KHOU (TV)

KHOU

Houston, Texas
Branding	KHOU 11 (general) KHOU 11 News (newscasts)
Slogan	KHOU Stands for Houston
Channels	Digital: 11 (VHF)
Affiliations	CBS
Owner	Belo Corporation (KHOU-TV, Inc.)
First air date	March 23, 1953
Call letters' meaning	Dual meaning: HOUston HOU = airport code for William P. Hobby Airport
Former callsigns	KGUL-TV (1953–1959) KHOU-TV (1959-2009)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 11 (VHF, 1953–2009) Digital: 31 (UHF, 1998–2009)
Transmitter power	25 kW
Height	593 m
Facility ID	34529
Transmitter coordinates	29°33′40″N 95°30′4″W
Website	www.khou.com

KHOU is the CBS affiliate television station in Houston, Texas. Serving Greater Houston, it is owned by the Belo Corporation and broadcasts on digital and PSIP channel 11. The studio is near downtown along Allen Parkway in the Neartown neighborhood and the transmitter is at an antenna farm located in unincorporated northeastern Fort Bend County, along with all other Houston broadcast stations.

History

KHOU signed on as KGUL-TV (as in gulf or as in "seagull" ), licensed to Galveston, on March 23, 1953 by Paul Taft of the Taft Broadcasting Co. (not related to Taft Broadcasting Company of Cincinnati, Ohio). It was the second television station to launch in the Houston area after KPRC-TV. One of the original investors in the station was actor James Stewart, along with a small group of other Galveston investors.

In June 1959, it changed its calls to KHOU and moved the city of license to Houston. The FCC license listed both the Houston and Galveston service areas for a time. On April 24, 1960, the station moved to its present location just outside downtown Houston on Allen Parkway. To this date, KHOU is the only TV station in Houston to have its primary studios close to the downtown area.

In 1956, the original owners sold Channel 11 to the Whitney Corporation (later Corinthian Broadcasting) of Indianapolis, which became a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet in 1971. In 1984, D&B sold the Corinthian stations to Belo.

In 1998, it was the first station to sign on with a high-definition signal.

The KHOU studios were flooded during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, resulting in damage to much of the station, including its newsroom. The flooding was so bad, the station had to shut down and air a feed from the station's doppler radar for roughly 90 minutes.

In 2002, the Houston Texans began play in the National Football League, playing in the American Football Conference South Division. As part of the AFC, all afternoon road games (and home games against AFC opponents) are aired on CBS, and so they air locally on KHOU. The Texans are one of two teams never to have been blacked out at home, the other being the Baltimore Ravens.

During Hurricane Ike, which hit the Texas Gulf Coast the weekend of September 12–14, 2008, KHOU's coverage was distributed nationwide via DirecTV and XM Satellite Radio, as well as a live feed on the station's Web site.

Since the June 12, 2009 digital transition, KHOU-DT moved to channel 11, and then by the following week, the station dropped the -TV suffix like most Belo stations.

The station announced on July 12, 2011, that it would carry the new Bounce TV digital network on one of its subchannels when it launches in September. The station had announced earlier it would carry the .2 Network on one of its digital subchannels.

KHOU tower

KHOU tower is a 602 m (1,975 ft) high guyed mast in nearby Missouri City at 29°33′41″N 95°30′05″W. KHOU tower was built in 1992 and is used for TV broadcasting.

Digital television

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Channel	Programming
11.1	Main KHOU programming / CBS
11.2	Bounce TV

Analog-to-digital conversion

KHOU ended programming on its analog signal, on VHF channel 11, on June 12, 2009, as part of the DTV transition in the United States. The station then moved back to channel 11 for its post-transition operations.

Programming

KHOU has been one of the top-rated CBS affiliates in Texas for over 20 years, aided by a strong programming lineup featuring popular syndicated shows like The Doctors, Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune and The Insider.

Preemptions

KHOU has hosted Houston's annual Thanksgiving Day parade, the H-E-B Holiday Parade (formerly the Bank United/Washington Mutual Thanksgiving Day Parade) for well over a decade. As a result, KHOU pre-empts the CBS Thanksgiving Day Parade.

It airs The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson a half an hour later than the network schedule at 12:05 a.m. Episodes of The Insider air in the Late Late Show's normal network timeslot instead at 11:37 p.m. In addition, KHOU exercises CBS's seldom-used option to air The Young and the Restless at 11:00 a.m., a half-hour before most CBS affiliates air the show.

Newscasts

KHOU Studios and Offices in Neartown Houston

KHOU has been widely regarded as a stepping stone for television news anchors reporters, as many of its reporters have gone on to assignments with national networks. The station's best known former staff are former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, NBC News Correspondent Dennis Murphy and newswomen Linda Ellerbee and Jessica Savitch. In sports, there was Jim Nantz, a sports anchor/reporter, now with CBS Sports and Ron Franklin, a sports anchor now with ESPN.

Beginning in the late 1980s, KHOU hired several high-profile people to its news team. The most notable was Neil Frank, the former director of the National Hurricane Center, who was tapped by the station to be the chief meteorologist starting in July 1987. In another key move, the station also hired former KTRK anchor Sylvan Rodriguez away from his job at the West Coast bureau of ABC News to anchor the station's early evening newscasts. KHOU also began to use the "Spirit of Texas" slogan and TM Productions' "Spirit" music package (also used at sister station WFAA in Dallas), and incorporated a redesigned logo.

In January 1989, KHOU revamped the look of its newscasts, with an image campaign that included full-page ads in the Houston Chronicle and Houston Post, as well as an on-air promotional campaign that focused more on ordinary citizens throughout Greater Houston than on its news team. With the lead news team of anchors Steve Smith and Marlene McClinton, chief meteorologist Dr. Neil Frank and sports director Giff Nielsen, along with a new set, graphics and theme music, KHOU began to mount a serious challenge to the other Houston newscasts, leading to a competitive ratings race during the 1990s.

If any year proved to be a breakout year for KHOU, it was 1999. During the May sweeps of that year, KHOU reached number one in several timeslots, unseating KTRK at midday, 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. The station's ratings boost also included an exclusive interview with Serbian and Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic during the Kosovo War just a month before Milosevic's indictment. This news came despite the retirement of longtime anchor Steve Smith, anchor Sylvan Rodriguez's eventually fatal bout with pancreatic cancer and the abrupt resignation of fellow anchor Marlene McClinton during one of the station's newscasts.

On February 4, 2007, following CBS' coverage of Super Bowl XLI, KHOU aired its first newscasts in high definition (HD), branding themselves as 11 News HD, and heavily promotiong the technology.

On September 7, 2009, KHOU-TV launched Houston's third morning newscast to begin at 4:30 a.m., "First Look." The newscast is anchored by former KIAH (channel 39) anchor Sherry Williams, with meteorologist David Paul. Despite being the last station in the Houston market to launch its early-morning newscast, KHOU was the first station in the market to send a news release announcing its intentions to do so. In a race to capture the lucrative insomniac/very early commuter market, all three major network affiliates in Houston launched 4:30 a.m. newscasts within three weeks of each other in the late summer of 2009.

In March 2011, KHOU started using a new set of on-air HD visual graphics, which also incorporated a new logo and new newscast title, "KHOU 11 News." This new graphics replaces their old yellow-red-white-and-blue HD graphics, which were also created by the Giant Octopus design group. On July 13, 2011 KHOU announced that it would debut a new half-hour 4 p.m. newscast on August 1, 2011; the newscast is the third newscast in the Houston market in that timeslot, as KPRC debuted their 4 p.m. newscast in 1996 and KTRK debuted a 4 p.m. newscast in 2001.

KHOU's is currently second place in the Houston market behind KTRK. However they rank well among middle aged (35-55) and suburban audiences. This is noted as currently as of 2011, KHOU is the only station that focuses traffic in the suburbs in addition to the Houston freeways.

KHOU 11 News I-Team

KHOU also has gained a reputation for its investigative news team, the 11 News Defenders, which has uncovered numerous stories, the most notable being its 2000 investigation into defective tire designs by Firestone. That investigation led to the mandatory recall of Wilderness AT, Firestone ATX and ATX II tires, as well as numerous lawsuits. The defective tires resulted in a number of deaths, including that of Stephen Gauvain, a reporter for rival ABC affiliate KTRK.

Another investigative report in the early 2000s by former reporter Anna Werner led to the shutdown of the Houston Police Department's crime lab. The 11 News Defenders unit has also exposed allegations of dropout rate fraud in the Houston Independent School District, which resulted in the dismissal of several HISD officials. The unit was briefly rebranded to the name "11 News Investigates" on July 24, 2006, when KHOU unveiled a new look on its newscasts. The name was switched back to "Defenders" in 2008 to distinguish the unit after several local stations in the market also began using the "Investigates" label. In 2010, the station's investigative team was rebranded the "11 News I-Team." In 2011, it became the "KHOU 11 News I-Team."

News/station presentation

Newscast titles

• The News with Ron Stone (1953-1968)
• Newswatch 11 (1968-1974)
• Newswatch 11 Houston (1974-1975)
• News 11 (1975–1979)
• NewsCenter 11 (1979–1984)
• 11 News (1984–1987 and 1991–2011)
• Channel 11 News (1987–1989)
• KHOU 11 News (1989–1991 and 2011-present)

Station slogans

• Houston's Way of Looking at the World (1980–1983)
• The Spirit of Texas (1987–2011; used as primary slogan starting in 1999)
• It's Time To Choose. 11 News. (1999–2002; news slogan)
• We Go There (2002–2005; news slogan)
• Make Sense of Your World (2006–2008)
• Standing By You (2008-2011; used after Hurricane Ike)
• KHOU Stands For Houston (2011–present)

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Notable on-air staff

(Year person joined KHOU in parentheses)

Current on-air staff

Anchors (In alphabetical order)

• Vicente Arenas – Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10 p.m.; also weeknight reporter (2004)
• Len Cannon – weekdays at 4 and 6 p.m. (2006)
• Shern-Min Chow – weekdays at 4 p.m. (1996)
• Greg Hurst – weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m. (1999)
• Lisa Hernandez – weeknights at 5 and 10 p.m. (2011)
• Lily Jang – weekday mornings "KHOU 11 News This Morning" (4:30-7 a.m.) (2012) (Beginning February 13, 2012)
• Rekha Muddaraj – Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10 p.m.; also weeknight reporter (2012)
• Ron Trevino – weekday mornings "KHOU 11 News This Morning" (4:30-7 a.m.) and noon (1994)
• Sherry Williams – Saturday mornings "KHOU 11 News Saturday Morning" (7-9 a.m.); also reporter (2009)

Weather (In order of rank)

• Gene Norman (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Seal of Approval) – Chief Meteorologist; weeknights at 5, 6 and 10 p.m. (2008)
• Mario Gomez (AMS Seal of Approval) – Meteorologist; Saturday mornings and 6 p.m., Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10 p.m.; also fill-in (1992)
• David Paul (AMS Certified Broadcast Meteorologist Seal of Approval) – Meteorologist; weekday mornings "KHOU 11 News This Morning" (4:30-7 a.m.) (1997)
• Chita Johnson (AMS Seal of Approval, NWA member) – Meteorologist; weekdays at noon and 4 p.m. (2011)

Sports (In order of rank)

• Butch Alsandor – Sports Director; weeknights at 6 and 10 p.m. (1993)
• Matt Musil – Sports Anchor; Saturdays at 6, Sundays at 5:30 and weekends at 10 p.m. (1980)
• Daniel Gotera - sports reporter and fill-in sports anchor (2009)

Reporters (In alphabetical order)

• Lisa Chavarria - general assignment reporter (2010)
• Tiffany Craig - general assignment reporter (2010)
• Jeremy Desel – general assignment reporter (1999)
• Leigh Frillici – general assignment reporter (2007)
• Gabe Gutierrez - general assignment reporter (2010)
• Angela Kocherga – Mexico City bureau reporter (2000)
• Jeff McShan – general assignment reporter (2008)
• Doug Miller – general assignment reporter (1993)
• Rucks Russell – general assignment reporter (2004)
• Kevin Reece – general assignment reporter (2007)
• Jeremy Rogalski – investigative reporter (2001)
• Larry Seward - general assignment reporter (2011)
• Prof. Gerald Treece – legal analyst (1989)
• Allison Triarsi – weekday reporter (2008)
• Katherine Whaley - traffic reporter (2009)
• Brad Woodard – general assignment reporter (2006)
• Courtney Zubowski – general assignment reporter (also weekend fill-in anchor) (2008)

Notable former on-air staff

• "Utah" Carl Beach – host and performer of local music show (1953–1967)
• Steve Edwards – anchor/talk show host (1972–1975; now KTTV Los Angeles)
• Linda Ellerbee – reporter (mid 1970s; later NBC News now Nick News)
• Dave Fehling – former general assignment reporter (also weekend fill-in anchor) (1989–2011; now at NPR)
• Dr. Neil Frank – chief meteorologist (1987–2008; now retired; returns periodically for special weather events)
• Ron Franklin – sports director (1970s; now ESPN)
• Mark Greenblatt – former investigative reporter (1986–2012; now ABC News)
• Christine Haas – anchor (2008-2012; now at KNSD)
• Dennis Murphy – reporter/assignment editor (1975–1978; now NBC News)
• Jim Nantz – sports anchor/reporter (1981–1983; now CBS Sports)
• Lucy Noland - 5/10pm anchor (2007-2011; now at KNBC)
• Giff Nielsen – sports director (1984–2009)
• Dan Patrick – sports anchor (1980s; later conservative talk show host KSEV-AM; now Republican State Senator from Houston)
• Dan Rather – anchor/reporter (early 1960s; former anchor CBS Evening News)
• Sylvan Rodriguez – Noon and 6 PM anchor (1987–1999; died April 6, 2000 of pancreatic cancer)
• Rick Sanchez – reporter (1986–1988; formerly with CNN)
• Alex Sanz – former government reporter (2007–2011; now at WPTV)
• Jessica Savitch – anchor/reporter (1971–1972; later KYW-TV and NBC News, deceased)
• Janet Shamlian – anchor/reporter (1987–1995; now NBC News))
• Ron Stone – 6 and 10 PM anchor (1961–1972; later KPRC-TV, deceased)

External links

• Official website (Mobile)
• Query the FCC's TV station database for KHOU
• BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KHOU-TV