

Effectively by this point, KTEN held primary affiliations with NBC and Fox, carrying the majority of NBC's (with exceptions including select daytime shows, NBC Nightly News and occasional weekend sports events) and all of Fox's schedule (clearing the entire Fox prime time lineup in place of the first two hours of NBC's evening schedule on Fridays and Saturdays, with all but a few of the former network's other programs airing in late-night); KTEN also carried the Fox Kids block and about one hour of ABC's children's program lineup on Saturday mornings in lieu of the TNBC block. ABC programming at this time had been whittled down to daily news programs World News Tonight and World News This Morning, select daytime shows (including soap operas General Hospital and All My Children) and a handful of prime time shows (such as 20/20, Home Improvement and Ellen). Like with many of the Fox programs that it aired on nights when it did not carry that network's full prime time schedule, KTEN tape delayed some ABC programs, including certain ones that the station cleared to air in prime time. By 1998, KTEN was out of bankruptcy and the new owners dropped the secondary affiliations with ABC and Fox, making it the area's exclusive NBC affiliate.

Digital television

Digital channels

The station's digital channel is multiplexed:

KTEN-DT2

On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called The CW.^[3][4] On September 18, 2006, KTEN launched a second digital subchannel as an affiliate of The CW (carrying programming through that network's small-market national feed The CW Plus).

KTEN-DT3

KTEN also launched a third digital subchannel in 2006, which originally broadcast weather radar data from four nearby National Weather Service radar sites in Oklahoma and Texas (which overlap the Sherman/Ada/Lake Texoma area with KTEN meteorologists using the NWS radar data in its weather segments, KTEN does not have access to any radars that are closer to its studios), along with audio from NOAA Weather Radio. Due to KTEN's previous removal of ABC programming in 1998, the Ada/Sherman television market lacked a local ABC affiliate – cable providers in the market piped in ABC programming from out-of-market stations such as WFAA in Dallas-Ft. Worth and KOCO in Oklahoma City depending on the geographic location in the market (WFAA mainly being carried in areas from Ardmore southward into the Texas portion of the market and KOCO being carried in locations from Ada to Ardmore). On May 9, 2010, KTEN brought local ABC programming back to the market when it switched digital subchannel 10.3 to the network (adopting a general entertainment format in the process), branding it as "ABC Texoma".^[5]

Analog-to-digital conversion

KTEN discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 10, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 26.^[6] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 10.

Programming

Syndicated programming seen on KTEN includes The Doctors, Judge Judy, Dr. Phil, The World's Funniest Moments, The Dr. Oz Show and Wheel of Fortune.

News operation

KTEN presently broadcasts 23½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 4½ hours on weekdays and a half-hour each on Saturdays and Sundays); in addition to regular newscasts on its main channel, KTEN also simulcasts the final 90 minutes of its weekday morning newscast and its daily 5 p.m. newscasts on its ABC Texoma subchannel on digital channel 10.3 under the brand ABC Texoma News, as well as producing separate newscasts airing weekdays at 4 and nightly at 10 p.m. that are exclusive to that subchannel. Until 2011, KTEN's 10 p.m. broadcast was the only newscast airing on the station's main channel on Saturdays and Sundays, however it began producing 5 p.m. newscasts that year (however it does not produce weather inserts – live or pre-recorded – during the weekend editions of NBC's morning news program Today). KTEN-DT3 also airs live newscasts in the event that a sporting event or other special programming delays newscasts seen on the main channel. The newscasts will then also be recorded for rebroadcast on KTEN after the event.

In the mid-1980s, KTEN took advantage of new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules that permitted translators to provide localized content. It opened a small bureau and studio for its Paris translator K08KK and began producing a brief news and weather program that would air during the 10 p.m. newscast. This was discontinued after a few years due to a lack of advertiser support. In 1985, KTEN added a second studio facility on Merrick Drive in Ardmore, and the following year, opened a third studio in the Katy Depot in downtown Denison that would also become the station's main studio complex. In 2002, KTEN moved its main studio from the Katy Depot to a new location on U.S. 75 in Denison. The station's operations also include the secondary studio in Ardmore and a sales office in its former home city of Ada.

KTEN began producing a half-hour primetime newscast at 9 p.m. for its CW-affiliated subchannel on October 25, 2006, titled Texoma CW News At 9. Like all CW Plus affiliates in the Central Time Zone, that station also airs the nationally syndicated morning news/lifestyle program The Daily Buzz each weekday from 5 to 8 a.m.

References

External links

• KTEN channel 10
• KTEN-DT2 "Texoma CW"
• KTEN-DT3 "ABC Texoma"
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KTEN