logo
KHOU, virtual channel and VHF digital channel 11, is a CBS-affiliated television station located in Houston,Texas, United States. The station is owned by Tegna. KHOU maintains studio facilities located along Allen Parkway in the Neartown neighborhood (near Downtown Houston),[1][2] and its transmitter is located in unincorporated northeastern Fort Bend County (near Missouri City). KHOU is the largest CBS affiliate by market size that is not owned and operated by the network.
History
The station first signed on the air on March 23, 1953 as KGUL-TV (as in gulf or as in "seagull" ); it was founded by Paul Taft of the Taft Broadcasting Co. (no relation to the Cincinnati, Ohio-based Taft Broadcasting Company). Originally licensed to Galveston, it was the second television station to debut in the Houston market(after KPRC-TV, channel 2). One of the original investors in the station was actor James Stewart, along with a small group of other Galveston investors.
In 1956, the original owners sold the station to the Indianapolis-based Whitney Corporation (later Corinthian Broadcasting), which became a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet in 1971. In June 1959, the station changed its callsign to KHOU-TV (the "-TV" suffix was dropped from the call letters the week following the June 12, 2009 digital transition, as most Belo stations did at the time) and had its city of license relocated 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 studio facilities on Allen Parkway just outside downtown. To this day, KHOU is the only local television station in Houston to have its primary studios located close to downtown
KHOU Studios and Offices in Neartown Houston.
In 1984, Dun & Bradstreet sold its entire broadcasting division, including KHOU, to the Belo Corporation. In 1998, channel 11 became the first television station in the market to begin broadcasting a high-definition digital signal. The KHOU studios were flooded during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, resulting in damage to much of the station's offices, including its newsroom. The damage was so severe that the station had to cease regular programming and instead broadcast a feed from the station's doppler radar for roughly 90 minutes.
In 2002, the Houston Texans NFL franchise began play, as part of the American Football Conference's South Division. As part of the AFC, most Texans games—including all road games against NFC opponents—are aired on CBS, and are therefore aired locally on KHOU. Channel 11 also serves as the over-the-air outlet for all of the Texans' appearances on Thursday Night Football. 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 in mid-September 2008, KHOU's storm coverage was distributed nationwide via DirecTV and XM Satellite Radio, as well as through a live feed on the station's website. On June 13, 2013, the Gannett Company announced that it would acquire Belo for $1.5 billion.[4] The sale was completed on December 23.[5]
On June 29, 2015, the Gannett Company split in two, with one side specializing in print media and the other side specializing in broadcast and digital media. KHOU was retained by the latter company, named Tegna.
| TV stations in Greater Houston |
|---|
| KPRC 2 (NBC) KUHT 8 (PBS) KUVM-LD 10 (Ind) KHOU 11 (CBS) KTRK 13 (ABC) KETH 14 (TBN) KVVV-LD 15 (Word) KTXH 20 (MNTV) KVQT-LD 21 (Ind) KLTJ 22 (Daystar) KRIV 26 (Fox) KUGB-CD 28 (GEB) KCVH-LD 30 (REL) KEHO-LD 32 (FESTIVA) KUVM-CD 34 (LATV) KZHO-LD 38 (VCL) KIAH 39 (CW) KHLM-LD 43 (MULTIMEDIOS) KXLN 45 (UNI) KBPX-LD 46 (NV) KTMD 47 (TLM) KPXB 49 (Ion) KDHU-LD 50 (Daystar) KYAZ 51 (AZA) KTBU 55 (QUEST) KUBE 57 (Ind) KZJL 61 (ESTRELLA) KFTH 67 (UMas) |