KHCW

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KHCW
Houston, Texas
Branding	CW39
Channels	39 (UHF) analog, 38 (UHF) digital
Affiliations	The CW
Owner	Tribune Company
Founded	January 6, 1967 October 22, 1953 as KNUZ
Call letters meaning	Houston's CW
Former callsigns	KNUZ (1953-1954) KHTV (1967-1999) KHWB (1999-2006)
Former affiliations	The WB (1995-2006) Independent (1967-1995) DuMont as KNUZ (1953-1954)
Website	www.khcw.com

KHCW is the CW affiliate for Houston, Texas, broadcasting on UHF channel 39. It is owned by the Tribune Company. It offers first-run primetime programming from The CW, cartoons from Kids WB, off-network sitcoms, first-run reality/talk/court shows, and paid programming.

Contents 1 History 1.1 As a WB affiliate 1.2 From The WB to The CW 2 Newscast 3 External links

[edit] History

The station began broadcasting on January 6, 1967 as KHTV (Houston TeleVision). The station took the place of the now-defunct KNUZ-TV Channel 39 (which was a DuMont affiliate). It was owned by Gaylord Broadcasting. It ran a general entertainment independent schedule including cartoons, off-network sitcoms, old movies, religious shows, westerns, and dramas, not to mention Star Trek reruns and the syndicated Soul Train dance show. One of its best known locally produced programs was "Houston Wrestling", hosted by local promoter Paul Boesch. It aired Saturday evenings, having been taped the night before at the weekly live shows in the Sam Houston Coliseum. It was the first UHF channel in Houston to broadcast in color. For a short time in the early 1980s, it was known as KHTV 39 Gold. It was the leading independent station in Houston as competitors entered the market. During this time, KHTV was distrubuted to cable companies as a regional superstation of sorts, reaching systems as far east as Lafayette, Louisiana.

[edit] As a WB affiliate

At first, the new WB network (which launched in January 1995) refused to affiliate with KHTV, seeing as Gaylord declined to affiliate its Fort Worth-Dallas and Tacoma-Seattle stations with the network (and instead affiliated them with CBS). However, in the fall of 1995, the station was acquired by Tribune Broadcasting (which held a stake in the WB network). As a result, the station became a WB affiliate in January 1996 and called itself Houston's WB39, and changed its call letters to KHWB in 1999 to reflect its affiliation. The KHTV call letters eventually ended up on a Home Shopping Network outlet in Los Angeles (though this KHTV is low-power).

The weekday Monday–Friday Kids' WB block was discontinued on December 30, 2005.

[edit] From The WB to The CW

On January 24, 2006, the WB and UPN networks announced they would merge. The newly combined network would be called The CW, the letters representing the first initial of its corporate parents CBS (the parent company of UPN) and the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner. The merger would take effect on-the-air in September 2006, and KHWB was announced as the Houston affiliate; a few months later, the FCC approved a call-sign change from KHWB to KHCW (Houston's CW), which became official on April 27, 2006. On September 13, 2006, KHCW was rebranded CW39. Former UPN station KTXH, owned by the News Corporation, has joined MyNetworkTV. The station will celebrate it's 40th anniversary on January 6, 2007.

[edit] Newscast

KHCW airs a half-hour newscast called "CW39 News at 9" every night at 9 p.m. The show features long-time news reporter/anchor Alan Hemberger and folksy Sherry Williams, who attempts to "keep it real" for the viewers and signs off each night with "Goodnight, friends and neighbors."

[edit] External links

• CW39
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KHCW