Gary England banished!

Way back in the spring, I made some noise about OPUBCO buying out KWTV's share of NewsOK.com, and said something to the effect that the new News 9 site would be launched "next year" — that is, in 2008.

Well, 2008 is only a week away, and while kwtv.com still forwards to NewsOK, NewsOK has replaced the weather section, which was a KWTV production, with stuff from AccuWeather. There's a nicely-disingenuous video to explain the changes without, you know, really explaining them.

There is still a fair amount of KWTV material on site, but I expect it to disappear pretty quickly once the station ramps up its own Web site. They could do worse than ripping off their sister station in Tulsa; kotv.com, as TV-station sites go, is relatively low on the irritation meter.

Addendum: There's a placeholder at news9.com; a quick Whois reveals that it's owned by Griffin Communications, which operates KWTV.

Update, 29 December: It's up. I am not impressed, though I note with some amusement that there's a subheading under Sports called SuperSonics. Now that's presumption.

Posted at 7:24 PM to City Scene