KIAH
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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.
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 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 New CW39. The station celebrated its 40th anniversary on January 6, 2007.
Newscast
KHCW airs a half-hour newscast called "CW39 News at 9" every night at 9 p.m. It has and can be expanded to an hour-long newscast for special occasions or breaking news coverage.
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