KHCW
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| KHCW | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Houston, Texas | |
| Branding | CW 39 |
| Channels | Analog: 39 (UHF) |
| Affiliations | CW |
| Owner | Tribune Company (KHCW, Inc.) |
| First air date | January 6, 1967 |
| Call letters’ meaning | Houston's CW |
| Former callsigns | KHTV (1967-1999) KHWB (1999-2006) |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1967-1995) WB (1995-2006) |
| Transmitter Power | 5000 kW (analog) 1000 kW (digital) |
| Height | 594 m (analog) 582 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 23394 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | |
| Website | www.khcw.com |
KHCW is a television station operating on UHF channel 39 in Houston, Texas. KHCW is owned by the Tribune Company, and is affiliated with the CW Television Network. The station's studios are located in Houston, and its transmitter is based in Missouri City, Texas.
Contents |
History
The station began broadcasting on January 6, 1967 as KHTV (Houston TeleVision). The station took the place of the now-defunct KNUZ-TV, which was a DuMont affiliate during the middle 1950s. It was originally owned by the WKY Television System, a subsidiary of Oklahoma Publishing Company. After the company's namesake station in Oklahoma City was sold in 1974, the WKY Television System became Gaylord Broadcasting, named for the family which owned Oklahoma Publishing.
As Houston's first general-entertainment independent station, KHTV aired a schedule of programs including children's shows, syndicated programs, movies, religious shows, and some sports coverage. 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. From 1983 to 1985, 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 distributed to cable companies as a regional superstation of sorts, reaching systems as far east as Lafayette, Louisiana.
As a WB affiliate
At first, the new WB network (which launched in January 1995) refused to affiliate with KHTV, as fallout from Gaylord's refusal 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 shortly after being acquired by Tribune and began to call itself Houston's WB39. In 1999, the station 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.
From The WB to The CW
Following the 2006 closure of the WB and UPN networks and creation of The CW, KHWB became the CW's 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 as The CW39. The station celebrated its 40th anniversary on January 6, 2007. KHCW stopped advertising as "The New CW39" at the end of The CW's first television season in June 2007.
News programming
Since the station signed on as an independent, KHCW (when it was KHTV) aired hourly news updates during commercial breaks between programming. In August 1990 the station began producing a 7 & 11PM newscast entitled Houston TV News, later simply called 39 News. The move was made to fill a gap that KRIV had left open as they had previously aired news at 7PM, but had moved it to 9 PM in 1989 as the Fox Network had developed a primetime schedule. The 11 PM Newscast was supposed to cater to people who had missed the traditional 10PM newscasts, though both proved unsuccessful and the news department was ultimately disbanded in May 1992.
KHTV did not attempt to go back into news programming until 1999, when Tribune Broadcasting decided to call for the introduction of news programming on all of its then-WB affiliated stations, which served as defacto owned-and-operated stations as Tribune owned a partial stake in The WB; Tribune's flagship station is Chicago superstation WGN-TV, which was Tribune's flagship WB affiliate is now also the company's flagship affiliate for the WB's partial successor, The CW (The CW was formed out of a merger between the WB and another network, UPN).
In 2000, KHTV, which became KHWB by this time, launched a half-hour newscast, WB 39 News at Nine (later renamed Houston's WB News at Nine) to compete with KRIV. The newscast changed its name to CW 39 News at Nine in 2006 to reflect KHCW's affiliation switch. It has and can be expanded to an hour-long newscast for special occasions or breaking news coverage. The station's chief meteorologist, Keith Monahan, has won numerous awards for his weather reports, and was honored with a Lone Star Emmy in 2006 for the Best Weathercast in Texas. [1]
The station will permanently expand the newscast to an hour on June 30, 2008, and is contemplating launching a morning newscast in 2009, when the station will unveil a new set and begin to broadcast their news in high definition [2].
News Team
- Soofia Aleem
- Ray Fisher
- Mia Gradney
- Alan Hemberger, weekday anchor
- Elizabeth Lee
- Keith Monahan, chief meteorologist (AMS Certified/NWA Seal)
- Andrea Nguyen
- Casanova Nurse, weekend meteorologist (AMS Certified)
- Alex Radow, fill-in sports anchor
- Steve Simon
- Dennis Spellman
- Jorge Vargas, sports director
- Sherry Williams, weekday anchor
Former on-air talent
1990-1992
- Alan Ashby: former sports director
- Jim Bergamo: reporter & weekend anchor
- Jan Glenn: reporter & host of Rodeo coverage
- Ken Jones, reporter
- Jim McKrell: station spokesman who later became an anchor and after the newscast had ended, he hosted station-produced specials
- David Scott: weekday anchor
- Lori Tucker: weekday anchor, now at WATE-TV, Knoxville, Tennessee
- Kathie Turner: weekday weather anchor
2000-present
- Donna Savarese, anchor/reporter
- Katie McCall, reporter
- Kristi Powers, meteorologist (now at WOFL-TV in Orlando, moving to KRIV soon)
- Jared Silverman, meteorologist (now at KENS-TV in San Antonio)
- Kris Sava, reporter (2002-2007)
Trivia
- At the end of every newscast, weekday anchor Sherry Williams closes the newscast with her closing, "Good night, friends and neighbors", a portmanteau between the opening greetings of longtime KTRK anchor Dave Ward (who opens his newscasts with "Good evening, friends") and legendary former KPRC-TV anchor Ron Stone (who used "Good night, neighbors" to end his newscasts).
News/Station Presentation
Newscast Titles
- Houston TV News (1990-1992)
- 39 News (1992-199?)
- WB 39 News @ Nine (2000-200?)
- Houston's WB News @ Nine (200?-2006)
- CW 39 News @ Nine (2006-Present)
References
External links
- KHCW Official Website
- Query the FCC's TV station database for KHCW
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KHCW-TV
|
|||||
|
||||||||
