tornado warning is issued for any part of the station's main over-the-air broadcast area. Newscast history On November 3, 1980, less than two months after channel 43 signed on, KAUT began offering news programming, in the form of a daytime local rolling news format. Initially airing Monday through Fridays from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m., the block—branded as TV-43 Newswatch—featured a mix of local news headlines (which were updated each hour), national and international news content sourced from CNN, feature reports and call-in segments. It was anchored by Chris Davala (who served as the station's news and public affairs director), Ralph Combes (a veteran anchor/reporter with previous stints at WKY-TV [later KTVY and now KFOR], KOCO-TV and KWTV), Linda Farrel and Ken Hansen; all of the anchors conducted the newscasts in rotating three-hour shifts, with Davala anchoring solo for the final hour of the block. Bob Barry Jr. (who would later move to KTVY to become the deputy sports anchor to his father, Bob Barry Sr., after channel 43 discontinued the all-news format) served as sports director and Gene Moore served as chief meteorologist. By March 1981, the all-news format was shifted by two hours (running from 2:00 to 7:00 p.m.), putting it in direct competition with early evening local and network newscasts on KTVY, KOCO and KWTV. Jerry Birdwell—the station's original vice president and general manager, who had previously served as news director for Los Angeles sister station KTLA—opted to utilize an all-news format in part because it seemed a viable alternative to the traditional programming offered by other independent stations, and as a means to contain programming costs by not acquiring more expensive syndicated programs. Plans called for KAUT to eventually extend the news block to 14 hours per day. Ultimately though, the news format struggled to build an audience (averaging a 1 ratings share point, with most of its viewers watching in waiting areas of local businesses, which neither Nielsen nor Arbitron factored into their local television viewership totals) and never became truly profitable. After 10 months on the air, KAUT shuttered its news department on September 4, 1981, resulting in the layoffs of all but three members of its 23-person news staff; the time period allocated to Newswatch 43 was replaced with syndicated series and movies. In analyzing the failure of the format, Birdwell suggested that Oklahomans did not catch onto "this type of live, extended, locally