Prior to its full-scale broadcasts, KLRT provided some brief news updates and public affairs programming during its earliest years on the air. Early weather segments were once presented by former KKYK-FM and KURB morning disc jockey and current KTHV news anchor Craig O'Neill. O'Neill included a vocal rendition of his radio character "Sherman Bonner, the World's Only Human Thermometer" to voice-over some of the weather introductions. Newsbriefs were presented by Bill Powell (formerly of KTHV) and Linda Gilliam on an individual basis in the early years. Ron Breeding, who then primarily worked with radio station KARN-FM (now working with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock via NPR member station KUAR) provided news and later weather updates for the station in the late-1980s. On September 4, 2000, the station began airing "Fox First Weather", a five-minute late evening weather forecast segment that ran until shortly before KLRT's newscasts debuted (the program was similar to a locally produced weather insert that aired on former sister station KOKI-TV in Tulsa from 1997 to 2002).