Establishment In late 1995 and early 1996, several groups filed to build stations on the channel 19 allocation in
Muskogee, southeast of
Tulsa: KM Communications, Northwest Television, and Natura Communications. The groups merged their bids into Tulsa Channel 19 LLC in a settlement window for mutually exclusive applications opened by the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and were granted a construction permit on August 27, 1998. On March 9, 1999,
Larkspur, California–based Tulsa Communications LLC purchased a 51 percent controlling stake in KWBT for $4.59 million; the sale was finalized on June 1, 1999. The programming of
The WB had generally been unavailable to many Tulsa viewers since its launch in 1995. While
Superstation WGN—a service uplinked by Tulsa-based
United Video—aired WB programming nationally, the
Tele-Communications Inc. cable system in Tulsa had not carried the channel since the end of 1996. Further, The WB and United Video mutually agreed to drop WB programming from the superstation feed in 1999 to reduce redundancy with the growing roster of WB affiliates and preemptions of WGN's sports programming. Channel 19 debuted as KWBT ("WB Tulsa"), the market's first full-time WB affiliate, on September 12, 1999. It offered WB series as well as syndicated programs. In its premiere week, the station aired reruns of WB programs previously unseen in Tulsa, such as
7th Heaven and ''
Dawson's Creek''. KWBT was initially placed on cable channel 19 but moved to channel 12 in 2000 after the station reached a deal with
Rogers State University, whose
KRSC-TV occupied cable channel 12, to switch in exchange for scholarships and internships for the university's communications students. The parent company of KWBT, Cascade Communications, also established the university's first endowed chair, named for company founder Greg Kunz. Cascade transferred
master control operations from its Tulsa facilities to its corporate office in
Tucson, Arizona, in early 2004, resulting in eight
layoffs. KWBT carried the
ABC late-night talk show
Jimmy Kimmel Live! from April 2003 to April 2004; Tulsa's ABC affiliate,
KTUL, had declined to air the program and aired syndicated shows in the time slot it would otherwise occupy.
Griffin ownership in Tulsa housed the KOTV–KQCW sales department until 2013.|alt=A three-story wall-to-wall building on a corner. The front windows have awnings featuring alternating News on 6 and KQCW logos. On October 8, 2005, Cascade announced the $14.5 million sale of KWBT to
Griffin Communications, the
Oklahoma City–based owner of local CBS affiliate
KOTV (channel 6). Griffin immediately assumed operational control under a
joint sales agreement. Griffin consolidated KQCW with KOTV's burgeoning operation, which was rapidly outgrowing its downtown Tulsa studios; Griffin rented office space in the city's historic
Pierce Block for the KOTV sales department. The WB and
UPN announced their intention to merge into
The CW on January 24, 2006. KWBT was announced as the CW affiliate for the market in April and changed its call sign to KQCW; the UPN affiliate,
KTFO, signed with rival
MyNetworkTV. In January 2006, KWBT signed a contract with the
Tulsa Talons, an
arena football team in the second-tier
AF2 league, whose games had aired the year before on
KWHB (channel 47). Talons co-owner Henry Primeaux cited KWHB's telecasts of the sixteen games played during the 2005 regular season as a partial cause of a 14 percent year-to-year increase in ticket sales that year. Following the move to KWBT, ratings for Talons home games declined sharply; the team's four early-season road games of the 2006 season producing higher viewership compared to the remainder of the schedule, while the home telecasts barely managed to register a ratings point. Midway through the season, the Talons dropped the remaining home telecasts from the lineup. To house the growing Griffin Tulsa operation, the company acquired a parcel downtown and broke ground on a new studio and office complex in April 2008. Construction was halted due to the
Great Recession but resumed in 2011. The Griffin Communications Media Center opened in 2013. ==Newscasts==