on the future of 103.3 FM, i think either EMF, one of the Spanish broadcaster or a smaller local company will buy the signal out if Disney sells the station, this is the only thing that Disney owns in this market now, and sadly it's a underperforming sports radio station that lost all things that made them local and not a major market ABC station, how do they own the ABC station in Houston and not WFAA or any DFW TV stations instead, Dallas is a bigger market.
I can help you with your question. The TV stations in DFW were owned by newspapers (as they were in many markets). The Times Herald owned KRLD-TV (KDFW). The Star Telegram had WBAP-TV (KXAS), and, until recently, the Morning News had WFAA.
The original broadcast owners tended to operate radio and TV stations as side businesses, and, when they started selling out, seven was the maximum number of TV stations any single entity could own. In the case of ABC, it owned newspapers, but it couldn't expand its TV operation much because of the seven station limit and, in either February or March 1975, the FCC implemented the one-to-a-market rule, which prohibited newspapers from owning TV stations. After ABC merged with Capital Cities in the mid-80's, it ended up with the Star Telegram, which, ironically, locked it out of buying any TV stations in DFW. When Disney bought ABC, it couldn't get a one-to-a-market waiver for the Star Telegram and WBAP/KSCS. So, it swapped the Star Telegram and the Kansas City Star to Knight Ridder for some of its papers. Belo, however, sold its entire group to Gannett, which became TEGNA.
When I last lived in DFW in 1996, none of the TV stations were networked owned (unless, maybe, you counted UPN and The WB). After the Times Herald folded, the Los Angeles Times looked at selling its TV stations. New World, which, if I remember correctly, was owned by Marvel Comics, bought its stations (and several others, including most of the former Taft stations) with Fox's backing. Fox bought New World's stations except San Diego and Birmingham, which went to NBC, a year or two after that deal. KXAS was owned by LIN, and NBC bought an interest in LIN that it later swapped for KXAS. It offered LIN WVTM Birmingham in that deal, but LIN assigned that option to Media General (which later ended up buying LIN and is now part of Nexstar). KTVT, which had just switched to CBS Fourth of July weekend the year before, was owned by Gaylord, which was the family that owned the Grand Ol' Opry, WSM, and the Daily Oklahoman. It acquired KTVT from Gaylord around the same time NBC got KXAS from LIN.
Keep in mind, also, that DFW wasn't always a bigger market than Houston. I'm more familiar with the radio side, but I'm thinking Dallas and Ft. Worth were always the same TV market. Everything, however, wasn't equal for a long time. Prior to the early 70's, WBAP-TV transmitted from Broadcast Hill with 820 and 96.3. The radio markets were separate until the mid-70's. I believe they were combined around 1972-73, but AM stations could get their ratings separated by which county they were in through either '75 or '76. DFW's growth as a market has been relatively recent, and Detroit and Philadelphia were bigger markets in 1990.
