Oklahoma Educational Television Authority - History

History

OETA traces its history to 1953, when the Oklahoma state legislature created a statute forming the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, to provide Educational television 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 from Oklahoma City on April 13, 1956, as the nation's 11th educational television station, and the first non-commercial 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 state network in the United States (after the present-day Alabama Public Television).

On December 1, 1977 KOET, Channel 3 in Eufaula joined the state network, as a satellite of KOED to serve areas of east-central Oklahoma (in some areas of east-central Oklahoma, KOET overlaps with KOED, and in other areas with 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 state 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 and KOED turned off their analog signals. On March 31, 2009 at 9:00AM, KWET and KOET shut down their analog signals. All the state translators went digital-only on June 12, 2009.