KWTV-TV in Oklahoma City broadcasts 41 and a half hours of locally produced newscasts. KWTV-TV's news department began operations when the station signed on the air on December 20, 1953, when it debuted a half-hour newscast at 10 p.m. (broken up, respectively, into 15-minute long weather and news segments), anchored by Mark Weaver. Bruce Palmer headed channel 9's news department as its director of news operation until his retirement from broadcasting in 1966. Palmer also conducted weekly editorial segments that dealt with pertinent local issues; the station's editorials, which continued for several years after Palmer's departure. In 1959, the station launched a half-hour noon newscast and a 15-minute-long early evening newscast. Through its history, KWTV became the first television station in the Oklahoma City market to conduct consumer and investigative reporting, the first to utilize beat reporters, and was the first television station in the United States to air a consumer-investigative news program: Call for Action. In 1962, assignment reporter Ed Turner received accolades for a series of reports on James Meredith, who in October of that year, became the first African-American to enroll into and attend the University of Mississippi and whose entry led to civil unrest and rioting at its campus. From 1966 to 1971, KWTV utilized the Eyewitness News format. In 1968, the station hired Paul R. Lehman as a weekend anchor and assignment report, becoming the first African-American to work as a television reporter in the Oklahoma City market. Upon KWTV's rebranding of its newscasts as Newsroom 9 on September 13, 1971, KWTV launched Oklahoma City's first hour-long 6:00 p.m. newscast, adding an additional half-hour to its existing early evening newscast. In 1976, Pam Olson became the first woman to anchor a local evening news program in Oklahoma City market, when she paired alongside Jerry Adams on the 6:00 p.m. newscast. Also in 1976, KWTV because the first television station in the Oklahoma City market to transition from film to videotape to record news footage, with the purchase of camcorder equipment it branded as 'Live MiniCam 9'. On September 18, 1978, the station split its evening newscast into two half-hour programs at 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., which was the first 5:00 p.m. newscast to debut in the Oklahoma City market. Also on that date, KWTV launched Midday, an hour-long 11:30 a.m. newscast that was originally anchored by Dean Swanson. On February 4, 1980, the Midday newscast was shifted to 11:00 a.m. In 1979, the station began utilizing a helicopter to provide coverage of breaking news events and severe weather, with the introduction of 'Hot Shot 9' (renamed 'Ranger 9' in 1981). In 2006, KWTV purchased a $1.5-million Bell 407 helicopter, branded as 'SkyNews9 HD' (now branded 'Bob Mills SkyNews9 HD'), which was the first in the market to be equipped with a high-definition camera that also has optical zoom capability (though helicopter images were not broadcast in HD until the station converted its news broadcasts to the 16:9 aspect ratio in October 2010). Ratings for KWTV's newscasts-then branded as 'Big 9 News', before adopting the 'Newsline 9' moniker in August 1981-dropped to third place in 1980 among the market's evening newscasts with the team of Jack Bowen, Mary Ruth Carleton, chief meteorologist Fred Norman and sports director Jerry Park. In the early 1980s, the station enacted a staff changes to shore up its news viewership, resulting in the firings of longtime anchors Bert Rudman and Phil Schuman, and reporter Debra Lane. Replacing Adams and Faubion on the 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. newscasts were Roger Cooper and Patti Suarez, who, alongside chief meteorologist Gary England and sports director Jim Miller (later replaced in the fall of 1981 by John Snyder, who had previously served as KWTV's sports director in the mid-to-late 1970s), led Channel 9 to an intense battle with and, in the mid 1980s, eventually taken the top ratings spot in evening news. Channel 9 also hired more people (including reporters Gan Matthews and Jennifer Eve, farm reporter Gene Wheatley, and sports anchor Tony Sellars) in 1984. In 1986, KWTV rolled out a satellite news-gathering unit, "Newstar 9" a transportable video uplink system that the station used to cover news and weather events around and outside of Oklahoma. In 1987, Jack Bowen arrived at KWTV replacing Cooper as evening anchor, and Bill Teggins also joined Channel 9 replacing John Snyder as sports director. Teggins would remain at the station until January 26, 2001, when he, two players and 6 coaching staff members with the Oklahoma State University basketball team, and the airplane's pilot were killed in a charter plane accident, in which a Beechcraft Super King Air 200 en route to Stillwater following a game against the Colorado Buffaloes crashed in a field during heavy snowfall near Strasburg, Colorado. Replacing Teggins as sports director was Dean Blevins, who had joined KWTV in 1997 as a sports analyst and co-host of the fledging Sunday Night sports analysis program Inside the Game (which evolved into the Oklahoma Sports Blitz in 2001) alongside Teggins. Three years after his firing, in July 1990, Roger Cooper returned to the station as the anchor of the 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. editions of Newsline 9, after the station failed to renew Bowen's contract. Cooper would depart from KWTV for the second time in June 1993. On October 15, 1990, Kelly Ogle joined KWTV as an anchor for the noon weekday newscast, in addition to serving as a business reporter and as a reporter for the station's "I-on-Oklahoma" consumer/investigative segments. In July 1993, the station became the third and last television in the Oklahoma City market to launch a weekend morning newscast, with the debut of a two-hour Saturday broadcast; the program was joined by a Sunday edition in September 1995. On May 8, 1995, KWTV debut a 4 p.m. weekday newscast as a half-hour. Former co-anchor Patti Suarez concurrently left the station, and was replaced that August by Jenifer Reynolds (who joined KWTV as a State Capitol reporter in 1987). In her 14-year tenure at the station had ended with her departure from television journalism in 2001. In May 2001, KWTV began providing closed-captioning of its newscasts for deaf and hard of hearing viewers. On October 24, 2010, KWTV became the second television station in the Oklahoma City market to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition (the graphics, logo, "Oklahoma's Own" slogan and "CBS Enforcer Music Collection" theme that debuted with the change). On January 24, 2011, KWTV expanded its weekday morning newscast with the addition of a third hour of the program at 4 a.m. In September 2013, KWTV expanded its weekend morning newscast to three hours starting at 5 a.m. On August 16, 2014, KWTV expanded its existing 6 p.m. newscast on Saturday evenings to one hour, with the addition of a half-hour block at 6:30 p.m. In August 2015, KWTV adjusted its lower-third graphics–which were originally designed to fit the 4:3 safe zone for TV sets in that aspect-ratio–to fit 16:9, which would allow for the AFD #10 broadcast flag to be used to present its newscasts in letterbox widescreen for viewers watching on cable through 4:3 television sets. In February 2016, KWTV launched "Drone 9" a quadcopter–the first to be used for newsgathering purposes in the Oklahoma City television market–that would be used to provide aerial footage as a supplement to "Bob Mills SkyNews9 HD". On December 2, 2016, KWTV unveiled "NextGen Live", a dual-polarization Doppler weather radar designed by Baron Services, which conducts atmospheric scans at 6 RPM–a faster rate than the radars–to detected precipitation in real-time; the system operates at one million watts of power, and scans at both X & Y axis. In February 2019, Katelyn Ogle joined KWTV as "Alert Desk" reporter for the weekday morning newscast and assignment reporter for the noon and early evening weekday newscasts. On January 20, 2022, after 32 years, Kelly Ogle anchored her final 10 p.m. weeknight newscast at KWTV and moved on.