KXII

KXII-TV, channel 12, is the CBS-affiliated television station for the Texoma region of Texas and Oklahoma. It is licensed to Sherman, Texas. Its transmitter is located southwest of Madill, Oklahoma. Owned by Gray Television, the station has studios on Texoma Parkway in Sherman. KXII operates two network-affiliated digital subchannels: KXII-DT 12.2 formerly aired UPN programming and switched to its current MyNetworkTV affiliation in September 2006 when UPN merged with The WB to form The CW (whose affiliation went to KTEN for its second digital subchannel), while KXII-DT 12.3 airs Fox programming..

History
The station was launched on August 12, 1956 from Ardmore, Oklahoma as KVSO-TV. There was common ownership with local radio station KVSO and a local newspaper, The Daily Ardmoreite. In its early years, channel 12 was an NBC affiliate. Unable to afford a network feed, station engineers switched to and from the signal of WKY-TV (now KFOR-TV) in Oklahoma City whenever NBC programming was shown. The station often carried some of WKY's non-network programming as well. In late-1958, the station was sold to Texoma Broadcasting and the call letters changed to KXII (signifying the Roman numeral 12).

In 1959, the transmitter was moved from its original location north of Ardmore to a point near Madill, Oklahoma about 25 miles southeast of Ardmore after a tornado blew down the original KVSO-TV transmission tower located north of Ardmore in the Arbuckle Mountains. In order to provide better reception to viewers in Durant, Oklahoma and across the Red River to the Sherman/Denison, Texas area, it was relocated. During the 1960s and into the 1970s, the station was a primary NBC affiliate but also held a secondary affiliation with CBS which began in 1960. CBS fare on channel 12 consisted mainly of daytime programs and sports coverage such as NFL football.

During the 1960s and early 1970s, most CBS programming for Texoma area viewers was fed to cable subscribers via affiliates in surrounding markets including KWTV in Oklahoma City, KAUZ-TV in Wichita Falls, and KRLD-TV (now KDFW-TV, currently a Fox owned-and-operated station) in Dallas/Fort Worth. KXII's direct competitor, KTEN channel 10 in Ada, Oklahoma was a primary ABC affiliate but also claimed NBC as a secondary affiliate. Though KXII and KTEN were considered direct competitors, both stations had considerable differences in fringe coverage for many years due to the 75-mile distances between the two station's transmitters at Madill and Ada. This meant that viewers within the a 25-mile radius of KXII's transmitter at Madill including Ardmore and Durant were actually in the southern fringe of KTEN's transmitting range which resulted in poorer over-the-air reception on channel 10 than channel 12. Channel 10 did not even reach viewers in the Sherman/Denison area or other portions of north Texas served by KXII.

Similarly, KTEN's city of license, Ada, was in the northern fringe of KXII's transmitting range resulting in poor over-the-air reception of channel 12. To better compete with KXII, KTEN moved its transmitter in 1984 from Ada to a location near Bromide, Oklahoma which enabled better over-the-air reception to locations in far southern Oklahoma near the Red River and now expanded to serve Sherman/Denison and other cities in north Texas. KTEN also adopted KXII's mode of operating more than one studio by adding operations in Ardmore and Denison and later relocating the main studios from Ada to Denison.

Starting with the 1974-1975 fall season, KXII's program schedule included a larger proportion of CBS programming including most daytime shows, many prime-time programs and most sports programming. This made channel 12 a hybrid station with almost half the programming of both NBC and CBS airing for a few years. As KXII shifted its programming emphasis from NBC to CBS in the mid-1970s, KTEN added a larger proportion of NBC programming to its daytime and primetime schedule to become a similar hybrid ABC and NBC station in the process. For the 1977-1978 season, channel 12 shifted its primary network affiliation to CBS and became an exclusive affiliate with the network in 1985 when the last NBC program on KXII's schedule, Today, was replaced by CBS This Morning. Today then moved to KTEN which shifted NBC to a primary and later an exclusive affiliation.

Since the late 1990s, the two-station Sherman/Ada market has been represented entirely by one-network stations (not including digital subchannels). Throughout 2006, the station celebrated its 50th anniversary. In the Summer of that year, the station added programming from UPN on a new second digital subchannel and cable (known as "UPN Texoma"). This programming flipped to MyNetworkTV when UPN ceased operation on September 15. It has also added programming from Fox on a third digital subchannel as well as cable.

Digital television
The station's digital signal, VHF 12, is multiplexed: KXII-DT was formerly broadcast on UHF channel 20. KXII shut down all of its analog (NTSC) television signals on Friday, February 6, 2009.[1]

Programming
Syndicated programming on KXII includes: Cold Case, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, Ellen, Judge Judy and Two and a Half Men.

KXII carries every CBS news program which includes Up To The Minute (rebroadcasts only which is joined in progress at 2:10 a.m. and airs uninterrupted from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m.), The CBS Morning News, The Early Show, CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes, 48 Hours Mystery, CBS News Sunday Morning, and Face The Nation. It also carries all of CBS News special presentations.

News operation
KXII's weeknight anchors.Starting with its launch in 1956, KXII broadcast its own local newscasts from their original Ardmore studios. In 1960, the station opened new facilities along U.S. Highway 75 halfway between Sherman and Denison which later became the station's main studios. In 1977, KXII relocated its Ardmore facility from Lincoln Center on West Main Street, and opened a new Bureau on South Commerce Street in Ardmore. This location is still in use today in conjunction with the Sherman/Denison facility. As a dual NBC and CBS affiliate in 1974, the station switched its network evening newscast from NBC Nightly News to the CBS Evening News in the 5:30 p.m. time slot followed by its 6 p.m. local news. In September 2006, KXII debuted an all-new set for its First News broadcasts that included new colors and graphics package to replace the previous set which had been in use since 1995. It also launched its "My Texoma" and "Fox Texoma" subchannels.

KXII's First News newscasts featuring local news, weather and sports coverage with national CBS News inserts air at noon, 5, 6, and 10 p.m. each weekday. The weekday 10 p.m. airing is rebroadcast at 12:40 a.m. KXII airs local news and weather coverage in four five-minute update segments during The Early Show. It added a morning newscast called First News AM in 2001 from 6 to 7 a.m., added another 30 minutes in 2006 and an extra five minutes was added two years later when Norman Bennett retired. KXII also airs the public affairs program First News Forum on Sunday mornings and presents more five-minute update segments during weekend morning CBS news programs. It airs two weekend evening 30-minute broadcasts on Saturdays and Sundays at 10 p.m. There are also early evening First News newscasts on weekends and the amount and schedule depends on CBS Sports broadcasts.

On April 20, 2010 KXII became the first station in the Ada-Sherman television market (and the third station in Oklahoma) to broadcast its local newscasts in high definition. Both the Sherman and Ardmore studios have been equipped with high definition cameras and hardware.

Weather operation
KXII does not mention four NOAA radars that are in nearby DMAs such as Dallas-Ft. Worth in Texas, Wichita Falls/Lawton in north Texas and Southern Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, and Fort Smith in Arkansas. The Sherman-Ada DMA does not have a NOAA radar while KXII has access to the area's only radar located in Madill, Oklahoma. Doug Drace is a spotter for First Weather.

Web Channel
The "Web Channel" contains many blogs with optional viewer comments and video clips. These blogs are general news articles, blogs by Steve LaNore, David Reed, Megan Krannig, and Tom Miller. Matt Griffin is a webmaster for KXII's web channel. There are other web pages such as "Double Dollar Deals", "Car Soup", "Welcome Homes", and other online classified ads. There are TV listings and very basic My Texoma and Fox Texoma pages with the Fox Texoma page powered by TMZ.com and only displays content from that website. There are news article links from CBS News while there aren't any news article links from Fox News.

[edit] Newscast titles

 * Your Esso Reporter (1956-1959)
 * The Nescafé News (1959-1964)
 * The Texoma Report (1964-1967)
 * 24 Hours (1967-1971)
 * Action News (1971-1974)
 * 12 News Service (1974-1977)
 * 12 News (1977-1995)
 * First News (1995-present; displayed on air since 2006 as First 12 News)[2]

On-air staff
(Year person joined KXII in parentheses at end of paragraph, if listed)

[edit] Anchors

 * Daniel Armbruster - weekday mornings "First News AM" and noon (2008)
 * Maureen Kane - weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m. (2006)
 * Rita Kotey - weekday mornings "First News AM" and noon (2008)
 * Shelby Levins - Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10 p.m.; also Ardmore Bureau chief/reporter (2008)

[edit] Weather team

 * Steve LaNore (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Seal of Approval) - Chief Meteorologist; weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m. (2006)
 * Megan Krannig (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Seal of Approval) - Meteorologist; Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10 p.m. (2005-2009, 2010-present)
 * Tom Miller (AMS Seal of Approval) - Meteorologist; weekday mornings "First News AM" and noon (1988)

[edit] Sports team

 * David Reed - Sports Director; weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m. (2001)
 * Benjamin Najar - Sports Anchor; Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10 p.m. (2010)

[edit] Reporters

 * Dara Downs - Ardmore Newsroom reporter and photojournalist (2009)
 * Maddie Garrett - Sherman Newsroom reporter (2009)
 * Josh Stevenson - Sherman Newsroom reporter and photojournalist (2006)
 * Shelby Levins - Sherman Newsroom reporter and Weekend Anchor (2008)
 * Rick Springer - Sherman Newsroom photojournalist (2005)