KCEB (Oklahoma)
KCEB 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 nine months from March 13 to December 10, 1954.
History
The station was founded by Tulsa oilman Elfred Beck. KCEB began construction of its studio facilities atop Lookout Mountain in west Tulsa on August 21, 1953.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, which signed on years earlier in October 1949. The station was outfitted with the latest equipment.
As electronics manufacturers were not required to include UHF tuners on television sets at the time, 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. Nonetheless, NBC 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 Federal Communications Commission issued a construction permit to Central Plains Enterprises, owners of local radio station KVOO, for the market's second commercial television station. KVOO-TV signed-on December 5, 1954. NBC cancelled its affiliation agreements with KCEB months before channel 2's initial sign-on, moving its entire programming schedule to an exclusive contract with that station.
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.
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 as the new ABC affiliate on September 18, 1954, taking all of the remaining ABC programs.
This left KCEB with some NBC programming and DuMont. DuMont's days as a network operation were numbered due to a lack of advertising revenue. 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, 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.