KFOR-TV (channel 4) is a television station in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside CW station KAUT-TV (channel 43). Both stations share studios in Oklahoma City's McCourry Heights section, where KFOR-TV's transmitter is also located.

As Oklahoma's first television station, KFOR-TV signed on in June 1949 as WKY-TV, the television extension to WKY (930 AM). In its early years, WKY-TV boasted several regional and national technical firsts: it was the first independently-owned network affiliate to directly originate color programs, the first station to operate a mobile broadcasting unit for live event coverage, the first station to broadcast legislative sessions and cover court proceedings, and the first television station to broadcast a tornado warning. Originally owned by the Oklahoma Publishing Company, a direct predecessor to Gaylord Broadcasting, the station became KTVY in 1976 and KFOR-TV in 1990.

History

WKY-TV

Edward K. Gaylord's vision

Fascinated with the medium since the late 1930s, Edward K. Gaylord's April 13, 1936, dedication to new studios at the Skirvin Tower Hotel for his radio station, WKY, ended with a public pledge to bring television to Oklahoma when it and other related inventions had been perfected. With his Oklahoma Publishing Company (OPUBCO), Gaylord published both the morning Daily Oklahoman and evening Oklahoma Times newspapers, and had purchased WKY—established in 1922 as Oklahoma's first radio station—in 1928, successfully turning a profit for the station within two years. His pledge soon manifest itself on an exhibitory basis in mid-November 1939 when OPUBCO sponsored a six-day demonstration of telecasts and broadcast equipment at the Oklahoma City Municipal Auditorium in downtown Oklahoma City, now the Civic Center Music Hall. With equipment set up and operated by RCA engineers, the event featured appearances by performers from NBC and WKY with attendees given an opportunity to be "televised" to other attendees watching television sets throughout the auditorium. OPUBCO executive Edgar T. Bell downplayed the immediate outlook for local television as "distant" despite well-received attendance for the exhibition; estimates had as many as 25,000 attendees on Thursday, taxing the auditorium's capacity. During November and early December 1944, OPUBCO conducted a similar, 19-city television exhibition tour across central and western Oklahoma—open to residents who had purchased war bonds, as well as for attendees that wished to purchase them—that included performances from WKY personalities and demonstrations by television technicians. The tour was attended by a total of 50,000 bond buyers with crowd size regarded as large throughout, several cities even saw encore performances due to overwhelming demand.

Gaylord submitted a permit application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on April 14, 1948 for a television station on VHF channel 4. Upon filing, Gaylord estimated any financial loss for the TV station would be offset within two years, echoing how WKY turned a profit two years after being purchased by OPUBCO. The FCC granted the license to Gaylord on June 2, 1948, with the station assigned the WKY-TV call sign, joining WKY and WKY-FM (98.9), which signed on in July 1947. Studio facilities for WKY-TV were based at the Municipal Auditorium—WKY's studios remained at the nearby Skirvin Tower Hotel—with production facilities on the second floor in the Little Theatre. Prior to launch, a fire to the theatre on November 17, 1948, resulted in $150,000 in damage with most of the technical and production equipment replaced during renovations to the theatre that followed; soundproofing material was also added to limit disruptions between television productions and stage productions.

While assembling the TV transmitter antenna onto WKY's  broadcast tower in April 1949, an accident occurred when the antenna fell  while being hoisted upward; the antenna suffered minimal damage but added to delays earlier in the month due to inclement weather. Daily test broadcasts over WKY-TV began on April 21 consisting of music played over a test pattern slide, enabling television set owners in Oklahoma and neighboring states to contact the station to report signal reception. The test signal operated at low power for three days following a lightning strike to a junction box on the tower on April 27. Closed-circuit transmissions began on May 27 with a wrestling match at the Stockyards Coliseum along with two weeks worth of dress rehearsals between the local performers and show producers.

A 'pioneer station'
WKY-TV's inaugural broadcast on June 6, 1949, included speeches from Gaylord, executive vice president/general manager Proctor A. "Buddy" Sugg and Governor Roy J. Turner, a short feature on the new medium by Gaylord and Sugg and a film outlining programs WKY-TV would air. Gaylord boasted during his on-air address that WKY-TV had both the finest television studio in the country and the tallest transmission tower outside of NBC's transmitter for WNBT atop the Empire State Building. The station was the first to sign on in the state of Oklahoma and the 65th station in the United States to sign on. "Television parties" occurred throughout the city and state as people suspended or heavily curtailed their regular activities to watch the new station in homes, laundromats, bars, appliance stores and other businesses; in Tulsa, approximately 1,000 people sat outside of a store to watch the transmissions.

Broadcasting over WKY-TV was originally limited to two and a half hours every night, Saturday excluded. Saturday transmissions began on February 11, 1950, and a morning schedule was added by 1951, giving the station 90 cumulative hours of weekly programming. As WKY had been an NBC Radio Network affiliate since December 1928, WKY-TV debuted with the market's NBC-TV affiliation along with supplemental CBS-TV and ABC-TV clearances. Due to Oklahoma City not being connected yet to transcontinental coaxial cables, a process AT&T estimated could take another two years to complete, all network programming had to be via film and kinescope. A short feature NBC prepared welcoming WKY-TV to the network aired on the station's debut night, while the first NBC program, Who Said That?, was broadcast via kinescope on June 17. The station additionally carried select programming from DuMont and the Paramount Television Network, the latter from 1950 until ceasing operations in 1953.

Channel 4's initial local programming included some WKY shows that were adapted for television, including variety series Wiley and Gene hosted by Wiley Walker and Gene Sullivan, and children's program The Adventures of Gismo Goodkin hosted by puppeteer—and high school senior—Robert Jerkins. Oklahoma Times scribe R. G. Miller hosted the weekly Smoking Room that was an extension of his newspaper column. Danny Williams joined WKY-TV in 1950 to host a daily talk show, announce professional wrestling telecasts, and appear as Spavinaw Spoofkin on Gismo Goodkin. Williams later fronted children's program The Adventures of 3-D Danny as "Supreme Galaxy Chief Dan D. Dynamo", incorporating science fiction and time travel elements derived from Flash Gordon with cartoon short subjects. Airing on WKY-TV from 1953 to 1959, the ratings for 3-D Danny often beat those of ABC's The Mickey Mouse Club, making it the first local television program in the country to achieve that feat.

Sports quickly became a fixture at the station, with high school basketball, football, golf and softball matches all broadcast within the first year. WKY-TV reached a deal to broadcast all ten Oklahoma Sooners football games for the 1949 season, with all home games airing live starting with the October 1 Texas A&M Aggies matchup at Owen Field. Oklahoma A&M Aggies football was subsequently added, but with all of their games recorded on film. WKY-TV also originated Bud Wilkinson's Football starting in September 1953. The first college football analysis program, it featured the Sooners' three-time national championship head coach discussing the previous week's game, a necessity after the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) enacted guidelines limiting live television coverage of college football. Wilkinson also hosted Sports for the Family starting in 1954 that focused on a variety of sports, filmed and packaged for syndication to television stations around the U.S. Among the play-by-play announcers for these shows was Ross Porter, starting with the 1960 season at age 21; already a WKY news reporter, Porter would soon emerge as WKY-TV's sports director until leaving for Los Angeles in 1966. Under varying titles to 1963, Wilkinson's shows on WKY-TV helped boost awareness of the Sooners' football program and encourage physical fitness, with Wilkinson rejecting most advertising in favor of National Guard PSAs. Football was not the only college sport WKY-TV covered, a 1966 wrestling match between the Sooners and the Oklahoma State University Cowboys became the first of its kind to be televised live.

After OPUBCO declined to renew the lease for WKY's studios in the Skirvin, plans were made to combine it and WKY-TV's operations into a combined studio facility on Britton Road east of the transmission towers for both stations, as well as WKY-FM. Ground was broken for the studios on July 10, 1950, with WKY moving into the facility on March 26, 1951; WKY-TV followed suit by July 17. The new facility included television soundstages engineered to also allow origination of radio programs over WKY. The AT&T coaxial cable network was completed in 1952, WKY-TV was able to link to the network via microwave relays from Dallas. The milestone was inaugurated the morning of July 1, 1952, with Gaylord giving a short message and pressing a button to activate the network connections, joining NBC's Today live in progress. With this, WKY-TV was able to sign on at 7 a.m. daily, increasing its programming to 111 hours per week. Gaylord's predictions of financial shortfalls for the station being offset after two years came to pass, as WKY-TV lost $270,000 between 1949 and 1950, then turned a profit in 1951.

OPUBCO successfully challenged the FCC over their Sixth Report and Order that proposed the channel 4 allocation be reassigned to Tulsa and WKY-TV move to channel 7, citing engineering costs, possible effects on the AM station's transmissions, and a need for viewers to replace existing outdoor antennas. The FCC rescinded the frequency change request in April 1952, noting WKY-TV would have enough feasible co-channel assignment separation from Dallas's KRLD-TV; the channel 7 allocation was reassigned to Lawton for use by KSWO-TV. Due to the FCC's 1948 licensing freeze, WKY-TV was the only television station in Oklahoma City until 1953, when UHF-based competitors—KTVQ and KMPT "KLPR-TV"—debuted on October 28 and November 8. Though KTVQ and KMPT respectively signed on as basic ABC and DuMont affiliates, channel 4 continued to carry selected programs from both networks; in contrast, WKY disaffiliated from CBS on November 14, one month prior to KWTV (channel 9) signing on. At the same time, OPUBCO donated $150,000 worth of existing WKY-TV equipment to the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA) for its proposed Oklahoma City station, KETA-TV (channel 13), which signed on in April 1956. WKY-TV carried select DuMont fare until that network discontinued operations in August 1956, while ABC programming left in March 1958 when Enid-licensed ABC affiliate KGEO-TV (channel 5) changed call letters to KOCO-TV and refocused its coverage area to include Oklahoma City.

Broadcasting in living color

WKY-TV was the first television station not owned by a network to produce and transmit local programs in color. Before the FCC had even approved a color transmission standard, Gaylord ordered color equipment from RCA—including two TK-40 color cameras—in September 1949. By March 1954, the equipment was delivered and installed, and WKY-TV was successfully receiving color programming from NBC via a separate microwave relay system, as the coaxial cable network was incompatible with color. OPUBCO had a special exhibition at the Municipal Auditorium's Home Show on April 4, 1954, where 30 patrons watched a color set displaying The Paul Winchell Show, one of three color programs NBC was regularly transmitting for testing purposes and the station's first color telecast. The station's first local colorcast occurred on April 8 with a live five-minute message from E. K. Gaylord, followed by a half-hour sponsored variety show on April 21. With the hour-long Cook's Book becoming the first regularly scheduled weekday colorcast on April 26, WKY-TV carried more programming in color than all of the networks combined. NBC's color coordinator Barry Wood even remarked that WKY-TV's color output was of better quality than the network itself.

The station became the first network affiliate to provide live color programming to a network on August 17, 1954, when a feed of the American Indian Exposition in Anadarko was sent to NBC; the ten-minute segments on Today and Home featured participants dressed in tribal "war dance" regalia. On April 23, 1955, WKY-TV produced Square Dance Festival for NBC, showcasing the National Square Dance convention at Municipal Auditorium, the first full-length color program fed to a network by an affiliate. Also in 1955, the station transmitted to the network a surgical procedure in color via closed-circuit four years after becoming the first station in Oklahoma to broadcast a surgery on-air. In 1958, WKY-TV became one of the first local television stations in the U.S. to acquire a videotape recorder, intended for the news department but also used for some show production. One videotaped show, the Stars and Stripes Show, premiered on NBC that year as the first network television program to be produced by a local station.

WKY-TV and the Lions Club of Oklahoma collaborated on Gift of God, a December 2, 1957, program profiling medical and legal aspects of corneal transplants through the perspective of an organ donor's eyes transported  to an operating room, concluding with a film of a successful transplant. An appeal then aired for viewers wishing to become organ donors to join a statewide eye bank established by the Lions Sight Conservation Foundation initiative; 700 donor card requests were received by the bank 90 minutes after the program aired, including one signed by then-Oklahoma governor Raymond Gary, the number increased to 2,000 cards after 48 hours. The WKY-TV/Lions partnership lasted for four years with more than 16,400 volunteer donor cards signed, with 346 Oklahomans—including two who underwent surgery within 48 hours of the broadcast—having successful corneal transplants.

Long-running local shows
Another children's show with a similar local impact to 3-D Danny was Foreman Scotty's Circle 4 Ranch, hosted by Steve Powell as the titular cowboy. Airing from 1957 to 1971, Scotty's supporting characters included Danny Williams as sidekick Xavier T. Willard; Powell, with Williams, had additionally teamed up to host WKY-TV's The Giant Kids Matinee. The show also featured prize giveaways including the Golden Horseshoe, whose winner was selected through the "Magic Lasso," a cut-out slide that was superimposed on-screen over the audience, and honorary rides on a wooden horse named Woody for children in the studio audience who were celebrating their birthday. At its peak, the show had a 1½-year backlog of kids who wanted to be part of the show's audience.

During this era, the station featured an assortment of other noted locally-oriented fare. In 1965, WKY host Don Wallace began hosting The Wallace Wildlife Show, a weekly fishing show that was the highest-rated program of its kind in the country from 1974 to 1975 and ended after 920 episodes with Wallace's 1988 retirement. The Scene, a Saturday afternoon music and dance show hosted by WKY personality Ronny Kaye, aired from 1966 to 1974. The Jude 'n' Jody Show, a country-variety program hosted by singers/furniture salespeople Jude Northcutt and Jody Taylor, aired on channel 4 and other Oklahoma City stations between 1954 and 1982. Danny Williams returned to channel 4 in 1967 to host the local midday talk-variety show Dannysday, which enjoyed a 17-year run. Among Williams' co-hosts included Mary Hart, who became a fan favorite on Dannysday from 1976 until leaving for Los Angeles at the end of 1979, later becoming the co-host of Entertainment Tonight. John Ferguson hosted three distinct horror movie showcases at the station under the horror host persona "Count Gregore": a local version of Shock Theater from 1958 to 1962, Thriller Theater from 1962 to 1964 and Sleepwalker's Matinee from 1973 to 1979. WKY-TV originated The Buck Owens Ranch Show from 1966 to 1973; seen in over 100 U.S. markets, the half-hour country-variety show was the most successful of its kind not produced in Nashville. In addition to hosting the Ranch Show, Owens was paired with Roy Clark in 1969 to host the similar-themed Hee Haw on CBS, which was relaunched as a syndicated show in 1971. As the result of a renegotiated contract, Yongestreet Productions forced Owens to discontinue the Ranch Show due to heavy music and content duplication with Hee Haw.

Through its WKY Radiophone Company subsidiary, the Oklahoma Publishing Company eventually acquired or launched other television and radio stations during and after its stewardship of WKY-TV, including Montgomery, Alabama's WSFA-TV and WSFA (1440 AM) in 1955, Tampa's WTVT in 1956, Milwaukee's WUHF-TV in 1966, KTVT in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1962, Houston's KHTV in 1967, and Tacoma, Washington's KTNT-TV in 1973. WKY-TV served as the company's flagship station, and in October 1956, OPUBCO renamed its broadcast group the WKY Television System. After Edward K. Gaylord's death at the age of 101 on May 30, 1974, control of OPUBCO was transferred to son Edward L. Gaylord.

KTVY

OPUBCO sold WKY-TV to the Evening News Association on July 16, 1975, for $22.697 million; this included $197,000 for upgrades to the studio building. WKY-TV was sold after the FCC adopted cross-ownership rules preventing the same company from owning newspapers and broadcast outlets in the same market. While Oklahoma City was not one of 16 markets the FCC had planned to strictly enforce this rule, the sale happened under the possibility, with OPUBCO preferring Evening News as the buyer since it also was a newspaper publisher-turned-broadcaster. Additionally, Oklahoma City was the smallest market in which the company owned a TV station. WKY, the Oklahoman, and the Times were all retained by OPUBCO, which planned to purchase additional TV and radio stations with the sale proceeds under the newly renamed Gaylord Broadcasting division. As OPUBCO/Gaylord retained the rights to the WKY call sign, WKY-TV was rechristened as KTVY on January 5, 1976.

Starting with the 1978 Oklahoma Sooners season, KTVY debuted The Oklahoma Playback, a next-day hour-long condensed recap of the most recent Sooners football game with wraparound segments co-hosted by then-head coach Barry Switzer. Also regarded as a continuation of the Bud Wilkinson coaches shows by sponsor Kerr Magee, Tulsa's KTUL handled production for the 1980 season but became a KTVY production again in 1981 with sportscaster Ron Thulin as host. This program—which was also syndicated throughout the Southwest and on cable—ended in 1984 after a successful legal challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court by the University of Oklahoma and then-Oklahoma City mayor Andy Coats against the NCAA restrictions over the number of games that could be televised live in a single season. KTVY was occasionally granted exceptions to this rule, most notably with the 1983 Oklahoma–Texas rivalry game, which aired live on the station. KTVY added Sooners college basketball coverage to the lineup in 1982. Originally produced by KTVY and the university under a revenue-sharing deal, production subsequently was taken over by Raycom Sports under a larger deal with the Big Eight Conference in 1985; the station continued to air ESPN Plus, though with KOCB airing more games to allow KFOR to fulfill NBC obligations, until KOCB became the exclusive carrier in 2001.

KTVY became the first television station in Oklahoma to broadcast in stereo on June 6, 1985; initially, the station broadcast NBC network programs, local programs and certain syndicated shows that were transmitted in the audio format. Taking advantage of the new format, channel 4's daily sign-ons and sign-offs began to feature music videos, some of which were tailored to the station's public service campaigns. That September, the station debuted another local talk show in the vein of Dannysday, which had ended its run the previous year: AM Oklahoma, hosted by brothers Ben and Butch McCain, who were also KTVY's morning news and weather anchors, respectively. The program was canceled in May 1986 after nine months, and the McCains ultimately left KTVY in June 1987 for KOCO-TV.  A local version of PM Magazine had much better success, airing on KTVY from 1980 to 1988 with hosts Stan Miller, Karen Carney, Dan Slocumb, Dave Hood, Kelly Robinson and Becky Corbin.

The Gannett Company purchased the Evening News Association on September 5, 1985, for $717 million, thwarting a $566 million hostile takeover bid by L.P. Media Inc., owned by television producer Norman Lear and media executive A. Jerrold Perenchio. Due to Gannett already owning KOCO-TV since their 1979 acquisition of Combined Communications, KTVY, along with WALA-TV in Mobile, Alabama, and KOLD-TV in Tucson, Arizona, were sold to Knight Ridder Broadcasting for $160 million; KTVY sold for a reported $80 million. Knight Ridder subsequently announced in October 1988 their intent to sell their station group to help reduce a $929 million debt load and finance a $353 million acquisition of online information provider Dialog Information Services. Four months later, KTVY was sold to Palmer Communications, owner of WHO-TV in Des Moines and KWQC-TV in Davenport, Iowa, for $50 million on February 27, 1989.

KFOR-TV

After several weeks of on-air promotions that "TV reception in Oklahoma would get stronger," KTVY's call sign changed to KFOR-TV on April 22, 1990, at the start of their 10 p.m. newscast, coupled with an overhaul to the station's on-air presentation. Station program director Bob Brooks explained in an interview that KTVY had lost "a sense of community, lost its heart" in recent years, and that was a driving force behind the call sign change; management opted for calls that alluded to their dial position and new "4-Strong" branding. As part of the change, the station altered their newscasts to have a statewide focus, with reporter Kelly Ogle filing a series of statewide reports during the May sweeps that management described as "a barnstorming approach to news."

KFOR-TV began maintaining a 24-hour programming schedule seven days a week beginning on May 11, the additional programming included hourly local news updates, which was attributed to viewer demand; the move was to have taken place on May 13 and was pushed up after management found out KOCO-TV was also planning to broadcast around the clock. It was KFOR-TV's usage of the "24-Hour News Source" phrase that led KOCO-TV owner Gannett, which filed a 10-year service mark for the phrase on May 11—the same day KFOR-TV begin using it over the air—to sue Palmer Communications alleging trademark infringement. Gannett claimed in court testimony that KFOR-TV's infringement of the phrase cost KOCO-TV $208,000 annually in lost revenue, while KFOR-TV argued that the phrase only described a programming service and was not an advertising slogan. The lawsuit was eventually settled with KFOR-TV adopting a different promotional slogan.

Palmer signed a letter of intent on November 7, 1991, to sell KFOR-TV and their Des Moines properties to Hughes Broadcasting Partners for $70.2 million; Hughes was formed earlier that year with their purchase of WOKR-TV in Rochester, New York. Palmer terminated the sale agreement was on April 2, 1992, after rejecting the bid submitted by Hughes Broadcasting. In a lawsuit against Palmer, majority owner VS&A Communications Partners LP asked the Delaware Chancery Court to force Palmer, which claimed it had no binding obligation to negotiate or reach a formal agreement, into resuming negotiations to reach a definitive sale contract. Hughes formally gave up its pursuit of the transaction months after the judge presiding the case ruled that the agreement between VS&A and Palmer was not binding. KFOR-TV and WHO-TV would ultimately be sold to The New York Times Company for $226 million on May 14, 1996; KFOR in particular sold for $155 million. The sale received FCC approval less than two months later on July 3 and was finalized on July 16.

On June 13, 1998, the former transmitter tower for WKY and WKY-TV collapsed due to straight-line wind gusts near  produced by a supercell thunderstorm that also spawned four tornadoes, a KWTV tower camera captured the collapse on-air. Still in use as an auxiliary tower for KFOR-TV and WKY up to that point, the tower had been designed to withstand winds in excess of . Channel 4 had already moved off the tower in April 1965 when a  mast was constructed off of Britton Road.

The New York Times Company operated Pax TV station KOPX-TV (channel 62) from October 11, 2000, to July 1, 2005, via a joint sales agreement with Paxson Communications. As part of the arrangement, KFOR handled advertising sales for KOPX, and KOPX rebroadcast KFOR's evening newscasts on a tape-delayed basis. Several weeks after Paxson dissolved the KOPX joint sales agreement, the Times Company purchased UPN station KAUT-TV (channel 43) from Viacom Television Stations Group on November 4, 2005, for an undisclosed price. The Times Company left television broadcasting altogether with the $530 million sale of their nine station group to Local TV LLC the deal was finalized on May 7, 2007. The Tribune Company—which formed a management company in December 2007 for their stations and those owned by Local TV—acquired Local TV LLC on July 1, 2013, for $2.75 billion, this sale was completed on December 27.

A new combined facility for KFOR-TV and KAUT was constructed adjacent to KFOR-TV's existing studios; groundbreaking occurred in January 2015. Completed in August 2017, the new building both boasted a floorplan improving workflow and employee collaboration, and was built with reinforced steel, concrete and protective glass that could withstand a direct hit from severe weather and enable unlimited broadcasting. Several conference rooms in the new facility were named after former on-air staff—including the "Barry Huddle Room" in honor of Bob Barry Sr. and Bob Barry Jr.—and the main studio was later named in honor of Linda Cavanaugh upon her December 15, 2017, retirement. Along with the studio move, the station rebranded to Oklahoma's News 4 concurrent with a revised on-air presentation.

Sinclair Broadcast Group agreed to acquire Tribune Media on May 8, 2017, for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in debt held by Tribune. As Sinclair already owned KOKH-TV and KOCB, the company agreed on April 24, 2018, to divest KOKH-TV to Standard Media as part of a $441.1 million group deal. Howard Stirk Holdings also agreed to purchase KAUT for $750,000 that included shared services and joint sales agreements with Sinclair, which planned to retain KFOR-TV and KOCB. All three transactions were nullified on August 9, 2018, after Tribune Media terminated the merger and filed a breach of contract lawsuit; this came several weeks after the FCC voted to bring the deal up for a formal review and lead commissioner Ajit Pai publicly rejected it.

Following the collapse of the Sinclair merger, Nexstar Media Group announced it would acquire Tribune Media in a $6.4 billion all-cash deal on December 3, 2018, which also included all outstanding Tribune debt. Approved by the FCC on September 16, 2019, the merger was completed three days later.

Local programming

Newscasts

Channel 4's news department began with the station on June 6, 1949, originally consisting of 10-minute-long newscasts at sign-on and sign-off, using wire copies of local news headlines read by anchors over still newspaper photographs. WKY-TV's first news director Bruce Palmer saw the new medium as a way to provide immediacy to news coverage. In a Daily Oklahoman op-ed Palmer penned the day before WKY-TV's launch, he not only foresaw television news using films and photographs to provide a newsreel-like method to storytelling, but that coaxial cable-driven networks would soon be able to relay major news events to stations nationwide. Within a few years, WKY-TV employed a staff of 44 Oklahoma-based reporters and additional correspondents in three surrounding states and was recognized in 1958 by the Radio and Television News Directors Association as the nation's "outstanding television news operation". Ernie Schultz, who joined channel 4 in 1955 as a reporter and photographer, became news director and noon news anchor in 1964, and remained at the station until 1980.

The television station's news department utilized WKY's news staff, including Frank McGee, who had joined WKY in 1947 and added duties on the TV side in 1950 under the air name "Mack Rogers"; during this time, WKY and WKY-TV used stage names for their airstaff that could be retained as intellectual property in the event an on-air personality were to leave the station. In 1950, WKY-TV became one of the first television stations in the country to employ a mobile broadcasting unit to conduct live broadcasts that would be relayed to the Oklahoma City studio or to film on-scene footage for later broadcast. The unit employed up to three cameras, one of which was stationed on a special platform on the bus's roof, and included a 12-inch television receiver built onto its side to display the direct-to-studio feed. This unit was used to cover both the 1952 Oklahoma Republican and Democratic State Conventions, relayed live from the Municipal Auditorium and reported on by both McGee and John Fields.

WKY-TV started broadcasting twice-weekly Oklahoma Legislature sessions from the State Capitol in January 1951, becoming the first station in the U.S. to provide coverage of state legislature sessions. Channel 4 claimed to have made the fastest showing of any sound on film ever to have been processed and aired on television at the time, when on February 8, 1952, WKY-TV aired introductory remarks by anchor John Fields filmed 15 minutes prior to that evening's newscast. The Houston film processor used by the station allowed WKY-TV to broadcast news coverage only a few hours after it was shot on-scene. The station is also purported to be the first in the U.S. to have been allowed access to film a court proceeding on December 13, 1953, while covering Billy Eugene Manley's murder trial at the Oklahoma County Courthouse. Led by Frank McGee, a WKY-TV news crew was placed in a custom-built enclosed booth near the courtroom's rear, with a discreet microphone and a small button that Judge A. P. Van Meter could use to stop recording at any point. The swearing in of the jury, some testimony and Manley's sentencing was filmed for later news broadcasts. After OPUBCO purchased WSFA and WSFA-TV in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, McGee—under his real name—became WSFA-TV's news director; McGee's reporting regarding both the Montgomery bus boycott and riots on the University of Alabama campus over Autherine Lucy's admission motivated NBC News to hire him at the end of 1956 for their Washington operations.

Virgil Dominic initially joined WKY-TV in 1956, then after two months was called into active duty with the U.S. Air Force; Dominic returned to the station in 1959 as both a reporter and news anchor. As NBC News did not have dedicated news bureaus in the early 1960s, Dominic was often requested to file reports to the network—particularly on The Huntley–Brinkley Report—whenever a story was needed from Oklahoma or portions of adjacent states. In 1964 alone, Dominic and WKY-TV provided 36 news stories, a record amount for any NBC affiliate. When NBC hired away Virgil in 1965, he was assigned to network-owned WKYC-TV in Cleveland as that station's lead anchor in addition to newscasting duties for NBC Radio.

In 1972, Pam Henry—who after contracting polio at 14 months old, was the March of Dimes' 1959 national poster child—was hired by channel 4 as an assignment reporter, the first female television news reporter in Oklahoma. After a brief stint working in Washington, D.C., Henry worked at other television stations in Oklahoma City and Lawton, and was OETA's news and public affairs manager for 16 years. From 1973 to 1978, WKY-TV aired Spectrum, a weekly prime time public affairs newsmagazine focused on issues affecting Oklahoma's minority community. Through The Looking Glass Darkly, a Spectrum installment about the history of blacks in Oklahoma produced and reported by eventual NBC News correspondent Bob Dotson became the first program from an Oklahoma television station to win a national Emmy Award in 1974.

Members of the Ogle family have been part of channel 4 in some manner since 1962, when Jack Ogle joined WKY-TV as its main news anchor. Best known for a friendly, "good-ol'-boy" on-air delivery, Ogle became the station's news director in 1970 and served in that capacity until leaving in 1977 to join Oklahoma State's athletic department. Ogle continued to make occasional appearances on channel 4, KOCO-TV and KWTV delivering commentaries. All three of Jack's sons followed him into broadcasting, two of them at channel 4. Eldest son Kevin first worked at KTVY from 1986 to 1989 as a reporter, then returned in 1993 and was promoted to weeknight co-anchor in 1996. Middle son Kent was hired by KFOR-TV as a reporter in 1994, anchored weekend newscasts and became weekday morning/noon anchor in 1997. Youngest son Kelly has been KWTV's evening anchor since 1990, and granddaughters Abigail and Katelyn Ogle work at KOCO-TV and KFOR-TV, respectively.

Bob Barry Sr. started his television career at WKY-TV in 1966 as lead sports anchor, but was already a fixture in the market as the radio play-by-play voice of the Oklahoma Sooners, a position Sooners coach Bud Wilkinson selected Barry for in 1961. Barry called radio broadcasts of OU and Oklahoma State football and basketball games with Jack Ogle until 1974. Barry became sports director in 1970, holding that position for 26 of his 42 years at channel 4, and remained a part-time evening sports anchor until his May 2008 retirement. His son Bob Barry Jr. became KTVY's weekend sports anchor/reporter in 1982, working along Bob Sr. for 25 years and assuming his father's role as sports director in 1997. The younger Barry—who was known for a jovial, off-the-cuff style—was KFOR-TV's sports director and weeknight sports anchor until his June 20, 2015, death in an auto/motorcycle accident. Including a posthumous win by Bob Barry Jr. in 2016, both Barrys earned 22 "Sportscaster of the Year" awards from the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association; Barry Sr. holds the record for most wins with 15. Station veteran Brian Brinkley succeeded Barry Jr. as sports director in February 2016.

Brad Edwards, who joined channel 4 as a reporter/photographer in 1973 and became late evening anchor in 1977, launched the In Your Corner series of consumer advocacy reports in 1981. Edwards also started several community initiatives for the station to assist low-income residents, including the winter-focused "Warmth 4 Winter" and summer-focused "Fans 4 Oklahomans". Following Edwards's death in May 2006, In Your Corner duties were handled by a rotation of staffers until Scott Hines took over the role in 2007, remaining at the station until September 2019. Adam Snider was subsequently named as Hines' replacement in December 2019.

The station began to slowly expand its local news programming following the 1990 call letter change to KFOR-TV. Under the direction of then-general manager Bill Katsafanas and news director Melissa Klinzing, a greater emphasis was placed on Oklahoma-related stories and features along with the aforementioned hourly news updates. Klinzing enacted the strategy to gear KFOR-TV as "the CNN of the (Oklahoma City) market". With Palmer Communications committing resources to the news department, KFOR-TV's news output increased from 25 hours to over 40 hours per week by 1996; the station accordingly became the top-rated local newscast with the May 1995 sweeps.

During coverage of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing on April 19, 1995, KFOR-TV erroneously reported a member of the Nation of Islam contacted the station to take credit, but cautioned the phone call might have been a crank call. Lead anchor Linda Cavanaugh was in Vietnam producing a series about Vietnam War prisoner of war experiences, and only found out about the bombing by seeing KFOR-TV's coverage, helmed by co-anchor Devin Scillian, simulcast on CNN in her hotel room; NBC additionally relayed KFOR-TV's feed across their entire network. In the bombing's aftermath, then-KFOR reporter Jayna Davis filed a report claiming that Timothy McVeigh was seen drinking beer with a former Iraqi soldier in an Oklahoma City tavern; the individual Davis implicated on-air sued the station, while KFOR-TV sued Davis and her husband after they stole videotapes of her past work when she left the station. Cavanaugh would produce and host Tapestry, a 1996 documentary on the lives of survivors of the bombing honored with four regional Emmys, a Gabriel Award, and accolades by the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters, the National Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists.

Linda Cavanaugh spent her entire 40-year broadcasting career at the station, from October 17, 1977, to December 15, 2017. Originally an assignment reporter and news photographer, Cavanaugh was promoted to weekend anchor in June 1978, and then became the station's first weeknight co-anchor the following year. Until her retirement in 2017, Cavanaugh's co-anchors included George Tomek, Brad Edwards, Gary Essex, Jerry Adams, Jane Jayroe, Dan Slocum, Bob Bruce, Devin Scillian and Kevin Ogle. In addition to Tapestry, Cavanaugh's 1989 documentary From Red Soil to Red Square—assisted by chief photographer Tony Stizza—about life in the Soviet Union under glasnost was awarded the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting.

KFOR-TV has competed with KWTV for first place among the market's local television newscasts for decades. It had placed second behind KWTV in the morning and late evening news timeslots. Nielsen later found an error in KFOR's ratings reports in September 2008, in which share points were mistakenly assigned to KFOR's 4.1 digital multicast signal from 2005 to 2008; the corrected ratings showed that it had placed #2 in all timeslots at that time. On June 5, 2006, KFOR-TV began producing a half-hour weeknight 9 p.m. newscast for KAUT-TV; it expanded news programming on KAUT with the debut of a two-hour extension of its weekday morning newscast on September 8, 2008.

A collection of 16 mm news footage shot by WKY-TV between 1953 and 1979 was donated to the Oklahoma Historical Society, which made the films available on its website and a dedicated YouTube channel, in 2013.

Severe weather coverage

Channel 4 has laid claim as the first television station to house a professional meteorological department, beginning with Wally Kinnan's February 1951 hiring as a nightly weather presenter, dubbed "Wally the Weatherman." A graduate of MIT, Kinnan was one of the first meteorologists to be awarded a "seal of approval" by the American Meteorological Society with seal number #3 and was on active duty with the U.S. Air Force, stationed at Tinker Air Force Base as an Air Weather Service (AWS) officer and tornado researcher. Kinnan had developed methodology to predict and detect tornadoes using radar by identifying wind patterns to predict precipitation movement, despite the AWS's belief no method could exist to accurately predict them. Kinnan was soon teamed with fellow meteorologist Harry Volkman, who joined WKY-TV in March 1952 after a two-year stint at Tulsa's KOTV.

WKY-TV holds the distinction of being the first television station to broadcast a tornado warning. Station general manager P.A. Sugg and Oklahoma senator Mike Monroney had actively lobbied the federal government to overturn a ban on disseminating tornado alerts to the public, believing the high fatality risk and urgency for residents to take safety precautions outweighed concerns that they could incite panic. Several weeks after Harry Volkman joined the station on March 21, 1952, Sugg intercepted an AWS tornado forecast—intended to be released exclusively to Tinker Base staff—and instructed Volkman to deliver an on-air bulletin of the "tornado risk" for central Oklahoma. Though he had apprehension of facing arrest for violating government rules, Volkman agreed to deliver the warning after Sugg volunteered to take responsibility. WKY-TV and WKY remained on-air until 1 a.m., with residents of Woodward, Alva and adjacent farm communities having retreated to storm cellars, prompted by the alert. It was on May 1, 1954, that Frank McGee intercepted another AWS weather bulletin meant for Tinker Base regarding a tornadic thunderstorm approaching Meeker, relaying it over the phone to Volkman. No one in Meeker lost their lives despite the tornado's destruction, with one resident telling an Associated Press reporter, "God bless Harry Volkman." The federal ban on broadcasting tornado watches/warnings was eventually repealed in part due to the efforts of Volkman and Kinnan, and WKY-TV became the first station to hold a contract with the National Weather Service.

Volkman left the station in October 1955 to join KWTV and KOMA (1520 AM), prompting Kinnan to take over his nightly forecasting duties. On January 23, 1958, WKY-TV became the first Oklahoma television station to utilize the weather radar from Will Rogers Field during severe weather conditions, with an effective range of  radius. The station additionally installed a converted surplus military radar for use as a radar of their own, utilizing that unit until 1970. Kinnan departed WKY-TV in September 1958 to join Philadelphia's WRCV-TV, then owned by NBC; Bob Thomas, who had joined the station at the end of 1957, became Kinnan's replacement. 1958 also saw the hiring of Jim Williams, who would succeed Bob Thomas as chief meteorologist in 1967. Williams worked at channel 4 for 32 years, earning industry praise for a calm and steady on-air demeanor in addition to pioneering further technical advancements.In recent years, KFOR-TV, KWTV and KOCO-TV have displayed a public rivalry over severe weather coverage. KWTV became the first station in the country to use a Doppler weather radar system in 1981, then upgraded the system in 1984. Channel 4 followed suit with colorized Doppler radar in 1986, then "Super Doppler" in 1990. Mike Morgan joined KFOR-TV as chief meteorologist in 1993, having taken over for one of Jim Williams' short-lived successors, Wayne Shattuck, who himself preceded Morgan at KOCO-TV in the same position.

In 1994, KFOR-TV became the first television station to transmit images over cell phones with the development of "First Video", technology that allowed the station's news crews to send photos and video of severe weather over mobile relays for broadcast. While the video was transmitted at lower frame rates, this enabled quicker transmission and increased flexibility compared to conventional microwave or satellite facilities. For decades, KFOR-TV's helicopters have been used extensively in newsgathering and severe weather coverage, with the station currently operating a Bell 206L-4 LongRanger IV. Along with KWTV's chopper, it captured live, continuous footage of an F5 tornado that killed 36 people from Amber to Midwest City on May 3, 1999, with Moore among the hardest hit, which earned industrial acclaim for station chopper pilot Jim Gardner. Government officials praised the local broadcast media as a whole after the storm for properly alerting the public and preventing additional fatalities.

KWTV management criticized KFOR-TV after what it deemed "sensationalistic" coverage on March 7, 2000, when the station pre-empted programming for possible tornadic activity, the only station in the market to do so. KWTV meteorologist Gary England then stated on-air that other stations—not specifically citing KFOR-TV or Mike Morgan—should not take a "chicken little" approach by excessively covering tornadoes that don't immediately threaten life and property, and compared it to "yelling 'fire' in a crowded auditorium." Morgan and KFOR-TV defended their coverage after hearing of initial damage to telephone poles and eyewitness reports that suggested dangerous conditions. During an October 2000 storm, Morgan noted on-air that KFOR-TV's "The Edge" radar was "20 to 25 minutes" ahead of NEXRAD data due to unexpected data lag, noting that KWTV forecaster Brady Bus erroneously listed a specific area as in "the danger zone" minutes after the fact; Bus later remarked he didn't put stock in anything said by someone without a meteorological degree. After another tornado struck Moore in 2003, KFOR-TV invested in the first million-watt radar system in the area, which came into service in 2005. David Payne, a KFOR-TV meteorologist from 1993 to 2013, also performed storm chasing for the station during severe weather coverage, most notably capturing footage of a rare anticyclonic tornado that damaged the El Reno Regional Airport on April 24, 2006. Payne left the station in 2013 to become KWTV's chief meteorologist, working with, and ultimately succeeding, Gary England.

It was KFOR-TV's coverage of the May 20, 2013, EF5 tornado which struck Moore that garnered national and international attention, as it was significantly aided by chopper footage that captured both the tornado's path in real-time and the immediate destruction to the city. Visuals from the scene, and particularly from KFOR-TV's helicopter, were aired live on CNN leading to increased coverage by other national news outlets and pleas to donate to the American Red Cross on social media. The station was awarded the 2015 News & Documentary Emmy Award for "Regional – Spot News" for their coverage of the tornado with the staff dedicating the Emmy to the citizens of Moore. It was the third national Emmy in channel 4's history, having also won in the same category in 2007 for their 2006 El Reno tornado coverage.

Non-news
In addition to newscasts, KFOR-TV also airs some ancillary non-news local programming. Since 1993, KFOR-TV has aired the Sunday morning talk show Flash Point, hosted by weeknight anchor Kevin Ogle with Mike Turpen and Todd Lamb as liberal and conservative panelists, respectively. The station has exclusively broadcast the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon benefiting the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum since its April 2001 inaugural run.

KFOR-TV originates Discover Oklahoma, a half-hour regionally syndicated program highlighting tourist attractions, events and restaurants produced by the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation. The program initially ran on KFOR-TV from 1992 to 1995, and returned to the station in 2014 after a 21-year run at KWTV.

Notable on-air staff

Current staff

 Todd Lamb, political commentator and Flash Point panelist
 Kevin Ogle, weeknight anchor, reporter and statewide newsreader
 Mike Turpen, political analyst and Flash Point panelist

Former staff

 Bob Barry Jr.
 Bob Barry Sr.
 Tiffany Blackmon
 Linda Cavanaugh
 Bob Dotson, later of NBC News
 Brad Edwards
 Mary Hart, later of Entertainment Tonight
 Burns Hargis
 Dave Hood
 Kirk Humphreys
 Jane Jayroe
 Wally Kinnan
 Herschell Gordon Lewis
 Ben McCain
 Butch McCain
 Frank McGee, later of NBC News
 David Payne
 Russell Pierson, agriculture reporter from 1959 to 1983
 Ross Porter
 Marianne Rafferty
 Devin Scillian
 Bella Shaw, later of CNN
 Hank Thompson
 Ron Thulin
 Reed Timmer
 Harry Volkman

Technical information

Subchannels
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

On October 8, 2020, ATSC 3.0 Next Gen TV launched in Oklahoma City, with KAUT-TV as the host station and KFOR-TV as one of the feeds offered. KAUT's main subchannel in ATSC 1.0 format was moved onto KFOR-TV's multiplex on that date.

Analog-to-digital conversion
KFOR-TV began transmitting a digital television signal on UHF channel 27 on June 1, 1999, becoming the first television station in Oklahoma City and the state of Oklahoma as a whole to begin operating a digital signal; until KFOR-DT began broadcasting on a full-time basis on May 1, 2002, the digital feed only transmitted NBC prime time and sports programming as well as a limited schedule of local programs carried by the main analog signal. The station discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, VHF channel 4, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television; the station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 27.

Translators
KFOR-TV is additionally rebroadcast over a network of nine low-power digital translator stations:

 Cherokee & Alva
 Elk City
 Gage, etc.
 Hollis
 Mooreland, etc.
 Sayre
 Selling
 Strong City
 Weatherford

See also
 Ain't Nobody Got Time for That

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

 WKY KTVY KFOR Archives (YouTube channel maintained by the Oklahoma Historical Society)

1949 establishments in Oklahoma
Antenna TV affiliates
Dabl affiliates
NBC network affiliates
Nexstar Media Group
Peabody Award winners
Ryman Hospitality Properties
Television channels and stations established in 1949
FOR-TV
True Crime Network affiliates

KFOR-TV


Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov (; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet physicist and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, which he was awarded in 1975 for emphasizing human rights around the world.

Although he spent his career in physics in the Soviet program of nuclear weapons, overseeing the development of thermonuclear weapons, Sakharov also did fundamental work in understanding particle physics, magnetism, and physical cosmology. Sakharov is mostly known for his political activism for individual freedom, human rights, civil liberties and reforms in Russia, for which he was deemed a dissident and faced persecution from the Soviet establishment.

In his memory, the Sakharov Prize was established and is awarded annually by the European Parliament for people and organizations dedicated to human rights and freedoms.

Biography

Family background and early life

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was born in Moscow on 21 May 1921, to a Russian family. His father, Dmitri Ivanovich Sakharov, was a physics professor at the Second Moscow State University and an amateur pianist. His grandfather, Ivan, was a lawyer in the former Russian Empire who had displayed respect for social awareness and humanitarian principles (including advocating the abolition of capital punishment). Sakharov's mother, Yekaterina Alekseevna Sofiano, was a daughter of Aleksey Semenovich Sofiano, a general in the Tsarist Russian Army.

Sakharov's parents and paternal grandmother, Maria Petrovna, largely shaped his personality; his mother and grandmother were members of the Russian Orthodox Church, although his father was a non-believer. When Andrei was about thirteen, he realized that he did not believe in God. However, despite being an atheist, he did believe in a "guiding principle" that transcends the physical laws.

After schooling, Sakharov studied physics at the Moscow State University in 1938 and, following evacuation in 1941 during the Eastern Front with Germany, he graduated in Aşgabat in Turkmenistan. In 1943, he married Klavdia Alekseyevna Vikhireva, with whom he raised two daughters and a son. Klavdia would later die in 1969. In 1945, he joined the Theoretical Department of Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences under Igor Tamm in Moscow. In 1947, Sakharov was successful in defending this thesis for the Doctor of Sciences (lit. Doktor Nauk), which covered the topic of nuclear transmutation.

Soviet program of nuclear weapons

After World War II, he researched cosmic rays. In mid-1948 he participated in the Soviet atomic bomb project under Igor Kurchatov and Igor Tamm. Sakharov's study group at FIAN in 1948 came up with a second concept in August–September 1948. Adding a shell of natural, unenriched uranium around the deuterium would increase the deuterium concentration at the uranium-deuterium boundary and the overall yield of the device, because the natural uranium would capture neutrons and itself fission as part of the thermonuclear reaction. This idea of a layered fission-fusion-fission bomb led Sakharov to call it the sloika, or layered cake. The first Soviet atomic device was tested on August 29, 1949. After moving to Sarov in 1950, Sakharov played a key role in the development of the first megaton-range Soviet hydrogen bomb using a design known as Sakharov's Third Idea in Russia and the Teller–Ulam design in the United States. Before his Third Idea, Sakharov tried a "layer cake" of alternating layers of fission and fusion fuel. The results were disappointing, yielding no more than a typical fission bomb. However the design was seen to be worth pursuing because deuterium is abundant and uranium is scarce, and he had no idea how powerful the US design was. Sakharov realised that in order to cause the explosion of one side of the fuel to symmetrically compress the fusion fuel, a mirror could be used to reflect the radiation. The details had not been officially declassified in Russia when Sakharov was writing his memoirs, but in the Teller–Ulam design, soft X-rays emitted by the fission bomb were focused onto a cylinder of lithium deuteride to compress it symmetrically. This is called radiation implosion. The Teller–Ulam design also had a secondary fission device inside the fusion cylinder to assist with the compression of the fusion fuel and generate neutrons to convert some of the lithium to tritium, producing a mixture of deuterium and tritium. Sakharov's idea was first tested as RDS-37 in 1955. A larger variation of the same design which Sakharov worked on was the 50 Mt Tsar Bomba of October 1961, which was the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated.

Sakharov saw "striking parallels" between his fate and those of J. Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Teller in the US. Sakharov believed that in this "tragic confrontation of two outstanding people", both deserved respect, because "each of them was certain he had right on his side and was morally obligated to go to the end in the name of truth." While Sakharov strongly disagreed with Teller over nuclear testing in the atmosphere and the Strategic Defense Initiative, he believed that American academics had been unfair to Teller's resolve to get the H-bomb for the United States since "all steps by the Americans of a temporary or permanent rejection of developing thermonuclear weapons would have been seen either as a clever feint, or as the manifestation of stupidity. In both cases, the reaction would have been the same – avoid the trap and immediately take advantage of the enemy's stupidity."

Sakharov never felt that by creating nuclear weapons he had "known sin", in Oppenheimer's expression. He later wrote:

Support for peaceful use of nuclear technology

In 1950 he proposed an idea for a controlled nuclear fusion reactor, the tokamak, which is still the basis for the majority of work in the area. Sakharov, in association with Tamm, proposed confining extremely hot ionized plasma by torus shaped magnetic fields for controlling thermonuclear fusion that led to the development of the tokamak device.

Magneto-implosive generators

In 1951 he invented and tested the first explosively pumped flux compression generators, compressing magnetic fields by explosives. He called these devices MK (for MagnetoKumulative) generators. The radial MK-1 produced a pulsed magnetic field of 25 megagauss (2500 teslas). The resulting helical MK-2 generated 1000 million amperes in 1953.

Sakharov then tested a MK-driven "plasma cannon" where a small aluminum ring was vaporized by huge eddy currents into a stable, self-confined toroidal plasmoid and was accelerated to 100 km/s. Sakharov later suggested replacing the copper coil in MK generators with a large superconductor solenoid to magnetically compress and focus underground nuclear explosions into a shaped charge effect. He theorized this could focus 1023 protons per second on a 1 mm2 surface.

Particle physics and cosmology
After 1965 Sakharov returned to fundamental science and began working on particle physics and physical cosmology.

He tried to explain the baryon asymmetry of the universe; in that regard, he was the first to give a theoretical motivation for proton decay. Proton decay was suggested by Wigner in 1949 and 1952.
Proton decay experiments had been performed since 1954 already. Sakharov was the first to consider CPT-symmetric events occurring before the Big Bang:We can visualize that neutral spinless maximons (or photons) are produced at ''t'' < 0 from contracting matter having an excess of antiquarks, that they pass "one through the other" at the instant ''t'' = 0 when the density is infinite, and decay with an excess of quarks when ''t'' > 0, realizing total CPT symmetry of the universe. All the phenomena at t < 0 are assumed in this hypothesis to be CPT reflections of the phenomena at t > 0. His legacy in this domain are the famous conditions named after him: Baryon number violation, C-symmetry and CP-symmetry violation, and interactions out of thermal equilibrium.

Sakharov was also interested in explaining why the curvature of the universe is so small. This lead him to consider cyclic models, where the universe oscillates between contraction and expansion phases. In those models, after a certain number of cycles the curvature naturally becomes infinite even if it had not started this way: Sakharov considered three starting points, a flat universe with a slightly negative cosmological constant, a universe with a positive curvature and a zero cosmological constant, and a universe with a negative curvature and a slightly negative cosmological constant. Those last two models feature what Sakharov calls a reversal of the time arrow, which can be summarized as follows: He considers times t > 0 after the initial Big Bang singularity at t = 0 (which he calls "Friedman singularity" and denotes Φ) as well as times t < 0 before that singularity. He then assumes that entropy increases when time increases for t > 0 as well as when time decreases for t < 0, which constitutes his reversal of time. Then he considers the case when the universe at t < 0 is the image of the universe at t > 0 under CPT symmetry but also the case when it is not so: the universe has a non-zero CPT charge at t = 0 in this case. Sakharov considers a variant of this model where the reversal of the time arrow occurs at a point of maximum entropy instead of happening at the singularity. In those models there is no dynamic interaction between the universe at t < 0 and t > 0.

In his first model the two universes did not interact, except via local matter accumulation whose density and pressure become high enough to connect the two sheets through a bridge without spacetime between them, but with a continuity of geodesics beyond the Schwarzschild radius with no singularity, allowing an exchange of matter between the two conjugated sheets, based on an idea after Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov. Novikov called such singularities a collapse and an anticollapse, which are an alternative to the couple black hole and white hole in the wormhole model. Sakharov also proposed the idea of induced gravity as an alternative theory of quantum gravity.

Turn to activism

Since the late 1950s Sakharov had become concerned about the moral and political implications of his work. Politically active during the 1960s, Sakharov was against nuclear proliferation. Pushing for the end of atmospheric tests, he played a role in the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty, signed in Moscow.

Sakharov was also involved in an event with political consequences in 1964, when the Soviet Academy of Sciences nominated for full membership Nikolai Nuzhdin, a follower of Trofim Lysenko (initiator of the Stalin-supported anti-genetics campaign Lysenkoism). Contrary to normal practice, Sakharov, a member of the academy, publicly spoke out against full membership for Nuzhdin and held him responsible for "the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists." In the end, Nuzhdin was not elected, but the episode prompted Nikita Khrushchev to order the KGB to gather compromising material on Sakharov.

The major turn in Sakharov's political evolution came in 1967, when anti-ballistic missile defense became a key issue in US–Soviet relations. In a secret detailed letter to the Soviet leadership of July 21, 1967, Sakharov explained the need to "take the Americans at their word" and accept their proposal for a "bilateral rejection by the USA and the Soviet Union of the development of antiballistic missile defense" because an arms race in the new technology would otherwise increase the likelihood of nuclear war. He also asked permission to publish his manuscript, which accompanied the letter, in a newspaper to explain the dangers posed by that kind of defense. The government ignored his letter and refused to let him initiate a public discussion of ABMs in the Soviet press.

Since 1967, after the Six Day War and the beginning of the Arab-Israeli conflict, he actively supported Israel, as he reported more than once in the press, and also maintained friendly relations with refuseniks who later made aliyah.

In May 1968, Sakharov completed an essay, "Reflections on Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom". He described the anti-ballistic missile defense as a major threat of world nuclear war. After the essay was circulated in samizdat and then published outside the Soviet Union, Sakharov was banned from conducting any military-related research and returned to FIAN to study fundamental theoretical physics.

For 12 years, until his exile to Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) in January 1980, Sakharov assumed the role of a widely recognized and open dissident in Moscow. He stood vigil outside closed courtrooms, wrote appeals on behalf of more than 200 individual prisoners, and continued to write essays about the need for democratization.

In 1970, Sakharov was among the three founding members of the Committee on Human Rights in the USSR, along with Valery Chalidze and Andrei Tverdokhlebov. The Committee wrote appeals, collected signatures for petitions and succeeded in affiliating with several international human rights organizations. Its work was the subject of many KGB reports and brought Sakharov under increasing pressure from the government.

Sakharov married a fellow human rights activist, Yelena Bonner, in 1972.

By 1973, Sakharov was meeting regularly with Western correspondents and holding press conferences in his apartment. He appealed to the US Congress to approve the 1974 Jackson-Vanik Amendment to a trade bill, which coupled trade tariffs to the Kremlin's willingness to allow freer emigration.

Attacked by Soviet establishment from 1972
In 1972, Sakharov became the target of sustained pressure from his fellow scientists in the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Soviet press. The writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn came to his defence.

In 1973 and 1974, the Soviet media campaign continued, targeting both Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn for their pro-Western, anti-socialist positions.

Sakharov later described that it took "years" for him to "understand how much substitution, deceit, and lack of correspondence with reality there was" in the Soviet ideals. "At first I thought, despite everything that I saw with my own eyes, that the Soviet State was a breakthrough into the future, a kind of prototype for all countries". Then he came, in his words, to "the theory of symmetry: all governments and regimes to a first approximation are bad, all peoples are oppressed, and all are threatened by common dangers.":

Sakharov's ideas on social development led him to put forward the principle of human rights as a new basis of all politics. In his works, he declared that "the principle 'what is not prohibited is allowed' should be understood literally", and defied what he saw as unwritten ideological rules imposed by the Communist Party on the society in spite of a democratic Soviet Constitution (1936):

In a letter written from exile, he cheered up a fellow physicist and free market advocate with the words: "Fortunately, the future is unpredictable and also – because of quantum effects – uncertain." For Sakharov, the indeterminacy of the future supported his belief that he could and should take personal responsibility for it.

Nobel Peace Prize (1975)
In 1973, Sakharov was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and in 1974, he was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca.

Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. The Norwegian Nobel Committee called him "a spokesman for the conscience of mankind". In the words of the Nobel Committee's citation: "In a convincing manner Sakharov has emphasised that Man's inviolable rights provide the only safe foundation for genuine and enduring international cooperation."

Sakharov was not allowed to leave the Soviet Union to collect the prize. His wife, Yelena Bonner, read his speech at the ceremony in Oslo, Norway. On the day the prize was awarded, Sakharov was in Vilnius, where the human rights activist Sergei Kovalev was being tried. In his Nobel lecture, "Peace, Progress, Human Rights", Sakharov called for an end to the arms race, greater respect for the environment, international cooperation, and universal respect for human rights. He included a list of prisoners of conscience and political prisoners in the Soviet Union and stated that he shared the prize with them.

By 1976, the head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, was prepared to call Sakharov "Domestic Enemy Number One" before a group of KGB officers.

Internal exile (1980–1986)

Sakharov was arrested on 22 January 1980, following his public protests against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979, and was sent to the city of Gorky, now Nizhny Novgorod, a city that was off limits to foreigners.

Between 1980 and 1986, Sakharov was kept under Soviet police surveillance. In his memoirs, he mentioned that their apartment in Gorky was repeatedly subjected to searches and heists. Sakharov was named the 1980 Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.

In May 1984, Sakharov's wife, Yelena Bonner, was detained, and Sakharov began a hunger strike, demanding permission for his wife to travel to the United States for heart surgery. He was forcibly hospitalized and force-fed. He was held in isolation for four months. In August 1984, Bonner was sentenced by a court to five years of exile in Gorky.

In April 1985, Sakharov started a new hunger strike for his wife to travel abroad for medical treatment. He again was taken to a hospital and force-fed. In August, the Politburo discussed what to do about Sakharov. He remained in the hospital until October 1985, when his wife was allowed to travel to the United States. She had heart surgery in the United States and returned to Gorky in June 1986.

In December 1985, the European Parliament established the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, to be given annually for outstanding contributions to human rights.

On 19 December 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev, who had initiated the policies of perestroika and glasnost, called Sakharov to tell him that he and his wife could return to Moscow.

Political leader

In 1988, Sakharov was given the International Humanist Award by the International Humanist and Ethical Union. He helped to initiate the first independent legal political organizations and became prominent in the Soviet Union's growing political opposition. In March 1989, Sakharov was elected to the new parliament, the All-Union Congress of People's Deputies and co-led the democratic opposition, the Inter-Regional Deputies Group. In November the head of the KGB reported to Gorbachev on Sakharov's encouragement and support for the coal miners' strike in Vorkuta.

In December 1988, Sakharov visited Armenia and Azerbaijan on a fact-finding mission. He concluded, "For Azerbaijan the issue of Karabakh is a matter of ambition, for the Armenians of Karabakh, it is a matter of life and death".

Death

Soon after 9 p.m. on 14 December 1989, Sakharov went to his study to take a nap before preparing an important speech he was to deliver the next day in the Congress. His wife went to wake him at 11pm as he had requested but she found Sakharov dead on the floor. According to the notes of Yakov Rapoport, a senior pathologist present at the autopsy, it is most likely that Sakharov died of an arrhythmia consequent to dilated cardiomyopathy at the age of 68. He was interred in the Vostryakovskoye Cemetery in Moscow.

Influence

Memorial prizes
The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought was established in 1988 by the European Parliament in his honour, and is the highest tribute to human rights endeavours awarded by the European Union. It is awarded annually by the parliament to "those who carry the spirit of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov"; to "Laureates who, like Sakharov, dedicate their lives to peaceful struggle for human rights."

An Andrei Sakharov prize has also been awarded by the American Physical Society every second year since 2006 "to recognize outstanding leadership and/or achievements of scientists in upholding human rights".

The Andrei Sakharov Prize for Writer's Civic Courage was established in October 1990.

In 2004, with the approval of Yelena Bonner, an annual Sakharov Prize for journalism was established for reporters and commentators in Russia. Funded by former Soviet dissident Pyotr Vins, now a businessman in the US, the prize is administered by the Glasnost Defence Foundation in Moscow. The prize "for journalism as an act of conscience" has been won over the years by famous journalists such as Anna Politkovskaya and young reporters and editors working far from Russia's media capital, Moscow. The 2015 winner was Yelena Kostyuchenko.

Andrei Sakharov Archives and Human Rights Center
The Andrei Sakharov Archives  and Human Rights Center, established at Brandeis University in 1993, are now housed at Harvard University.
The documents from that archive were published by the Yale University Press in 2005. These documents are available online.
Most of documents of the archive are letters from the head of the KGB to the Central Committee about activities of Soviet dissidents and recommendations about the interpretation in newspapers. The letters cover the period from 1968 to 1991 (Brezhnev stagnation). The documents characterize not only Sakharov's activity, but that of other dissidents, as well as that of highest-position apparatchiks and the KGB. No Russian equivalent of the KGB archive is available.

Legacy and remembrance

Places

 In Moscow, there is Academician Sakharov Avenue and Sakharov Center.
 During the 1980s, the block of 16th Street NW between L and M streets, in front of the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C. (which later became the Russian ambassador's residence) was renamed "Andrei Sakharov Plaza" as a form of protest against his 1980 arrest and detention.
 In Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, Sakharov Square, located in the heart of the city, is named after him.
 The Sakharov Gardens (est. 1990) are located at the entrance to Jerusalem, Israel, off the Jerusalem–Tel Aviv Highway. There is also a street named after him in Haifa.
 In Nizhny Novgorod, there is a Sakharov Museum in the apartment on the first floor of the 12-storeyed house where the Sakharov family lived for seven years; in 2014 his monument was erected near the house.
 In Saint Petersburg, his monument stands in Sakharov Square, and there is a Sakharov Park.
 In 1979, an asteroid, 1979 Sakharov, was named after him.
 A public square in Vilnius in front of the Press House is named after Sakharov. The square was named on 16 March 1991, as the Press House was still occupied by the Soviet Army.
 Andreja Saharova iela in the district of Pļavnieki in Riga, Latvia, is named after Sakharov.
 Andreij-Sacharow-Platz in downtown Nuremberg is named in honour of Sakharov.
 In Belarus, International Sakharov Environmental University was named after him.
 Intersection of Ventura Blvd and Laurel Canyon Blvd in Studio City, Los Angeles, is named Andrei Sakharov Square.
 In Arnhem, the bridge over the Nederrijn is called the Andrej Sacharovbrug.
 The Andrej Sacharovweg is a street in Assen, Netherlands. There are also streets named in his honour in other places in the Netherlands such as Amsterdam, Amstelveen, The Hague, Hellevoetsluis, Leiden, Purmerend, Rotterdam, Utrecht
 A street in Copenhagen, Denmark.
 Quai Andreï Sakharov in Tournai, Belgium, is named in honour of Sakharov.
 In Poland, streets named in his honour in Warsaw, Łódź and Kraków.
 Andreï Sakharov Boulevard in the district of Mladost in Sofia, Bulgaria, is named after him.
 In New York, a street sign at the southwest corner of Third Avenue and 67th Street reads Sakharov-Bonner Corner, in honor of Sakharov and his wife, Yelena Bonner. The corner is just down the block from the Soviet Mission to the United Nations (which later became the Russian mission) and was the scene of repeated anti-Soviet demonstrations.
 In Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, there is Academician Andrei Sakharov street.

Media
 In the 1984 made-for-TV film Sakharov starring Jason Robards.
 In the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, one of the Enterprise-D's Shuttlecraft is named after Sakharov, and is featured prominently in several episodes. This follows the Star Trek tradition of naming Shuttlecraft after prominent scientists, and particularly in The Next Generation, physicists.
 The fictitious interplanetary spacecraft Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov from the novel 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke is powered by a "Sakharov drive". The novel was published in 1982, when Sakharov was in exile in Nizhny Novgorod, and was dedicated both to Sakharov and to Alexei Leonov.
 Russian singer Alexander Gradsky wrote and performed the song "Памяти А. Д. Сахарова" ("In memory of Andrei Sakharov"), which features on his Live In "Russia" 2 (Живем в "России" 2) CD.
 The faction leader of the Ecologists in the PC game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and its prequel is a scientist named Professor Sakharov.

Honours and awards
 Hero of Socialist Labour (three times: 12 August 1953; 20 June 1956; 7 March 1962).
 Four Orders of Lenin.
 Lenin Prize (1956).
 Stalin Prize (1953).
 Elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1969)
 Elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (1973)

In 1980, Sakharov was stripped of all Soviet awards for "anti-Soviet activities". Later, during glasnost, he declined the return of his awards and, consequently, Mikhail Gorbachev did not sign the necessary decree.

 Prix mondial Cino Del Duca (1974).
 Nobel Peace Prize (1975).
 Elected member of the American Philosophical Society (1978)
 Laurea Honoris Causa of the Sapienza University of Rome (1980).
 Grand Cross of Order of the Cross of Vytis (posthumously on January 8, 2003).

Bibliography

Books

Articles and interviews

See also

 Sakharov conditions
 Sakharov Prize
 List of peace activists
 Natan Sharansky
 Stanislaw Ulam
 Omid Kokabee
 Mordechai Vanunu

References

Further reading

External links

 The Andrei Sakharov Archives at the Houghton Library.

 Andrei Sakharov: Soviet Physics, Nuclear Weapons, and Human Rights . Web exhibit at the American Institute of Physics.
 Andrei Sakharov: Photo-chronology
 Annotated bibliography of Andrei Sakharov from the Alsos Digital Library

Videos

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Andrei Sakharov


Bhadran Mattel (born 22 November 1952) is an Indian filmmaker and writer, whose career spans more than 40 years. Bhadran's body of work addresses such themes as victimization of ill-mannered parenting, concepts of psychological trauma's and redemption, objectification of fatherhood, childhood distresses, intense metaphorical placements of matter and animals, Biblical inspired backdrops, and autocrat Christian culture in typical parts of Kerala.

Among the very few filmmakers who ruled Malayalam film industry through the '80s and '90s, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers to introduce thug life glorification of Malayalam superstars on screen, which went on to become the most popular concept of a typical mass film among Kerala film fans even these days. In 1986, he won the Filmfare Award for Best Director – Malayalam for Poomukhappadiyil Ninneyum Kaathu and repeated the feat of achievements again with two more Filmfares in the Best Director category through Iyer the Great and Spadikam in 1990 and 1995.

Mattel's directed works include the ruffian film Spadikam (1995), the psychic-precognition thriller Iyer the Great (1990), an investigative school drama Olympiyan Anthony Adam (1999), the parenthood of an obese caretaker Uncle Bun (1991), a psychic family drama Poomukhappadiyil Ninneyum Kaathu (1986), the musical Idanazhiyil Oru Kaalocha (1987), the mighty land tyrant Udayon (2005), Indian political thriller Yuvathurki (1996) and more. Most of his films involved actors Mohanlal and Mammootty. Having directed Mohanlal in seven films and Mammootty in four films, Bhadran's associations with them have resulted in Award nominations and wins for both.

Career

Bhadran's career has spanned over more than 40 years. He is formally trained in music and won many accolades during his academic years for acting in plays and writing. He always aspired to become a great film director.

His struggle to gain a foothold in the fiercely competitive industry bore fruit when he got the opportunity to work as the 8th Assistant Director for Hariharan on Rajahamsam under the banner of Supriya, the production house. Beginning with that film, he assisted Hariharan in 14 films, progressing from an apprentice to an associate director.

The first film under his direction was released in 1982. Ente Mohangal Poovaninju, starring Shankar, Mohanlal, Menaka, and Kala Ranjini, received immense critical appreciation and was popular with audiences. Bhadran's films drew inspiration from the lives of common people, blended with creative surrealism.  Changatham (Malayalam) was released in 1983, starring Mammootty, Mohanlal, and Madhavi, was released and made ripples on the mainstream cinematic landscape. Bhadran focussed on making 2–3 quality films per year.

Spadikam (Prism), released in 1995, was an action drama film written and directed by Bhadran. The title was chosen to depict the flickering nature of people who keep changing and adapting themselves to exploit situations to suit their needs. The prism splits the white light into a spectrum of seven vibrant colours.

Similarly, the star of the film Thomas Chacko, a village rowdy played by Mohanlal, transforms himself into various characters to face different situations. The film was one of the highest-grossing films in Kerala in 1995 and collected around INR 8 Crores. It was also the longest running film of 1995 and ran for 225 days, winning the Kerala State Film Award for Best Actor and Filmfare Award for Best Actor. Spadikam, which depicts parents standing in the way of their children's dreams, was Bhadran's most successful commercial film apart from being one of the highest-grossing films of Malayalam cinema, gaining cult status in Kerala's film culture.

The plot of the film Idanazhiyil Oru Kaalocha is that a teenage boy falls in love with an elderly lady, played by Vineeth and Karthika respectively. Iyer the Great, starring Mamootty and addressing a train accident in Peruman, became a landmark film in the Malayalam film scene.

In 2019, Bhadran announced that his next venture will be a film with Mohanlal called Joothan, with whom he will be doing a film after 16 years.

Also in 2019, when film director Biju announced that he will make the second part of the film Spadikam, Bhadran opposed it, and the project had to be shelved.

Filmography

Director

References

Malayalam film directors
Malayalam screenwriters
Living people
20th-century Indian film directors
People from Kottayam district
People from Pala, Kerala
Film directors from Kottayam district
Screenwriters from Kerala
Filmfare Awards South winners
1952 births

Bhadran (director)


Montezuma's Revenge is a 1984 platform game for Atari 8-bit family, Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Apple II, ColecoVision, Commodore 64, IBM PC (as a self-booting disk), and ZX Spectrum (as Panama Joe). It was designed and programmed by Robert Jaeger and published by Parker Brothers. The game's title references a colloquial expression for diarrhea contracted while visiting Mexico.

In 1988, a port was published for the Master System, which retains the basic gameplay and level structure, but with improved graphics, sound, and additional features.

Gameplay

Montezuma's Revenge is an early example of the Metroidvania genre. The player controls a character called Panama Joe (a.k.a. Pedro), moving him from room to room in the labyrinthine underground pyramid of the 16th century Aztec temple of emperor Montezuma II, filled with enemies, obstacles, traps, and dangers. The objective is to score points by gathering jewels and killing enemies along the way. Panama Joe must find keys to open doors, collect and use equipment such as torches, swords, amulets, etc., and avoid or defeat the challenges in his path. Obstacles are laser gates, conveyor belts, disappearing floors and fire pits.

Movement is achieved by jumping, running, sliding down poles, and climbing chains and ladders. Enemies are skulls, snakes, and spiders. The player has a limited number of inventory slots for carrying items, and cannot collect any other items or jewels if all slots are filled. A further complication arises in the bottom-most floors of each pyramid, which must be played in total darkness unless a torch is found.

The pyramid is nine floors deep, not counting the topmost entry room that the player drops into at the start of each level, and has 99 rooms to explore. The goal is to reach the Treasure Chamber, whose entrance is in the center room of the lowest level. After jumping in here, the player has a short time to jump from one chain to another and pick up as many jewels as possible. However, jumping onto a fireman's pole will immediately take the player to the next level; when time runs out, the player is automatically thrown onto the pole.

There are nine difficulty levels in all. Though the basic layout of the pyramid remains the same from one level to the next, small changes in details force the player to rethink strategy. These changes include:

Blocking or opening up certain paths (by adding/removing walls or ladders)
Adding enemies and obstacles
Rearrangement of items
More dark rooms and fewer torches (in level 9, the entire pyramid is dark)
Enemies that do not disappear after they kill Panama Joe (starting with level 5)

The player can reach only the left half of the pyramid in level 1, and only the right half in level 2. Starting with level 3, the entire pyramid is open for exploration.

The sound track of the game for the Atari 8 bit computer is a musical adaptation of Spanish Flea and the first few notes of La Cucaracha when collecting items.

Development
Robert Jaeger had previously written Chomper (a Pac-Man clone) and Pinhead (a Kick Man clone). In 1983, Jaeger's friend Mark Sunshine suggested Jaeger make a game with a Meso-American theme and call it Montezuma's Revenge. Jaeger, who was only 16 at the time, exhibited the still-unfinished game with his father at a consumer electronics convention. Parker Brothers officials expressed interest and quickly convinced Jaeger to sign the rights over to them. On the title screen of the shipping game, Mark Sunshine is credited for the concept.

The original game that Jaeger developed for the Atari 800 required 48K of memory. Parker Brothers wanted to release the game on cartridge, so they trimmed it down to fit in 16K. One feature removed from the disk version was an unfinished boss fight with a gigantic King Montezuma who can stomp the player character to death.

Parker Brothers released versions for the ColecoVision, Atari 2600, and Atari 5200 consoles, and for the Apple II, Commodore 64, IBM PC, and Atari 8-bit computers. To reduce costs, Parker Brothers released the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit versions on disk instead of cartridge. In the UK and Ireland it was also released on cassette tape for the Atari and Commodore 64 .
The C64 and Atari versions came on a single flippy disk–likewise for the IBM PC and Apple II versions.

The IBM PC port uses a CPU-based speed loop and is too fast to be playable on 286 and up machines. A cassette tape version was developed separately in the UK for the Sinclair Spectrum. The Atari 2600 cartridge is 8K and has half the levels of the other versions.

Reception
Computer and Video Games rated the ColecoVision version 87% in 1989.

The games sold over 600,000 copies by 1997.

Legacy
In 1998 a 3D first-person game was developed for Microsoft Windows by Utopia Technologies called Montezuma's Return! A 2D version for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color was developed by Tarantula Studios.

An enhanced version of Montezuma's Revenge was released for iOS and Android.

Atari 2600 games were used as challenges for Artificial intelligence researchers. In 2013, progress was made on general algorithms which could learn to play multiple games, but they failed on Montezuma's Revenge and Pitfall!. In 2018, researchers from OpenAI made progress on Montezuma's Revenge. Later in the year Uber developed Go-Explore, a new approach to reinforcement learning, which could easily handle both of these games.

A remake titled Montezuma's Revenge 40th Anniversary Edition is currently in development. Robert Jaeger is involved with the production. A previously unreleased Director's Cut version of the original game is planned to be included with the remake.

References

External links
Montezuma's Revenge. Classic Gaming Game Museum.
Montezuma's Revenge. GameSpy Hall of Fame.

Review in GAMES Magazine

1984 video games
Platform games
Apple II games
Atari 2600 games
Atari 5200 games
Atari 8-bit family games
ColecoVision games
Commodore 64 games
Parker Brothers video games
Master System games
Video games set in Mexico
ZX Spectrum games
Metroidvania games
Video games developed in the United States

Montezuma's Revenge (video game)