The Oklahoma history teacher Mrs. Billingsy I think taught us a hymn in an Indian language I think it was Cherokee.

Thanks for the web site.

Thank you, Elmer.

I was sure glad that there was an ET (electronic transcription, ie., a recorded commercial) played during the station break. All I had to do was to give the call letters.

That is the only break-up I ever heard on a network program.

Serenity now!

12/21 p.m. - I'm back from vacation, and the phony KJRH entries have been deleted. I don't know what that was all about, but apologies to KJRH.

Frank Morrow : to find a check of Lowell Thomas' "Hersey Penn" boo-boo, you'll have to raid the archives of an old Mutual station. I was on-air when it came down.

Your likely problem is terrain. Also, with the distance you have, you should be using a rooftop antenna instead of rabbit ears (if that's what you're currently using).

Scripps is forecasting strong broadcasting revenues for 2004.

As the current Guestbook gets longer, it eventually spans two or three pages. When this happens, just click "Next Page" at the bottom to see the rest.

Once a Guestbook is archived, it is all on one page.

I saw some midget car races at the fairgrounds pavilion before WWII, but I didn't know that the Coliseum had races there, too. When was that? What kind of racing surface was it?

Was Glenn Condon still at KRMG in 1979? What a wonderful, kind man.

The interesting thing about Lowell Thomas' breakups was that, instead of stopping and laughing, he would try to continue reading, making weird sounds that resulted in a more hilarious result. I'm still trying to find my recording of Thomas' famous breakup when he read the story about Eisenhower visiting Hershey, PA.

My station was part of that deal. First, we were a CBS affiliate owned by Times-Mirror (L.A.Times). In 94, we were sold, along with sister stations in St. Louis (ABC) and Austin (CBS) to the newly formed Argyle Group. At the same time, another sister station in Birmingham, Alabama was sold to NBC. One year later, Argyle sold all three of it's stations to New World Entertainment. Part of New World's funding of the purchase was provided by Rupert Murdoch as long as NW agreed to change all the stations to FOX affiliates. On April 1, 1995, we signed on as a FOX station. One year later, in April of 1996, News Corp., Murdoch's company aquired New World, making us FOX O&O stations. In 94, we had also started operating KDFI channel 27 through an LMA. As soon as it was legal, FOX purchased KDFI. It's been a head-spinning experience.

Bro' Hillis may know about the UHFs they bought in Atlanta and I think Miami. KOTV is an awfully strong CBS affil - and the second oldest CBS station in the state - moving it to CBS might not help ch. 2. Also the Griffin ties to CBS might be stronger than those think.

Now Viacom-owned Paramount ch.20 here has had LITTLE investment since the take-over - in fact for a while had and may still have CONTRACTED staff from Baltimore running the technical side of the station here. They used to carry John Hillis' NewsChannel 8 as their "branded" news in the early days of Bro Hillis' reign over NewsChannel 8.

In Charlotte, NC - the CBS affiliate, WSOC, co-operates the former Paramount station there and does their news too - at a different time plus shares and repeats syndicated programming.

Since Tulsa is under market #50, it would be surprising for a network purchase, but these days, nothing surprises....

Since Scripps' hottest properties are its cable nets, and that's an area in which Viacom has more than a little power, I guess it wouldn't be shocking for a buy-out of all Scripps' TV properties...including the lonely lady of Brookside.

But as Sgt. Schultz always said before the KOTV 6 O'Clock News..."I know noothing, NOOTHING!"

If this rumor is true, would Viacom require KJRH to take the CBS affiliation?

Does anyone remember in '94 when News Corp (Fox) purchased a ton of CBS affiliated stations and switched them all to Fox? Denver's 3 major network stations all swapped affiliations around that time too.

Later note from the webmaster: The bogus KJRH entries are now gone. I don't know what that was all about, but apologies to KJRH.

Does anyone recall what Griffin paid Belo for KOTV?

However, you would think she would know how to properly spell her own last name.

I have a complaint. I am a huge weather fan, always have been, but Tulsa TV meteorologists need to work on their winter weather forecasting abilities.

On Tuesday of last week, we hear that we might get a dusting to an inch of snow. I ended up with 6 inches. Then on Friday, we hear the mother of all storms is heading in. It rained most of the night at my place before getting a dusting. I know folks up toward Bartlesville got hammered, though.

Later note from the webmaster: The entries purportedly made by someone at KJRH have been removed. They didn't make much sense on any level.

Thanks, Ike.

Whom else can ya'all suggest for Oklahoma or Tulsa-themed Xmas gifts?

Fast forward about a dozen years to 1973, when Edison High School used to hold an annual student film festival. I won an award that year, and one of the judges was Bob Brown.

One of the most pleasant Tulsa TV personalities I remember meeting was Boyce Lancaster, former weatherman at KTUL. He went to our church, and had a great singing voice!

Since it's a quiet night here in the hayloft, let me tell you about the early KOTV minicams.

Corinthian, the company that grew out of KOTV's legendary manager Wrede Petersmeyer, and built up by the equally famous New York newspaperman John Hay Whitney, and came to be owned by Dun and Bradstreet by the time the minicams and I arrived within a few months of each other. By then, Corinthian included KOTV, KHOU in Houston, WISH in Indianapolis, KXTV in Sacramento, and WANE in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, giving it the five television stations that one company could legally own back in those different-than-now days. All 5 were CBS affils, by the way.

Now, kids, back then, there used to be a company called Robert Hall that sold men's suits with the slogan "Low Overhead." Corinthian was like that. Wherever they had a station, it probably wasn't tops in the ratings, but it was tops when the shared profit numbers came out, because, as used to be said, "They threw nickels around like they were manhole covers."

The minicam revolution, as Senor Bruchas has suggested, appealed to the Corinthian guys for a couple of reasons--tape that could be erased and re-used over and over, and being able to eliminate the labor and time spent in running film, as well as the fixed costs of the lab (though I knew a crafty guy elsewhere who made his station's lab a profit center by driving the silver residue up to Kodak in Rochester NY a couple of times a year and recycling it in the days when silver was at its peak.)

There were a couple of different kinds of cameras in that first wave from Japan--there were the ones made to broadcast standards--KMOX-TV was among the first with these, as a CBS Labs Test bed. Then there were the ones that basically were turned up from the industrial video market. That's what KOTV got: little Sony rigs that had a camera head about the size of a loaf of bread, with a lens on, tethered to a CCU that looked like a box for a pair of Shaq's shoes, which was then tethered to the tape deck, which weighted about 40 pounds with battery. This was all loaded on two-wheeled cart of the sort that little old ladies used to haul their groceries home.

As awkward as this arrangement was, when compared to one piece CP16 film cameras that had everything in one unit that weighted maybe 20 pounds, the video they made was, in a word, ugly.

But you could re-use the tape till the oxide fell off (which frequently happened at 6), and you could turn the dark, fuzzy, smeary picture around without processing...assuming the recorder didn't eat the tape or the camera didn't quit making pictures altogether, which happened with distressing regularity in exact proportion to the importance of the story.

This has gone on too long, but I will tell one favorite of mine. The long hall at 302 S. Frankfort went from the front lobby past the glass walls of the newsroom, to the back door. My post as normal producer was facing forward, with the windows to the hall on my right and the back door through which the photogs entered behind me.

One fine day, either right before the back door opens comes a vulcanized oath at 110 db, the door opens, and BOOM! Mahcoe Van Dyke's cart, dragging its camera head like a Pawhuska sidewinder behind it, goes rolling up the hallway.

Another job for Chan Allen. Digital video is much easier.