KOCY-LP


KOCY-LP, UHF analog channel 48, is a low-powered, Estrella TV-affiliated television station licensed to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States. Owned by the locally based Tyler Media Group, it is a sister station to Woodward-licensed Univision affiliate KUOK and Shawnee-licensed Telemundo affiliate KTUZ-TV. The three stations share studios near Southeast 51st Street and Shields Boulevard in southern Oklahoma City; KOCY-LP's transmitter is located near Kelley Avenue in northeast Oklahoma City. It is not carried on Cox Communications, AT&T U-verse or other cable or satellite providers within the Oklahoma City market at this time.
Due to its low-power status, KOCY-LP does not have a digital signal of its own, and only covers the immediate Oklahoma City area. Therefore, in order to extend its reach, KOCY-LP is simulcast in high definition on the third digital subchannel of KTUZ-TV from its transmitter near 86th Street and Ridgeway Road in northeast Oklahoma City.

History

The station first signed on the air in 1989 as K69EK, broadcasting on UHF channel 69 as an Independent station. In 1995, the station joined The WB upon the network's launch until 1996. From the mid-1990s until 2000, the station carried programming from LeSea Broadcasting-owned general entertainment/religious network World Harvest Television; for the next two years afterward, it ran religious programming from The Shepherd's Chapel Network. It then switched to a music video format as an affiliate of MTV2 from 2002 to 2004.
After being acquired by Equity Broadcasting Corporation, the station became a Univision affiliate on May 8, 2004, as one of three Oklahoma-licensed translator stations of the then six-station two-state network "Univision Arkansas-Oklahoma", with Woodward-based KUOK as its Oklahoma flagship. KUOK, K69EK and three low-power stations that Equity also acquired to become KUOK's translators, originally relayed Univision programming across portions of Oklahoma via a simulcast from then-sister station KLRA-LP in Little Rock, Arkansas. Prior to this, Univision was only receivable via local cable providers such as Cox Communications, which carried its programming from the Spanish language network's national feed; that feed was eventually replaced by a direct-from-studio fiber optic feed of KUOK.
In the first months of operation, the Univision Oklahoma stations ran a direct simulcast from KLRA-LP including local commercials from the Little Rock area that were inserted by that station during national commercial breaks and its station identification slides. In March 2005, K69EK, though still programmed via satellite from Equity's headquarters in Little Rock, ceased the KLRA-LP simulcast and became a direct simulcast of KUOK, carrying advertising for businesses within the Oklahoma City market and separate station promotions. That same month on March 13, the station changed its callsign to KWDW-LP.
On June 25, 2008, Equity announced that it would sell KUOK, its low-power repeaters and KUTU to Luken Communications. That December, Equity Media Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection; offers by Luken Communications to acquire Equity-owned stations in six markets were later withdrawn. KUOK and its translators were sold at auction to the Tyler Media Group on April 16, 2009; this effectively created a duopoly between KUOK and Telemundo affiliate KTUZ-TV.
On November 22, 2011, the station changed its callsign to KUOK-LP, then on February 9, 2012, the call letters were changed again to KOCY-LP from 2003 to 2011, and on KGHM ; it also replaced the KUOK simulcast with programming from Estrella TV; as such, it became Tyler Media's third Spanish-language station in the Oklahoma City market.

Digital television

Digital channel