KOTV starts work from new Brady District building this weekend
BY RITA SHERROW World Television Writer
Thursday, January 17, 2013
1/17/13 at 4:26 AM
Tulsa's KOTV makes it official this weekend.
The last newscast from the studios at 302 S. Frankfort Ave. will be broadcast at 10 p.m. Friday, and KOTV's first News on 6 newscast in high definition from its new home in the Brady Arts District will be 5 p.m. Saturday (barring a basketball overrun).
Plans for the new building were announced in October 2011 and completed late last year.
Staff and management for Tulsa's CBS affiliated channel 6 and CW affiliate KQCW, channel 19, started preparing for the move more than a year ago. The original building was constructed more than 60 years ago.
"We are extremely happy to be able to move our dedicated and hardworking employees into a new, state-of-the-art building in the heart of Tulsa that provides them a creative, dynamic workspace," said David Griffin, chairman and CEO of owner Griffin Communications, based in Oklahoma City.
"As Oklahoma's Own, we are committed to investing in Green Country and Oklahoma, and the Griffin Communications Media Center is a testament to that."
The new building, overlooking the Guthrie Green park, is a 57,000-square-foot facility located on three acres. It is also a "green" structure using geothermal heating and cooling systems and LED lighting.
The Griffin Communications Media Center, 303 N. Boston Ave., will house studios and space for the 185 Tulsa employees of Griffin Communications under one roof including both TV stations, Griffin New Media, the NewsOn6.com, News On 6 Now, This TV Network and Money Saving Queen.
The old KOTV building, which was an International Harvester dealership when it was leased by George Cameron and Helen Alvarez for a TV station in 1948, has been sold. The name of the buyer has not been announced.
Some of the station's contents not being moved are being donated, and the rest will be sold, according to Houston Hunt, vice-president of marketing for Griffin. The Third Street and Detroit Avenue building, which housed the sales staff and the CW affiliate, was leased space.
All staff members are scheduled to be moved into the new site by Sunday afternoon, Hunt said.
Among the contents of KOTV's original building were decades of footage shot for the station's newscasts and specials and still photos that date back to the days when everything was live, according to managing editor Stephanie Hill.
For Hill and chief editor Pam Long, the move has meant a yearlong project of sifting through 64 years of history up in the station's attic, which is known as the vault. The project will continue, Hill said, because they are only up to the mid-'80s on video archives as of this week.
"A lot of our video from the '60s and somewhat the '70s had already gone to the Historical Society, so this was stuff from the late '70s and '80s when they started keeping tapes," Hill said. Most of those were organized by Long using a card file method.
"We knew that the president of the company David Griffin was working with the state historical society, and that gave us some sense of relief about what we did or didn't need to save."
"... We're so pleased that this stuff will be saved. It's so important to have that record, that history."
Original Print Headline: KOTV starts work from new building
Rita Sherrow 918-581-8360
rita.sherrow@tulsaworld.com
Associated Images:
KOTV will broadcast its first News on 6 newscast from its new building in Tulsa's Brady District at 5 p.m. Saturday. MATT BARNARD / Tulsa World
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