KHOU
This article needs to be updated.(February 2019) |
kW | |
HAAT | 593 m (1,946 ft) |
---|---|
Transmitter coordinates | 29°33′40″N 95°30′4″W / 29.56111°N 95.50111°W |
Translator(s) | KTBU 11.11 Conroe |
Links | |
Public license information | |
Website | www |
KHOU (channel 11) is a
History
The station first signed on the air on March 22, 1953, as KGUL-TV (either
In 1956, the original owners sold the station to the
Belo ownership
In 1984, Dun & Bradstreet sold its entire broadcasting division, including KHOU, to the
Known for its ownership of The Dallas Morning News and its flagship TV station in its home city of Dallas, WFAA (historically one of ABC's strongest affiliates and a local news powerhouse in that city), Belo began to make significant investments into KHOU, which had become one of CBS' weakest affiliates during the 1980s under the final years of Dun & Bradstreet ownership. With the addition of stronger syndicated programming including the popular game shows Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! (both of which were picked up from KPRC-TV) and The Oprah Winfrey Show (which KTRK-TV turned down), the revamping of its news department, and the carrying over of both its Dallas flagship's theme music and popular image branding, The Spirit of Texas, KHOU began to challenge KTRK and KPRC in the local ratings, and eventually became one of CBS' strongest affiliates by the 1990s during a very challenging period for the network. In 1998, KHOU became the first television station in the market to begin broadcasting a high definition digital signal.
On June 13, 2013, the
Hurricane Harvey
Being situated near Buffalo Bayou in an area that had become prone to flooding, KHOU's longtime studios had become vulnerable to damage from major hurricanes and severe weather as the Houston area grew exponentially over the last six decades. On the night of June 8, 2001, the station's studios flooded during
On August 21, 2017, KHOU began covering Hurricane Harvey as the storm was projected to hit the Texas Gulf Coast with extensive rainfall expected in the Greater Houston area. The station began wall-to-wall coverage on August 25, 2017, with extensive coverage of the storm's landfall in Rockport (near Corpus Christi). While initial coverage focused on storm damage and cleanup in parts of KHOU's viewing area, by the following Saturday, August 26, massive and continuous rain bands from the Gulf of Mexico led to catastrophic flooding throughout the metropolitan area, with much of the flooding being unprecedented in many places.
On the early morning of Sunday, August 27, KHOU was forced to evacuate its studios due to rising floodwaters from the nearby Buffalo Bayou. Around 6 a.m., the first floor of the building became inundated with floodwaters, forcing station employees to completely abandon its facility nearly three hours later after a move to a second floor
After KHOU's signal was knocked off the air, sister station WFAA began providing live news coverage for KHOU by live-streaming on both station's websites and social media profiles until the station was able to resume broadcasting on its own. The station's staff then evacuated to the nearby Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Houston Branch building on higher ground while a new contingency plan was drafted.
With the assistance of
On the evening of August 31, the station resumed CBS programming with its prime time lineup. For the first month, the station only broadcast its main HD channel while its two subchannels (at the time
Move to Westheimer studios
On November 16, 2017, KHOU officially announced it would not return to the Allen Parkway facility;[12] the building would eventually be sold to an affiliate of Service Corporation International (whose headquarters are located in an office building adjacent to the former KHOU studios) and was eventually demolished the following May. In December 2017, KHOU announced that it would open a secondary street-side studio at the George R. Brown Convention Center along Avenida Houston.[13] The studio opened in the fall of 2018, and is primarily used for its weekday newscasts. This setup is similar to that of Dallas sister station WFAA's Victory Park studio, which opened a decade earlier in January 2007.
On March 29, 2018, KHOU announced that it had signed a lease for 43,000 square feet (3,995 m2) of space at 5718 Westheimer Road near Uptown Houston (Galleria area). The station occupies three floors of the high-rise in facilities that include two studios, two control rooms, an open collaboration space for all content producing departments, technical operations, sales and executive offices. The station began its operations from its new facility on Sunday, February 17, 2019, during its 10 p.m. newscast.[14]
On January 21, 2020, KHOU would gain a sister station when Tegna acquired KTBU (channel 55) from Spanish Broadcasting System which had been airing its Mega TV service over that station;[15] the sale was completed on March 24 with KTBU moving its operations three days later into KHOU's Westheimer facilities and dropping Mega TV in favor of Tegna's digital multicast network, Quest, which had previously been airing on KHOU's fourth digital subchannel. While KTBU may serve as an alternate CBS affiliate should KHOU need its main signal for long-form breaking news and severe weather coverage, its primary role has been to serve as a UHF rebroadcaster of KHOU's digital signal (which remains on VHF channel 11).
Canceled sale to Cox Media Group
On February 22, 2022, Tegna announced that it would be acquired by Standard General and Apollo Global Management for $5.4 billion. As a part of the deal, KHOU and KTBU, along with their Austin sister station KVUE and Dallas sister stations WFAA and KMPX, would be resold to Cox Media Group.[16][17] The sale was canceled on May 22, 2023.[18]
Programming
Since its inception, KHOU has been a CBS affiliate, and has largely cleared the entire CBS network lineup without interruption. In addition to its newscasts, KHOU also airs Great Day Houston, a local talk show hosted by Deborah Duncan with paid segments from local businesses in Houston, following CBS Mornings. The talk show, which has aired on the station since 2005, is taped at KHOU's studios on Westheimer Road west of the Galleria. KHOU also serves as the local television broadcaster of Houston's annual Thanksgiving Day parade, the H-E-B Holiday Parade.
Despite being in a market with an ABC-owned station (KTRK-TV), Jeopardy! aired on KHOU from 1986 to 2015 and Wheel of Fortune has aired on that station since 1986 despite their presence on ABC's other network-owned stations along with another ABC O&O syndication staple, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which KHOU carried for its entire run from 1986 to 2011. Jeopardy! moved to KTRK on September 14, 2015, making it the last ABC-owned station to carry the quiz show. However, KHOU continues to carry Wheel of Fortune at 6:30 p.m., making Houston one of the few markets in the United States where both game shows air on separate stations; in most markets, both game shows are sold as a package, often airing next to one another on the same station in prime time access. Both shows rarely air next to each other in most markets in the Central and Mountain time zones, as most network affiliates often program a 6 p.m. newscast during the traditional access hour (7 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT) before prime time, with KTRK itself having aired an hourlong 6 p.m. newscast in this hour since September 1982.
In 1987, KHOU refused to air a television adaptation of the then-popular Garbage Pail Kids trading card series on Saturday mornings, owing to concerns regarding the show's ridicule of the disabled and its abundance of heavy violence; as a result of these decisions and concerns, CBS decided not to air it on their Saturday morning schedule for the 1987–88 television season, and the series, to date, has never been telecast in the United States.[19]
Like most CBS affiliates prior to 1993, KHOU often carried syndicated programming (including
On September 8, 2015, it began airing The Late Late Show at its network-approved time (11:37 p.m. CT) following Stephen Colbert's debut as host of The Late Show; leaving the station's only CBS preemption being that of the second half-hour of the Sunday morning talk show Face the Nation, which had been tape-delayed to 2:30 a.m. the following Monday morning due to KHOU's longstanding broadcasts of religious programs from Houston-based Lakewood Church and Second Baptist Church, with the former also airing on Sunday night following its 10 p.m. newscast and KHOU 11 Sports Extra (see below). After Lakewood's broadcasts moved to KTRK in 2020 (only to return to KHOU at 11 p.m. only on Sunday nights the following year), Face the Nation began airing its full hour at 9:30 a.m., where the first half-hour had already been airing for years, with the religious broadcast from Second Baptist Church continuing to air at 10:30 a.m.
Sports programming
In
Other notable appearances by Houston sports teams on KHOU have included the
(which have large fanbases in the Houston area) via their leagues' respective CBS Sports contracts.News operation
KHOU presently broadcasts 33 hours, 55 minutes of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5 hours, 35 minutes each weekday, three hours on Saturdays, and 2½ hours on Sundays). On weekdays, this includes a 2½-hour morning newscast from 4:30 a.m. to 7 a.m., a full hour at 4 p.m., and half-hours at noon, 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. Its weekend newscasts include a 1½-hour morning newscast on Saturday morning, hour-long newscasts at 10 p.m. on Saturday and on Sunday morning, and half-hours at 6 p.m. on Saturday and 5:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Sunday. The station also airs KHOU 11 Sports Extra, which features extensive Sunday night sports coverage and commentary, following its 10 p.m. newscast on Sunday night.
Throughout its existence, KHOU has been widely regarded as a stepping stone for many well-known television news personalities, as many of its reporters have gone on to work for national networks. KHOU's best known former on-air staffers include former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, NBC News correspondent Dennis Murphy, newswomen Linda Ellerbee and Jessica Savitch, and sports anchors Jim Nantz (now the lead announcer for CBS Sports), Harry Kalas (later a legendary broadcaster for Major League Baseball and NFL Films) and Ron Franklin (later with ESPN). Outside of broadcasting, one of its former sports anchors, Dan Patrick, eventually became Lieutenant Governor of Texas.
KHOU also has gained a reputation for its investigative reporting staff (currently known as KHOU 11 Investigates), whose most notable stories include its 2000 investigation into defective tire designs by Firestone – which led to the mandatory recall of Wilderness AT, Firestone ATX and ATX II tires, as well as numerous lawsuits (the defective tires resulted in a number of deaths, including that of KTRK reporter Stephen Gauvain), a story in the early 2000s that led to the shutdown of the Houston Police Department's crime lab, and allegations of dropout rate fraud in the Houston Independent School District, which resulted in the dismissal of several HISD officials. All of these stories were initially reported by investigative reporter Anna Werner, who eventually went on to become the chief investigative reporter for CBS News.
History
Despite not being historically associated with a major newspaper, and being based in Galveston for most of the 1950s, news has always played an integral role in the history of KHOU. The station gained notoriety in 1961 when then-anchor Dan Rather showed what was believed to be the first radar image of a hurricane broadcast on television during Hurricane Carla;[20] this report, which was credited for saving thousands of lives that otherwise would have been lost, would later become a catalyst in his eventual hiring by CBS News. In 1970, KHOU had boasted of the top-rated news team in Houston, led by anchorman Ron Stone (who had been discovered by Rather in 1961), weatherman Sid Lasher and sports director Ron Franklin.
The station entered a tumultuous period during the early 1970s, when Stone departed for a radio reporter role with NBC News in New York and Lasher died from a fatal heart attack in a station breakroom shortly after KHOU's 6 p.m. newscast concluded one night. Stone would eventually return to Houston in 1972 to become the lead anchor at KPRC-TV, and helped that station to overtake KHOU as the leading news station in Houston; both stations would eventually be overtaken by KTRK-TV, whose Eyewitness News came to dominate the Houston market for the next several decades and which had become one of ABC's strongest affiliates by the end of the decade, eventually becoming one of the network's owned-and-operated stations in 1986.
While the station did hire former KPRC-TV lead anchor Steve Smith away from KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh to become its lead anchor in 1975 (a role he maintained for the next 24 years at the station), KHOU continued to trail its rivals as the decade progressed. A string of notable departures also did not help the station's cause, including the 1976 departure of chief meteorologist Doug Brown (who himself succeeded Lasher) to KTRK where he became that station's longtime morning meteorologist, and the subsequent departures to KPRC of news anchors Bob Nicholas (one of Houston's first African-American news anchors) in 1979 and Bill Balleza in 1980, with the latter also joined that year by the aforementioned Ron Franklin, who moved to KHOU to fill the same role of sports director at KPRC.[21] As a result, channel 11 crashed to last place, and would largely remain entrenched in this position throughout the 1980s.
When Belo acquired KHOU in 1984, the station continued to trail behind dominant KTRK and NBC affiliate KPRC, which usually placed a strong second and would further benefit in the decade from NBC's strong prime time programming of the 1980s. Its newscasts fared even worse than CBS' own floundering network programming itself at the time, occasionally even placing behind syndicated reruns on independent stations in the Houston market. Having achieved considerable success with the news department of its flagship station in Dallas, WFAA, since the 1970s, Belo sought to seek similar results for KHOU, and beginning in the late 1980s hired several high-profile people to its news team. The most notable was former National Hurricane Center director Dr. Neil Frank, who was hired as the station's chief meteorologist in July 1987. In another key move, KHOU also hired former KTRK morning anchor Sylvan Rodriguez (then a correspondent with ABC News' West Coast bureau) to anchor the station's early evening newscasts.
During this time, KHOU also commissioned an image rebrand using the "Spirit of Texas" slogan and (initially)
) during this time.1999 proved to be a breakout year for KHOU, with its newscasts reaching #1 in viewership in several timeslots during the May sweeps period, unseating KTRK during the midday hours, and at 5 p.m. (it debuted in May 1974) and 6 p.m., which also coincided with CBS' resurgence to number one in prime time by that year. The station's ratings boost, aided by its continuously strong syndicated lineup and a series of high-profile investigative reports by the station, also included an exclusive interview with
This news came despite the station losing three of its core anchors key to the station's resurgence: longtime anchor Steve Smith, who retired from broadcasting in May 1999 to pursue other interests, his fellow anchor Marlene McClinton, who abruptly resigned during one of the station's newscasts in September 1999, and 6 p.m. anchor Sylvan Rodriguez, who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and eventually succumbed to the disease in April 2000. Two former local newscasters in New York City, Greg Hurst of ABC flagship WABC-TV and Len Cannon of Fox flagship WNYW (the latter also a former NBC News correspondent and substitute anchor), would respectively join the station, with Hurst succeeding Smith as lead anchor in 1999 and Cannon joining the station in 2006 to replace longtime anchor Jerome Gray, who went to rival KPRC-TV. Cannon himself became lead anchor in 2017 after Hurst left the station (with Hurst eventually joining fellow CBS affiliate WREG-TV in Memphis).
On February 4, 2007, following CBS' coverage of Super Bowl XLI, KHOU began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition, becoming the first station in the market to do so. On September 7, 2009, KHOU-TV expanded its weekday morning newscast with the addition of the 4:30 a.m. program First Look; despite being the last station in the Houston market to launch a 4:30 a.m. newscast, KHOU was the only station in the market to announce its intentions to do so (three of Houston's major network affiliates – KHOU, KTRK-TV and KPRC-TV – launched 4:30 a.m. newscasts within three weeks of each other in the late summer of 2009 with little fanfare). On August 1, 2011, KHOU debuted a new half-hour newscast at 4 p.m. on weekdays to replace The Oprah Winfrey Show;[22] this would expand to a full hour in 2015 after losing the Houston rights to Jeopardy! to KTRK. Like many CBS and ABC stations in other markets, KHOU has also expanded its weekend 10 p.m. news broadcast to a full hour, including the aforementioned KHOU 11 Sports Extra on Sunday nights.
In 2018, the station rebranded its weekday morning newscasts as HTownRush, with a format emphasizing social media interaction including its own namesake hashtag, a summary of top stories during the first five minutes of each half-hour, and special segments including in-house features exclusive to Tegna stations such as Deal Boss, one-minute business/technology news briefs from Cheddar, and consumer reporter John Matarese's Don't Waste Your Money consumer segments (which usually air on stations owned by the E. W. Scripps Company). In June 2019, KHOU engaged in a similar rebranding process for its 4 p.m. newscast, rebranded as The 411, emphasizing a conceptual format and on-air graphics style similar to that of its morning newscast. KHOU has since dropped the HTownRush branding for its morning newscast as of 2022, instead rebranding as KHOU 11 Morning News.
Unlike most CBS affiliates, the station did not air a newscast until January 5, 2020, when it launched a new Sunday Morning newscast from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. prior to
Notable former on-air staff
- Steve Edwards – anchor/talk show host (1972–1975; was at KTTV in Los Angeles) until his termination on December 11, 2017[23]
- Linda Ellerbee – reporter (1972–1973; then with NBC News, later host of Nickelodeon's Nick News)[24]
- Dr. Neil Frank – chief meteorologist (1987–2008; now retired; returns periodically for hurricane coverage and other special weather events)[25]
- Ron Franklin – sports director (1971–1980; later play-by-play announcer at ESPN; deceased)[26]
- John Hambrick – ancher/reporter (1960s; deceased)
- Joanne Herring – host of The Joanne King Show (1950's–1974; later moved to KPRC-TV; now retired)
- Jim Nantz – sports anchor/reporter (early 1980s; now with CBS Sports as the network's top play-by-play announcer for NFL coverage)[28]
- Chau Nguyen – anchor/reporter (2003–2007)[29]
- Giff Nielsen – sports director (1984–2009); former quarterback for the Houston Oilers, now an elder with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints[30]
- Dan Rather – anchor/reporter (early 1960s; former anchor of CBS Evening News; now at AXS TV)[32]
- Rick Sanchez – reporter (1986–1988; formerly with CNN, was most recently at RT America until its closure in 2022)[33]
- Jessica Savitch – anchor/reporter (1971–1972; later KYW-TV and NBC News, deceased)[34]
- Janet Shamlian – anchor/reporter (1987–1995; now with CBS News)[35]
- Ron Stone – anchor (1961–1972; later KPRC-TV, deceased)[36]
Criticism
On November 24, 2022, KHOU was criticized for interrupting a Thanksgiving Day game between the Buffalo Bills and the Detroit Lions for a tornado warning with 23 seconds left in the game, causing viewers to miss a last second game-winning field goal by the Bills. The station did not incorporate a picture–in–picture treatment or split–screen format for viewers in Houston to continue watching the game while the weather report was issued. KHOU made no public apology for the interruption incident.[37]
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's signal is
Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
---|---|---|---|---|
11.1 | 1080i | 16:9 |
KHOU-HD | Main KHOU programming / CBS |
11.2 | 480i | ShopLC | Shop LC | |
11.3 | Crime | True Crime Network | ||
11.4 | COMET | Comet | ||
39.2 | 480i | 16:9 | Ant TV | Antenna TV (KIAH-DT2) |
39.4 | TBD | TBD (KIAH-DT4) |
On September 26, 2011, KHOU began broadcasting Bounce TV on its second digital subchannel (which originally launched as a quasi-independent station) upon the network's launch.
Analog-to-digital conversion
KHOU discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over
References
- ^ "Facility Technical Data for KHOU". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ FCC History Cards for KHOU. Federal Communications Commission.
- ^ "Looking back on 70 years of KHOU 11 serving the Houston community". KHOU.com. March 22, 2023.
- ^ taftbroadcastingllc.com
- ^ "Map of Neartown". Neartown Association. Archived from the original on October 5, 2018. Retrieved October 20, 2008.
- ^ "Gannett to buy TV station owner Belo for $1.5B". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Associated Press. June 13, 2013. Retrieved June 13, 2013.
- ^ Gannett Completes Its Acquisition of Belo, TVNewsCheck, Retrieved December 23, 2013.
- ^ "Separation of Gannett into two public companies completed | TEGNA". Tegna. June 29, 2015. Retrieved June 29, 2015.
- ^ "With main news set flooded, KHOU creates temporary sets". August 28, 2017.
- ^ Mcguff, Mike (September 4, 2017). "KHOU begins studio rebuild process". mikemcguff.com.
- ^ "KHOU repurposes parts of its past for temporary set". September 6, 2017.
- ^ "It's official: KHOU not returning to Allen Parkway". KHOU. November 16, 2017. Archived from the original on January 21, 2018. Retrieved November 17, 2017.
- ^ "KHOU plans first satellite studio of its kind along downtown's Avenida Houston". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved December 16, 2017.
- ^ "KHOU announces location of new station". KHOU.com. March 29, 2018. Retrieved March 29, 2018.
- ^ "Application View ... Redirecting". licensing.fcc.gov. Retrieved October 26, 2021.
- ^ Szalai, Alex Weprin, Georg; Weprin, Alex; Szalai, Georg (February 22, 2022). "Local TV Giant TEGNA Sold to Private Equity Firms in Mega-Deal". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "WFAA and Houston, Austin TV stations expected to go to Cox Media in Tegna's $5.4 billion sale". Dallas News. February 22, 2022. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
- ^ Shields, Todd; Shah, Jill R. (May 22, 2003). "Standard General's Tegna Takeover Dies After Money Goes". Bloomberg. Retrieved May 22, 2023.
- ^ Hall, Steve (September 16, 1987). "'Wise Guy' too much of a blast, while 'Oldest Rookie' likable". The Indianapolis Star. Retrieved January 1, 2024.
- ^ Dan Rather: My First Big Break, archived from the original on December 13, 2021, retrieved October 26, 2021
- ^ "KTRK's Doug Brown dies at 79". Houston Chronicle. January 17, 2013. Retrieved June 17, 2022.
- ^ KHOU adding a newscast to replace Oprah, Houston Chronicle, July 13, 2011.
- ^ "Atrium Restaurant Photo Gallery". Archived from the original on November 29, 2011. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- ^ "Linda Ellerbee – Television Journalist". Paley Center for Media. Archived from the original on November 4, 2013. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- ^ Barron, David (December 14, 2007). "KHOU-TV's Neil Frank is hanging up his raincoat". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- ^ "Ron Franklin bio". ESPN. Archived from the original on July 22, 2009. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- ^ "KHOU-TV Film Box 7406, Reel 9". Archived from the original on March 13, 2016. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- ^ "Jim Nantz bio". ViacomCBS Press Express. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- ^ "Vietnamese-American reporters shine in the US". July 9, 2012. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- ^ "Giff Nielsen signs off after 25 years at Channel 11". August 15, 2009. Archived from the original on April 11, 2013. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- ^ Swartz, Mimi (January 2007). "Here Comes Trouble". Texas Monthly. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- ^ "Dan Rather Biography". Archived from the original on February 22, 2013. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- ^ McGuff, Mike (November 13, 2009). "Former KHOU reporter let go from CNN newscast". Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- People Magazine. Archived from the originalon November 14, 2008. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- ^ "Janet Shamlian bio". CBS News. August 13, 2019. Retrieved December 11, 2021.
- ^ Barron, David (May 13, 2008). "Anchorman Ron Stone left deep imprint on local news". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved March 13, 2013.
- ^ "Houston TV Station Criticized for Interrupting End of Bills-Lions Game". Sports Illustrated. November 24, 2022. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
- ^ RabbitEars TV Query for KHOU
- ^ "Bounce TV Sets Launch for Sept. 26". Retrieved July 12, 2011.
- ^ List of Digital Full-Power Stations Archived August 29, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ CDBS Print