KIAH (channel 39) is a
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ea ...
in
Houston, Texas
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 i ...
, United States, airing programming from
The CW
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
.
Owned and operated by network majority owner
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
, the station maintains studios adjacent to the
Westpark Tollway
The Westpark Tollway, also Fort Bend Westpark Tollway, is a limited-access toll road in Texas, serving western Houston and Harris County, and northeastern Fort Bend County. Construction on the facility began in 2001 and portions of the road we ...
on the southwest side of Houston, and its transmitter is located near
Missouri City, in
unincorporated Unincorporated may refer to:
* Unincorporated area, land not governed by a local municipality
* Unincorporated entity, a type of organization
* Unincorporated territories of the United States, territories under U.S. jurisdiction, to which Congress ...
Fort Bend County
Fort Bend County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. The county was founded in 1837 and organized the next year. It is named for a blockhouse at a bend of the Brazos River. The community developed around the fort in early days.
Th ...
.
History
Origins
The station first signed on the air on January 6, 1967, as an
independent station
An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, marke ...
under the callsign KHTV (standing for "Houston Television"). Prior to its debut, the channel 39 allocation in Houston belonged to the now-defunct
DuMont affiliate
KNUZ-TV, which existed during the mid-1950s. Channel 39 was originally owned by the
WKY Television System, a subsidiary of the Oklahoma Publishing Company, publishers of
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, and ...
's major daily newspaper, ''
The Daily Oklahoman
''The Oklahoman'' is the largest daily newspaper in Oklahoma, United States, and is the only regional daily that covers the Greater Oklahoma City area. The Alliance for Audited Media (formerly Audit Bureau Circulation) lists it as the 59th large ...
''. After the company's namesake station, WKY-TV, was sold in 1976, the WKY Television System became
Gaylord Broadcasting, named for the family that owned Oklahoma Publishing.
As Houston's first general entertainment independent station, KHTV ran a schedule of programs including
children's shows,
syndicated programs,
movies
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...
,
religious programs and some
sporting events
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, t ...
. One of its best known locally produced programs was ''Houston
Wrestling
Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat s ...
'', hosted by local promoter
Paul Boesch, which aired on Saturday evenings (having been taped the night before at the weekly live shows in the
Sam Houston Coliseum). From 1983 to 1985, the station was branded on-air as "KHTV 39 Gold". It was the leading independent station in Houston, even as competitors entered the market (including KVRL/KDOG (channel 26, now
KRIV), when it launched in 1971). During this time, KHTV was distributed to
cable providers as a regional
superstation
''Superstation'' (alternatively rendered as "super station" or informally as "SuperStation") is a term in North American broadcasting that has several meanings. Commonly, a "superstation" is a form of distant signal, a broadcast television sign ...
of sorts, with carriage on systems as far east as
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the county seat, parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, E ...
.
As a WB affiliate
On November 2, 1993, the
Warner Bros. Television
Warner Bros. Television Studios (operating under the name Warner Bros. Television; formerly known as Warner Bros. Television Division) is an American television production and distribution studio of the Warner Bros. Television Group division of ...
division of
Time Warner
Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States.
It was originally established in 1972 by ...
and the
Tribune Company
Tribune Media Company, also known as Tribune Company, was an American multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Through Tribune Broadcasting, Tribune Media was one of the largest television broadcasting companies, owning 39 ...
announced the formation of
The WB Television Network
The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...
, one of two television networks scheduled to launch during the 1994–95 season to compete against
Fox and, to a lesser extent, with
ABC,
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
and
CBS. Among the affiliation agreements it initially signed, which included the eight independent stations Tribune owned at the time, The WB reached an agreement with Gaylord Broadcasting in which KHTV and sister independents
KTVT
KTVT (channel 11) is a television station licensed to Fort Worth, Texas, United States, broadcasting CBS programming to the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is owned by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside independent outl ...
(now a CBS
owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
) in
Dallas
Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...
–
Fort Worth
Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. Accord ...
,
WVTV (now a
CW affiliate) in
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee i ...
and
KSTW
KSTW (channel 11) is a television station licensed to Tacoma, Washington, United States, serving the Seattle area as an affiliate of The CW. Owned by the CBS News and Stations group, the station maintains studios on East Madison Street in Seat ...
(now a CW owned-and-operated station) in
Tacoma,
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
would become charter WB affiliates.
A wrench was thrown into that agreement in May 1994, after
New World Communications
New World Pictures (also known as New World Entertainment and New World Communications Group, Inc.) was an American independent production, distribution, and (in its final years as an autonomous entity) multimedia company. It was founded in 197 ...
signed a
long-term agreement to affiliate its major network-affiliated stations with Fox, starting that September and as individual contractual agreements with the affected stations expired. Under the deal, Fox tapped longtime Dallas-Fort Worth CBS affiliate
KDFW (now a Fox owned-and-operated station) – which New World had recently acquired from
Argyle Television Holdings – to switch to the network once its contract with the latter network expired in July 1995. CBS eventually approached Gaylord Broadcasting to negotiate an agreement for KTVT (the only viable option for it to retain a VHF affiliate in the Dallas–Fort Worth market); on July 22, 1994, the group asked the
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas (in case citations, N.D. Tex.) is a United States district court. Its first judge, Andrew Phelps McCormick, was appointed to the court on April 10, 1879. The court convenes in ...
to confirm that its Dallas, Houston and Seattle stations were not "legally obligated to 'affiliate'" with The WB, as none of the stations had signed a formal agreement even though Warner asserted that Gaylord's stations were legally bound to draft affiliation proposals for The WB.
Not pleased with Gaylord's about-face, on August 18, WB majority owner Time Warner filed several lawsuits in attempts to block the Gaylord-CBS affiliation deal under
breach of contract
Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other part ...
and
bad faith
Bad faith (Latin: ''mala fides'') is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another."of two hearts ... a sustained form of deception which ...
negotiation complaints, and enforce an alleged contract with Gaylord to affiliate with The WB. CBS and Gaylord came to a deal on September 14, when the two parties signed a ten-year agreement with CBS to affiliate with KTVT and KSTW (which would replace
KIRO-TV
KIRO-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Seattle, Washington, United States, affiliated with CBS and Telemundo. Owned by Cox Media Group, the station maintains studios on Third Avenue in the Belltown section of Downtown Seattle, and its ...
, which would later return to the network in June 1997 after a two-year run as a
UPN affiliate, as the
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...
market's CBS outlet). Because of the dispute between Time Warner and Gaylord, for six months after the network launched on January 11, 1995, Houston was the only top-10 television market in the U.S. that did not have a WB charter affiliate. (Dating to the network's January 1995 launch, The WB had been available locally on
Prime Cable,
Phonoscope Communications, and other local cable and
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...
providers through the superstation feed of Chicago affiliate and Tribune
television flagship WGN-TV
WGN-TV (channel 9) is an Independent station (North America), independent television station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister station, sister to the company's sole radio property, talk ra ...
ow_conventional_basic_cable_channel_NewsNation.html" ;"title="NewsNation.html" ;"title="ow conventional basic cable channel NewsNation">ow conventional basic cable channel NewsNation">NewsNation.html" ;"title="ow conventional basic cable channel NewsNation">ow conventional basic cable channel NewsNation) This status came to an end in the fall of 1995; on September 18, Gaylord announced it would sell KHTV to Tribune Broadcasting, the Chicago-based broadcasting subsidiary of the Tribune Company, for $95 million. Under the transactional terms, KHTV also signed an agreement to affiliate with The WB.
KHTV became a WB affiliate two days later on September 20 and changed its callsign to KHWB (for "Houston's WB"), at which time, it began to identify as "Houston's WB39". However, because the network offered prime time programs only on Sunday and Wednesday evenings at the time (it would gradually evolve into offering a six-night-a-week schedule by September 1999), KHTV continued to fill the 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. time slot with feature films and some first-run syndicated programs on nights when the network did not offer programming. During this period, alongside WB prime time and
Kids' WB
Kids' WB (stylized as Kids' WB!) was an American children's programming service and brand of The WB that aired on the network from September 9, 1995, to September 16, 2006. The block moved to The CW (a result of the merger of Time Warner's The W ...
children's programming, KHTV carried recent and some older off-network sitcoms and drama series, movies on weekends as well as in prime time on weekdays, some first-run syndicated shows, and a blend of animated and live-action syndicated children's shows. The station subsequently dropped on-air references to its over-the-air channel position in September 2003, opting to identify only as "Houston's WB".
As a CW affiliate
On January 24, 2006, UPN parent company
CBS Corporation
The second incarnation of CBS Corporation (the first being a short-lived rename of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation) was an American multinational media conglomerate with interests primarily in commercial broadcasting, publishing, an ...
(which
split
Split(s) or The Split may refer to:
Places
* Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia
* Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay
* Split Island, Falkland Islands
* Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua
Arts, entertai ...
from
Viacom in December 2005) and WB network parent Time Warner (through its
Warner Bros. Entertainment
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
division) announced that they would dissolve the two networks to create The CW, a joint network venture that initially featured a mix of original first-run series and programs that originated on The WB and UPN. The network signed a ten-year affiliation agreement with Tribune Broadcasting for 16 of the 19 WB affiliates that the company owned at the time, including KIAH, to serve as charter outlets of the network.
Nearly one month after the CW launch announcement, on February 22, 2006,
News Corporation
News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New ...
subsidiaries
Fox Television Stations
Fox Television Stations, LLC (FTS; alternately Fox Television Stations Group, LLC), is a group of television stations located within the United States, which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Co ...
and
Twentieth Television announced the launch of
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...
, a network created primarily to serve as a network programming option for UPN and WB stations that were left out of The CW's affiliation deals. That service committed all nine UPN-affiliated stations that corporate sister Fox Television Stations owned at the time, including
KTXH, to serve as MyNetworkTV's charter affiliates. A few months later, the
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...
approved a callsign change from KHWB to KHCW (standing for "Houston's CW"), which became official on April 27, 2006. On September 13, 2006, KHCW changed its on-air branding from "Houston's WB" to "CW 39", restoring the channel number to its branding. KHCW remained a WB affiliate until the network ceased operations on September 17, 2006; the station affiliated with The CW upon that network's debut on September 18. (KTXH joined MyNetworkTV upon that network's launch on September 5.)
On July 15, 2008, Channel 39 changed its call letters to KIAH as part of a branding campaign emphasizing the station's local orientation (KIAH also serves as the
ICAO airport code
The ICAO airport code or location indicator is a four-letter code designating aerodromes around the world. These codes, as defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization and published in ICAO Document 7910: ''Location Indicators'', a ...
for
George Bush Intercontinental Airport
George Bush Intercontinental Airport is an international airport in Houston, Texas, United States, serving the Greater Houston metropolitan area. Located about north of Downtown Houston between Interstate 45 and Interstate 69/U.S. Highway 5 ...
).
Due to The CW's sagging ratings, Tribune wanted its CW-affiliated stations (including KIAH) to change their on-air imaging and de-emphasize the network's branding. The station changed to the simplified "Channel 39" branding on August 29, 2008, although "Channel 39, The CW" was used during network promotions. However, it was simplified again to just "39" in January 2011 for regular programming, and the "CW 39" branding returned for use in network promotions (though retaining the numeric "39" introduced with the 2008 rebranding); the "CW 39" branding returned full-time on March 28, using the slogan "''Real Houston''" to continue to emphasize KIAH's local orientation.
Aborted sale to Sinclair; sale to Nexstar
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. (SBG) is a publicly traded American telecommunications conglomerate that is controlled by the descendants of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith. Headquartered in the Baltimore suburb of Cockeysville, Maryland, ...
entered into an agreement to acquire Tribune Media on May 8, 2017, for $3.9 billion, plus the assumption of $2.7 billion in Tribune debt. The deal received significant scrutiny over Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties, prompting the FCC to designate it for hearing and leading Tribune to terminate the deal and sue Sinclair for breach of contract.
Following the Sinclair deal's collapse,
Irving-based
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
announced its purchase of Tribune Media on December 3, 2018, for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. The sale was completed on September 19, 2019.
Programming
Syndicated programming
Syndicated programs seen on KIAH include ''
The People's Court
''The People's Court'' is an American arbitration-based reality court show, featuring an arbitrator handling small claims disputes in a simulated courtroom set. Within the court show genre, it is the first of all arbitration-based reality sty ...
'', ''
Relative Justice
''Relative Justice'' is an American arbitration-based reality court show presided over by Texas, California, and New York State licensed attorney Judge Rhonda Wills.
''Relative Justice'' is produced by Wrigley Media Group, in association with ...
'', ''
Lauren Lake's Paternity Court'', ''
Judge Mathis
''Judge Mathis'' is an American syndicated arbitration-based reality court show presided over by Judge Greg Mathis, a former judge of Michigan's 36th District Court and Black-interests motivational speaker/activist.
The courtroom series premi ...
'', ''
Steve Wilkos'', ''
Maury'', ''
Young Sheldon'', ''
Black-ish
''Black-ish'' (stylized as black·''ish'', `black·''ish'', and black''ish'') is an American sitcom television series created by Kenya Barris. It aired on ABC from September 24, 2014, to April 19, 2022, running for eight seasons. ''Black-ish'' ...
'' and ''
The Goldbergs'', among others.
News programming
When the current incarnation of channel 39 signed on as an independent station, it aired hourly news updates between programs during commercial breaks. In August 1990, the station launched its first news department and began producing half-hour newscasts at 7 and 11 p.m., a move that was made to fill a gap that KRIV had left open, following that station's 1989 decision to discontinue its 7 p.m. newscast and move it to 9 p.m. as the Fox network had expanded its
prime time
Prime time or the peak time is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for a television show. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...
schedule to additional nights. The 11 p.m. newscast was intended to cater to people that missed the traditional 10 p.m. newscasts, though both proved unsuccessful and the news department was ultimately shut down in May 1992.
KHTV (later KHWB) did not carry any news programming from that point on, until Tribune Broadcasting required its then-WB affiliates that did not already produce their own newscasts to form news departments in 1999; the station launched a half-hour 9 p.m. newscast in 2000, to compete with KRIV's longer-running and hour-long late evening newscast in that timeslot. The station's then-chief meteorologist, Keith Monahan, won numerous awards for his weather reports including several Texas Lone Star Awards and multiple first-place finishes in Texas
AP judging, and was honored with a Lone Star
Emmy
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
in 2006 and a Lone Star Emmy nomination in 2007 for the "Best Weathercast in Texas".
The station expanded its late evening newscast to one hour on June 30, 2008 (the program previously only expanded to a one-hour broadcast due to significant breaking news events). Plans originally called for the launch of a weekday morning newscast in 2010 (which ultimately never launched), along with plans to unveil a new set and the upgrade of its news broadcasts to
high definition. On September 28, 2009, KIAH launched an hour-long early evening newscast at 5 p.m. The station then began broadcasting its newscasts in high definition on May 10, 2010, with the debut of a new set, becoming the last English-language network station in the Houston market to make the upgrade. However, like most Tribune-owned stations with in-house newscasts in HD, the locally originated live field reports are also broadcast in the format.
''NewsFix'', ''Eye Opener'' and ''Morning Dose''
On March 19, 2011 (delayed from an originally slated fall 2010 launch), KIAH relaunched its newscasts and became the pilot station for a new Tribune-developed news format, ''
NewsFix
''NewsFix'' was an American television news program produced for CW affiliates KDAF in Dallas-Fort Worth, KIAH in Houston, Texas and WSFL-TV in Miami that originally premiered on March 19, 2011 on KIAH.
The program – airing daily on the fo ...
''. Described by KIAH general manager Roger Bare as "a
newsreel
A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, inform ...
updated for the 21st century," the program de-emphasizes the traditional use of
anchor
An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek � ...
s and reporters, preferring instead to use footage featuring those involved in the story. Houston radio personality Greg Onofrio provides continuity as the program's narrator, and also appears on-screen to provide a commentary segment at the end of the newscast. The plan was to roll out the format to certain other Tribune-owned stations if ''NewsFix'' proved successful on KIAH;
Dallas sister station KDAF would adopt the ''NewsFix'' format in 2014, and
WSFL-TV
WSFL-TV (channel 39) is a television station in Miami, Miami, Florida, United States, affiliated with The CW. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Ion Television owned-and-operated station WPXM-TV (channel 35), also licensed to Mia ...
in
Miami
Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...
followed suit in September 2015.
On May 9, 2011, KIAH became the test market for another Tribune news concept, ''
Eye Opener''. Airing weekday mornings (from 5 to 8 a.m.), the program is a local/national hybrid show billed as a "provocative and unpredictable" combination of daily news, lifestyle, entertainment and opinion segments, interspersed with half-hourly local news, weather and traffic inserts presented by a solo anchor from KIAH's Houston studios, with national content initially pre-produced at Tribune's Chicago headquarters. By the fall of 2011, production of ''Eye Opener''s national segments relocated from Chicago to the studios of KIAH sister station and fellow CW affiliate KDAF in Dallas, which began airing ''Eye Opener'' on October 31 of that year, along with
WPHL-TV
WPHL-TV (channel 17) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group and has studios in the Wynnefield section of West Philadelphia; it maintains ...
in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
, WSFL-TV in Miami and
KRCW-TV
KRCW-TV (channel 32) is a television station licensed to Salem, Oregon, United States, serving as the CW outlet for the Portland area. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside CBS affiliate KOIN (channel ...
in
Portland, Oregon
Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous ...
(which, unlike KDAF and KIAH, do not produce their own news programming). ''Eye Opener'' ended its run on June 21, 2017, and was replaced with ''Morning Dose'' on June 29.
On September 6, 2018, Tribune announced that ''Morning Dose'' and ''NewsFix'' would be cancelled effective September 14, and that KIAH would begin producing a local three-hour morning newscast titled ''Houston Morning Dose'' which was launched on October 22.
9 p.m. newscast from KTRK and traffic and weather-focused morning show
A 9 p.m. newscast returned to KIAH on May 11, 2020, with the introduction of a nightly newscast entitled ''ABC 13 Eyewitness News at 9 p.m. on CW 39''. The show utilizes the news staff and studio of ABC-owned
KTRK-TV
KTRK-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on Bissonnet Stre ...
(channel 13); the agreement is the second between Nexstar and an
ABC-owned station, after an existing partnership between WPHL-TV and
WPVI-TV
WPVI-TV (channel 6), branded on-air as 6 ABC, is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the stati ...
in Philadelphia.
On August 20, 2020, KIAH rebranded its morning newscast as ''No Wait Weather + Traffic'', ending ''Morning Dose''.
Notable current on-air staff
*
Maggie Flecknoe – morning reporter
Notable former on-air staff
*
Alan Ashby
Alan Dean Ashby (born July 8, 1951) is an American former professional baseball catcher in Major League Baseball (MLB) and current radio and television sports commentator. A switch hitter, he played for the Cleveland Indians, Toronto Blue Jays, ...
– sports director (now at
Root Sports
AT&T Sports Networks, LLC (ATTSN) is a group of regional sports networks in the United States that primarily own and operate AT&T Sports Networks (founded in 2009, as Liberty Sports Holdings, later DirecTV Sports Networks, LLC). It is owned by W ...
)
*
Katie McCall – reporter (2000–2006; later at
KTRK-TV
KTRK-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on Bissonnet Stre ...
and
KRIV, now at
WTSP
WTSP (channel 10) is a television station licensed to St. Petersburg, Florida, United States, serving the Tampa Bay area as an affiliate of CBS. The station is owned by Tegna Inc., and maintains studios on Gandy Boulevard on St. Petersburg' ...
in
St. Petersburg/
Tampa, FL)
*
Jim McKrell – station spokesman (later became an anchor and after the newscast had ended, he hosted station-produced specials; appeared in the film ''
Teen Wolf
''Teen Wolf'' is a 1985 American coming-of-age romantic fantasy comedy film directed by Rod Daniel and written by Jeph Loeb and Matthew Weisman. Michael J. Fox stars as the title character, a high school student whose ordinary life is chang ...
'')
*
Donna Savarese – anchor/reporter (now Director of Corporate Communications for
Stride, Inc.)
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's ATSC 1.0 channels are carried on the
multiplexed signals of other Houston TV stations:
KIAH (as KHCW) carried
The Tube Music Network
The Tube Music Network, Inc., or The Tube, was an American digital multicast television network. The network was a fully owned subsidiary of The Tube Media Corp., an independent company that was founded by David Levy in 2003. The Tube focused cl ...
on its second
digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compres ...
until the service was discontinued on October 1, 2007.
Analog-to-digital conversion
KIAH discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over
UHF
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
channel 39, on June 12, 2009, as part of the
federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.
[List of Digital Full-Power Stations](_blank)
The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 38,
[CDBS Print](_blank)
/ref>
''Houston Chronicle
The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With i ...
'', February 6, 2009. using
PSIP to display KIAH's
virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...
as 39 on digital television receivers.
ATSC 3.0 lighthouse
The station's digital signal is multiplexed:
See also
*
Channel 34 digital TV stations in the United States
*
Channel 39 virtual TV stations in the United States
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kiah
The CW affiliates
Antenna TV affiliates
Comet (TV network) affiliates
TBD (TV network) affiliates
Court TV affiliates
Nexstar Media Group
Television channels and stations established in 1967
Ryman Hospitality Properties
IAH
Superstations in the United States
1967 establishments in Texas
ATSC 3.0 television stations