KCEB (Tulsa, Oklahoma)
| |
---|---|
Channels | |
Programming | |
Affiliations | |
Ownership | |
Owner | Elfred Beck |
History | |
First air date | March 13, 1954 |
Last air date |
|
Call sign meaning | Reversal of owner's last name |
KCEB (channel 23) was a television station in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United States, which was affiliated with NBC, ABC and the DuMont Television Network. Owned by Elfred Beck, the station operated for almost ten months from March 13 to December 10, 1954.
History
The station was founded by Tulsa oilman Elfred Beck. KCEB (which Beck named after himself as a reversal of his last name) began construction of its studio facilities atop
The station signed on the air on March 13, 1954 as the second television station to sign on in the Tulsa market. It originally operated as an affiliate of NBC and the DuMont Television Network; it also shared ABC programming with primary CBS affiliate KOTV (channel 6), which signed on 4½ years earlier in October 1949. The station was outfitted with the latest equipment.[1]
As electronics manufacturers were not required to include UHF tuners on television sets at the time,[a] early commercial UHF TV pioneers struggled. At one point, an estimated 100,000 UHF converters had been sold to Tulsa residents by local electronics retailers (which accounted for about 40% of all households with a set in the area). Nonetheless, NBC (which, like CBS, preferred to seek VHF affiliations) reached an agreement with KOTV that allowed that station to continue "cherry-picking" stronger shows, leaving less content available for KCEB to broadcast.
Soon after KCEB signed on, the
Beck then struck a contract with ABC to make it a primary affiliation, but ABC continued to reserve the right to give KOTV right of first refusal on carriage of all programs.[b]
The situation rapidly grew worse for the station. The Tulsa Broadcasting Company, majority owned by grocery magnate John Toole Griffin, signed on Muskogee-licensed KTVX (channel 8, now KTUL) as the new ABC affiliate on September 18, 1954, taking all of the remaining ABC programs.
This left KCEB with some NBC programming (which it was rapidly losing) and DuMont (the nation's fourth-rated television network). DuMont's days as a network operation were numbered due to a lack of advertising revenue.[2] Most of the network's programming was dropped by April 1, 1955; the network ceased operations in August 1956.
As a last-ditch move, Beck decided to cut back KCEB's operations to a limited four-hour-a-day program schedule in October 1954, relying on filmed programming and NBC programs; the move failed to increase viewership and revenue, resulting in Beck deciding to sign off the station for the last time on December 10, 1954 — five days after Tulsa's third commercial VHF TV station went on-air. Four months later on April 5, 1955, Beck sold the KCEB studios and the 40-acre property surrounding it atop Lookout Mountain to the Tulsa Broadcasting Company, to house the facilities of KTVX. Channel 8 initially used the site as an auxiliary studio,[3] before obtaining FCC approval to move channel 8 from Muskogee to Tulsa in November 1955 under the new call letters KTUL-TV to match its sister radio station KTUL (1430 AM, now KTBZ).[4]
Brief revival
Beck retained the
Post-shutdown
A group of prominent corporate executives and community leaders in the Tulsa area, known as "Tulsa 23, Ltd." (led by managing partner Benjamin F. Boddie and investors that included former
Notes
- ^ The United States Congress passed the All-Channel Receiver Act into law in 1961, requiring UHF tuners in all new sets by 1964. That came too late for many UHF stations who ceased operations during the 1950s and early 1960s due to a lack of wide reception. In June 1954, 82 UHF television stations were broadcasting in the United States, of which 24 were still on-air by the following year.
- ^ In the 1950s, CBS and NBC dominated over-the-air television. Third-ranked ABC struggled, with much of the early content sponsor-controlled, created by ad agencies or produced on a low budget. The network likely only survived the 1950s due to an injection of equity from United Paramount Theatres, along with the fourth-ranked DuMont Television Network's 1956 demise eliminating the only other notable contender. See http://uhfhistory.com/documents/Silverman_Thesis_ABC.pdf for an overview.
References
- ^ Corarito, Gregory (July 1973). "The History and Development of Television in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Chapter 3". University of Tulsa.
- ^ DuMont history website, Clarke Ingram
- ^ Sherrow, Rita (March 25, 2007). "Television: Dream to Reality: TV shows once came by plane". Tulsa World.
- ^ Corarito, Gregory (July 1973). "The History and Development of Television in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Chapter 1". University of Tulsa.
- ^ Corarito, Gregory (July 1973). "The History and Development of Television in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Chapter 7". University of Tulsa.