[1] John decided to extend the family business deeper into broadcasting, gathering together several additional backers – including his brother-in-law, James C. "Jimmy" Leake – to finance the development of and apply for licenses to operate television stations in Oklahoma City, Muskogee, and Little Rock, Arkansas.

On September 5, 1951, the Oklahoma Television Corporation—a consortium led by Griffin (who, along with sister Marjory Griffin Leake and brother-in-law James C. Leake, became the company's majority owners in July 1952, with a collective 92.7% controlling interest) and investors that included former Oklahoma Governor Roy J. Turner, company executive vice president Edgar T. Bell (who would later serve as channel 9's first general manager), and Video Independent Theatres president Henry Griffing (who acted as a trustee on behalf of the regional movie theater operator)—filed an application for a construction permit to build and license to operate a television station on VHF channel 9.

(Under FCC procedure, the Commission's Broadcast Bureau board decided on license proposals filed by "survivor" applicants at the next scheduled meeting following the withdrawal of a competing bid.)

Instead of using the KOMA calls assigned to the radio station, the Griffin group chose instead to request KWTV (for "World's Tallest Video") as the television station's call letters, in reference to the transmission tower being constructed behind its studio facility (which was also under construction at the time) on a plot of land on Northeast 74th Street and North Kelley Avenue that KOMA had purchased in 1950, with the intention of developing it for a television broadcast facility.

The first of these was KATV in Little Rock, which came to air the day before KWTV in 1953. the group would later On September 18, 1954, the company signed on its third television station, ABC affiliate KTVX in Muskogee.

[19][20][21] Post-split from Leake, Griffin expanded its television holdings again in the 1980s; it first bought KPOM-TV (now Fox affiliate KFTA-TV) in Fort Smith from Ozark Broadcasting Co. in September 1985.

The Cox/Griffin partnership launched a feed for the Tulsa area – offering newscasts from KOTV – in May 2001 on the former local TCI systems that Cox acquired eleven months prior.

(Some archival material in the former building on South Frankfort Avenue – including news footage, specials and still photographs dating to the 1950s – was donated to the Oklahoma Historical Society.

In 2009, Griffin and Oklahoma City-based OETA flagship KETA-TV (channel 13) decommissioned the original KWTV transmission tower due to the analog-to-digital transition.

(Griffin had previously submitted a bid to acquire KSBI in 2001, only to be beaten by a competing offer by Family Broadcasting predecessor Christian Media Group.