Sports programming
Since September 1994, KJTL has served as the television partner of the Dallas Cowboys for the Wichita Falls-Lawton market. Channel 18 currently holds the local rights to air various team-related programs during the regular season (including the Cowboys Postgame Show, Special Edition with Jerry Jones and the head coach's weekly analysis program The Jason Garrett Show, along with specials such as the Making of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Calendar and postseason team reviews). Most Cowboys telecasts carried on KJTL are those carried by Fox, which through the network's contract with the National Football League (NFL), holds primary broadcast rights to the National Football Conference (NFC). In addition to carrying Fox-televised games involving in-conference opponents, since 2014, Cowboys games carried on the station also include certain cross-flexed games against opponents in the American Football Conference (AFC) that were originally scheduled to air on CBS. Most Cowboys preseason games not televised by Fox or by other broadcast or cable networks are carried over-the-air locally on sister station KJBO-LP through the Mission Broadcasting duopoly's agreement with the team's syndication service.
Newscasts
As of, KFDX-TV produces five hours of locally produced newscasts each week for KJTL (with one hour on weekdays); KJTL does not carry any local news programming on Saturday and Sunday evenings, opting to air syndicated programming following the Fox prime time lineup on those nights. As the duopoly partner of KFDX-TV, the station may also simulcast long-form severe weather coverage in the event that a tornado warning is issued for any county in its viewing area of southwestern Oklahoma and western north Texas.
Following its sale to Mission Broadcasting and the formation of the SSA between the two stations, in the summer of 1999, KJTL entered into a news share agreement with NBC affiliate KFDX-TV to produce a local newscast for channel 18. On September 20, 1999, KFDX began producing a half-hour newscast at 9 p.m. for KJTL, titled Fox 18 News at 9:00, which became the first local prime time newscast to debut in the market. The program originated from a secondary news set at the KFDX/KJTL/KJBO studios on Seymour Highway in Wichita Falls. The broadcast was eventually canceled due to poor ratings, with the last edition airing on December 31, 2001.
After a four-year sabbatical, KFDX resumed production of a prime time newscast for channel 18, which made its debut on September 17, 2007. Originally titled Fox: Texoma's News at 9:00 (later retitled Texoma's Fox News at 9:00 in September 2011), the half-hour show—which also originates from a secondary set at KFDX/KJTL/KJBO's facility—has aired only on Monday through Friday evenings since its debut. (Syndicated programs air in the 9 p.m. timeslot on Saturday and Sunday nights.) The KFDX-produced program originally competed against a prime time newscast produced by CBS affiliate KAUZ-TV for its CW-affiliated DT2 feed that debuted in September 2006; it gained an additional competitor when ABC affiliate KSWO-TV debuted a newscast for its Live Well Network–affiliated DT3 subchannel (now a MeTV affiliate) in September 2012. Both newscasts were eventually discontinued, with KSWO cancelling its 9 p.m. show in December 2014 and KAUZ discontinuing the newscast it produced for its "Texoma CW" subchannel on July 21, 2017.[19][20]
In July 2012, KFDX began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition, becoming the market's second Big Three network affiliate (after KSWO-TV) to upgrade its newscasts to the format; KJTL's prime time show was included in the upgrade. In September 2014, KJTL launched a half-hour weekday morning newscast at 8 a.m. (airing one hour later than morning newscasts that air on other Fox stations that do not maintain autonomous news departments). Debuting under the title Texoma's Fox: Morning Edition, the program features the same team that anchors KFDX's conventional morning newscast, KFDX 3 News Today.[21] At that time, the station also began airing a rebroadcast of KFDX's agricultural news and cultural affairs program Texoma Country Morning as a lead-in to the morning newscast.
