KHCW

'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.

Contents

History

As a WB affiliate

From The WB to The CW

News programming

News Team

Former on-air talent

1990-1992

2000-present

Trivia

External links

History

The station began broadcasting on January 6, 1967 as 'KHTV' ('H'ouston 'T'ele'V'ision). 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' ('H'ouston'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 of 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 of 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]

News Team

★ Ray Fisher

★ Mia Gradney

★ Alan Hemberger, weekday anchor

★ Elizabeth Lee

★ Keith Monahan, chief meteorologist

★ Andrea Nguyen

★ Casanova Nurse, weekend meteorologist

★ Kris Sava

★ 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

★ 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

★ Kathie Turner: weekday weather anchor

2000-present

★ Donna Savarese, anchor/reporter (now at KMOV-TV in St. Louis)

★ Katie McCall, reporter (now at WBBM-TV in Chicago)

★ Kristi Powers, meteorologist (now at WOFL-TV in Orlando)

★ Jared Silverman, meteorologist (now at KENS-TV in San Antonio)

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).

External links

★ CW39

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