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LOSS OF HERITAGE CALLS IN HOUSTON?

M

MikeShannon914

Guest
OK, so I'm sifting through the Lone Star Emmy list, and see a reference to "KHCW-39." Don't tell me that some moron ditched those nearly 40-year old KHTV call letters? Once upon a time, it was co-owned with K"D"TV in Dallas (get it? "H" for Houston, etc?) by Doubleday Broadcasting (as in Doubleday Book Stores,) I believe. Oh, well. Someone will feel pretty foolish when this "CW" thing goes away in a couple of years.
 
Other heritage calls discarded for mere mini-networks:

* KBHK ch.44 in San Francisco -- heritage Kaiser station that became KBCW upon picking up The CW
* WXON ch.20 in Detroit -- had those calls for about 23 years, until The WB came to town, becoming WDWB; now MNTV station WMYD

Any more?
 
Houston Channel 39 actually changed calls from KHTV to KHWB with the arrival of the WB network and now to KHCW with the switch to the CW network. At least Tribune didn't change WGN's call letters.
 
I don't think any TV calls are really considered "heritage" unless they go back to the early days of the medium, prior to the early 50's.

The KHTV call has been gone for almost a decade.
 
Well, how about the earliest days of UHF? I don't recall offhand if DFW's KDTV or KMEC was the first UHF on the air here, but both date back to 1968. I would guess that KHTV's calls were from the same timeframe and it was probably the first UHF station there.

You're about right; it was 8 years ago this week since the switch to KHWB per the FCC database. Shows you how long it's been since I spent any appreciable time in front of a TV set in Houston. I think Channel 26 was still K-DOG the last time I did, Marvin Zindler had black hair, Jeff McShan was still a 20-something kid doing sports at KBTX in Bryan, and I got my TV listings from the Post.
 
MikeShannon914 said:
OK, so I'm sifting through the Lone Star Emmy list, and see a reference to "KHCW-39." Don't tell me that some moron ditched those nearly 40-year old KHTV call letters? Once upon a time, it was co-owned with K"D"TV in Dallas (get it? "H" for Houston, etc?) by Doubleday Broadcasting (as in Doubleday Book Stores,) I believe. Oh, well. Someone will feel pretty foolish when this "CW" thing goes away in a couple of years.
Click to expand...

I thought channel 39 was always owned by Gaylord before being bought by Tribune.
 
As far as I know, KHTV has been owned by Gaylord ever since its 1967 sign on, until Tribune bought them (and recalled the station as KHWB) in 1995. The fact that both 39s in Dallas and Houston had calls resembling "K_TV" mean absolutely nothing.
 
You are correct, sir. Per the Dallas News archives, "WKY-TV" of Oklahoma City was the original owner, but that was just a corporate cover name for Gaylord (KTVT was similarly titled.) WKY was the cherry of the Gaylord Empire. KHTV signed on the first week of January in 1967, broadcasting 8 hours on weekdays and 12 hours on weekends. The station boasted 2.5 million watts of power. There was indeed no connection to KDTV in Dallas. I stand corrected. The "D" in KDTV actually stood for "Doubleday."

The KHWB call letter change was denoted on the FCC website as 9/20/1999, then to KHCW on 4/27/2006.
 
Oh, well. Someone will feel pretty foolish when this "CW" thing goes away in a couple of years.

...they said that about FOX a few years ago too, didn't they?!!
 

I thought channel 39 was always owned by Gaylord before being bought by Tribune.
[/quote]

You are correct. KHTV
 
KHTV signed on in 1967 as posted above as a Gaylord property. Gaylord sold the property along with most of their other TV assets in the mid 90's to Tribune and CBS and got out of the TV business with enormous profits. They were a small well run operation for years with very good people running their stations for the most part.
 
MikeShannon914 said:
Well, how about the earliest days of UHF? I don't recall offhand if DFW's KDTV or KMEC was the first UHF on the air here, but both date back to 1968. I would guess that KHTV's calls were from the same timeframe and it was probably the first UHF station there.
Click to expand...

Actually, the first UHF on the air in the DFW area was KRET-TV Channel 23 in Richardson. It was educational programming broadcast from a tower at Richardson High School by the RISD. The station hit the air in February of 1960 and lasted about 10 years before the district switched to a closed circuit broadcast of educational programming.

In the DFW market, the only TV station that really has "heritage" call letters anymore (as far as I'm concerned) is WFAA. The calls have been active on radio or TV in this market since the 1920's. Channel 8 was actually KBTV for about one year, before Belo bought the station and changed the calls to WFAA.
Everyone else has changed call letters. Channel 4 and Channel 5 were both forced to ditch their heritage calls (KRLD & WBAP) by the FCC in the 70s.
Channel 11 ditched its heritage KFJZ calls when it was sold in 1960. The KRLD calls returned to TV for a few years in the early 80s when Channel 33 got them, despite a protest from channel 4.
 
Houston's channel 2 was originally KLEE (1949) before being bought by the Hobby family in 1950 and its calls changed to KPRC-TV.

Channel 11 first started as KGUL in 1953 and was originally licensed to Galveston. in 1959 the calls were changed to KHOU and a year later it's COL was changed to Houston.

Channel 13 grew from the defunct KNUZ-TV. It started as KXYZ-TV in 1954 and then changed to KTRK a year later to after the Jones (KTRH) had bought out the other partners.

KUHT began in 1953 and it's the most stable call-wise, still going strong with them for 54 years now.

Source: Wikipedia.
 
As usual, Wikipedia is incorrect! Channel 13 did NOT grow out of KNUZ-TV. KTRK did make use of the studios and equipment. KXYZ-TV Channel 29 never went on the air. I suggest you explore the previously posted blog and go to the home page. You will discover the correct information. By the way, the webmaster of that blog spent many years in Houston radio dating back to the early 1960s. He has done a lot of digging to compile the information in addition to his broadcast experience to add to the facts.

KUHT used the same studios that KTRK used. By the weay, they are not the most stable call letters in Houston television. KTRK has never changed it's calls.

The problem with Wikipedia is that anyone can edit it without getting complete facts. Wikipedia is NOT a good source.
 
Chuck, off the subject, but how is KNTH doing in Houston? Our similarly-formatted KSKY in DFW has been struggling since the format flip in 2004, but I've never checked to see if this is an isolated incident or nationwide. How long has KNTH had the news/talk format there? Just wondering.
 
thathoustonradiogeek said:
Houston's channel 2 was originally KLEE (1949) before being bought by the Hobby family in 1950 and its calls changed to KPRC-TV.

Channel 11 first started as KGUL in 1953 and was originally licensed to Galveston. in 1959 the calls were changed to KHOU and a year later it's COL was changed to Houston.

Channel 13 grew from the defunct KNUZ-TV. It started as KXYZ-TV in 1954 and then changed to KTRK a year later to after the Jones (KTRH) had bought out the other partners.

KUHT began in 1953 and it's the most stable call-wise, still going strong with them for 54 years now.

Source: Wikipedia.
Click to expand...

The Wikipedia article is a crock. Sometimes I think someone goes out of their way to post misinformation about Hou radio and TV. Here's my TV timeline as I have it now:

http://houstonradiohistory.blogspot.com/2007/06/this-is-test.html
 
Chuck Tiller said:
KUHT used the same studios that KTRK used. By the weay, they are not the most stable call letters in Houston television. KTRK has never changed it's calls.
Click to expand...

KUHT-TV is a year and a half older than KTRK-TV.

Considering what's happened to heritage calls in other cities Houston (and the area) has a good collection of AM, FM and TV calls that have gone unchanged since sign-on: KPRC, KTRH (if you don't count Austin), KCOH, KGBC, KULP, KBRZ, KLVL, KUHF-FM, KUHT-TV, KTRK-TV, KRBE-FM.... All of the Houston Vs have had the same calls since the 1950s.
 
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