Back When Houston Had Just One TV Station

[editor]

I was doing some research the other day and came across this line in an article in a newspaper's archive:

When the rush to TV threatened to become a stampede, the FCC in September 1948 froze the granting of new TV licenses. Major cities such as Houston, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Kansas City were held to one channel. Denver had none and would stay blacked out until the freeze was lifted in April 1952.

So I wonder which was the one TV station that Houston had for all those years.

My guess is that it was KGUL/Galveston, which later moved to become KHOU/Houston.

[Watchful]

From Wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KPRC

KPRC is a television station based in Houston, Texas, but broadcasts from a transmitter located in Missouri City, Texas. The station operates on analog channel 2 and digital channel 31. KPRC is affiliated with the NBC television network.

History

The station first broadcast on January 1, 1949, as KLEE-TV (KPRC has repeatedly said that the callsign has no meaning and came from nowhere when being thought up). It was the first television station in Houston and the 12th in the United States. It was owned by the Hobby family, owners of the Houston Post, who had signed on KPRC radio in 1925 as Houston's first radio station. The television station changed its calls to match its radio cousin in 1950

[57Tbird]

History

The station first broadcast on January 1, 1949, as KLEE-TV (KPRC has repeatedly said that the callsign has no meaning and came from nowhere when being thought up). It was the first television station in Houston and the 12th in the United States. It was owned by the Hobby family, owners of the Houston Post, who had signed on KPRC radio in 1925 as Houston's first radio station. The television station changed its calls to match its radio cousin in 1950

My dad told me many years ago (before there was a TV station in Houston) that the radio station, KPRC, call letters stood for Kotton Port Railroad Center. Don't know where that came from, but I remember him telling me.

I saw my first TV broadcast in Houston on that January 1, 1949, at a friend's house. They were broadcasting the Cotton Bowl game that day. SMU was one of the teams...with Doak Walker and Kyle Rote. Don't recall the other team. There was a problem with the TV that no one knew how to fix. The picture kept rolling from bottom to top. I bet we looked funny as we kept nodding our heads to follow the picture. Of course, no one there knew that there was a simple adjustment called the Vertical Hold that could have fixed the problem. Since TV's were a new technology, no one wanted to attempt to turn any knobs for fear that it might self-destruct.

[brucesw]

All the accounts I have read, including that in Jack Harris' "The Fault Does Not Lie With Your Set," indicate KLEE-TV was scheduled to sign on at 6pm on New Year's Day, 1949, but was delayed by several hours due to last minute technical problems. The station finally got on the air around 9:30pm with the first words being "There's been trouble, plenty of trouble." The speaker was Paul Huhndorff, Chief Engineer.

There were about 2000 sets in Houston; a crowd was gathered in front of the Fred Wyse Clothing Store at 912 Main, waiting. The first night's broadcast included Make Mine Music with the Tony Mottola Trio from CBS, an audience participation show, Winner Take All, with Bud Collier, Knobb's Korner, Lucky Pup (a children's show - kinda late at night for that!), Places, Please, a comedy show, a cooking demonstration, a fashion parade and a sports report.

A test pattern had first been telecast on December 20, 1948. It took a three hour countdown to get all the equipment operating and get the station on the air, 5 days a week, evenings only.

There was only one other station on the air in Texas at that time, WBAP/5 Fort Worth, which had signed on September 28, 1948. The claim that channel 2 was the 12th station in the nation was made in Harris' book but is not true; there were more than 40 stations already on the air, probably more than a dozen in NYC, LA and Chi alone.

At the time of the freeze, there were applications in Houston for a KTRH-TV, KPRC-TV on Channel 4, KXYZ-TV, to be owned by Glenn McCarthy's Shamrock Broadcasting and operated from the Shamrock Hotel on Channel 7, and KTHT-TV.

The original owner of KLEE-TV made a number of miscalculations that were costing him a lot of money; fearing he'd wind up with no network affiliation when the freeze was lifted (the fledgling TV networks had made it clear they wanted their TV affiliates to go to their long time AM radio affiliates), he sold the station to the Houston Post/Hobby family after about 14 months; they continued to operate it as KLEE for 4 months before flipping the calls to KPRC-TV and affiliating with NBC. There was very little network programming in the early days; there was lots of live, local stuff, even in prime time in the evening.

Kotton Port, Rail Center was announced as the meaning of the calls for KPRC-AM when it signed on in May, 1925; that was also the phrase which led the story on the front page of the Houston Post-Dispatch, the newspaper which owned the station, the next morning and the phrase was used often on the air and in advertising for the station. The competing Chronicle was a big booster of local business and commerce (surprise, surprise, surprise) and ran frequent special sections on local industry, full page and double page ads touting Houston, etc. The slogan a couple of years earlier had been "Houston - Where 18 railroads meet the sea," but by 1925 we were down to a measly 17. It's been a long time since either cotton or railroads were considered a big part of the Houston economy I guess, but back then, they were the biggest industries in town.

No way KPRC was the first radio station in Houston. By the time KPRC signed on, 15 licenses had been granted for radio stations in the Houston-Galveston area. A couple never made it to the air, a couple lasted only a few months, but there were several other stations on the air when KPRC signed on and one of them is still on the air today. The failure rate for early radio stations in Houston was very high, however.

For the past several months, I have been researching the history of broadcasting in Houston. There are lots of fascinating stories to tell, most of which have been forgotten since this is Houston. Now that I've mastered all the software on my new computer and transferred all my files and data from the old computer to the new one safely and securely , I'm going to be working on launching a web site devoted to the history of broadcasting in Houston, hopefully in the next couple of months.

[brucesw]

For 57Tbird...

I checked the papers for contemporary accounts and they confirm the story above. However, the schedule for KLEE-TV Sunday eve, 1/2/49, included 'Cotton Bowl' at 7pm. It was only a :30 minute program which the paper described as 'scenes from yesterday's Cotton Bowl game at Dallas (SMU 21 vs. Oregon 13), I guess what we would call a highlight reel.

In addition, the game was filmed in entirety and many copies made to be distributed across the state for theatrical exhibition. In Houston the Metropolitan, Tower and Kirby theatres all had screenings scheduled for Monday eve, 1/3/49.

[Heights2Bastrop]

My source says that the "K" is standard because all stations west of the Mississippi begin with K. Those east of the river begin with a "W".

Thus, KPRC was K Port, Railroad, Cotton.

[940]

My source says that the "K" is standard because all stations west of the Mississippi begin with K. Those east of the river begin with a "W".

Thus, KPRC was K Port, Railroad, Cotton.

That's true now but in the beginning, that rule didn't apply which is why you have WOAI Channel 4 in San Antonio and WFAA Channel 8 in Dallas. For those interested, channel 2 was originally KLEE-TV named after owner W. Albert Lee. It was affiliated with CBS network first and began broadcasting on January 1, 1949. Bill Hobby from KPRC radio was interested in buying KLEE-TV with affiliation through the Houston Post. The newspaper assumed ownership on June 1, 1950. On July 3, the call letters were changed to KPRC-TV. The purchase price was $743,000. Television began in Texas on Sept. 27, 1948 when WBAP-TV channel 5 in Fort Worth televised the speech of President Harry S. Truman from downtown. It was the first television program in the South. On Sept. 15, however, WBAP broadcast a test pattern. It was a still picture with music, however, folks from Dallas, Denton, Waxahachie and McKinney called in to say they could see the picture. In fact, a town 87 miles away from Fort Worth was able to view the test pattern. This and other interesting information concerning radio and television beginnings in Texas can be found in a book entitled, "Texas Signs On" by Richard Schroeder. The book is full of interesting things including how radio and television began in the major cities of Texas. Lots of information on Houston as well including how channel 8 began, how channel 39 was originally KNUZ-TV, and that channel 11 was originally assigned to Galveston but they weren't allowed to move their broadcast tower much further north toward Houston because it was afraid that the signal would interfere with channel 11 in Fort Worth!

[57Tbird]

For 57Tbird...

I checked the papers for contemporary accounts and they confirm the story above. However, the schedule for KLEE-TV Sunday eve, 1/2/49, included 'Cotton Bowl' at 7pm. It was only a :30 minute program which the paper described as 'scenes from yesterday's Cotton Bowl game at Dallas (SMU 21 vs. Oregon 13), I guess what we would call a highlight reel.

Thanks for the clarification. I did remember seeing the Cotton Bowl. I guess I just assumed the telecast was on New Years day.

[brucesw]

That's true now but in the beginning, that rule didn't apply which is why you have WOAI Channel 4 in San Antonio and WFAA Channel 8 in Dallas. For those interested, channel 2 was originally KLEE-TV named after owner W. Albert Lee. It was affiliated with CBS network first and began broadcasting on January 1, 1949. Bill Hobby from KPRC radio was interested in buying KLEE-TV with affiliation through the Houston Post. The newspaper assumed ownership on June 1, 1950. On July 3, the call letters were changed to KPRC-TV. The purchase price was $743,000. Television began in Texas on Sept. 27, 1948 when WBAP-TV channel 5 in Fort Worth televised the speech of President Harry S. Truman from downtown. It was the first television program in the South. On Sept. 15, however, WBAP broadcast a test pattern. It was a still picture with music, however, folks from Dallas, Denton, Waxahachie and McKinney called in to say they could see the picture. In fact, a town 87 miles away from Fort Worth was able to view the test pattern. This and other interesting information concerning radio and television beginnings in Texas can be found in a book entitled, "Texas Signs On" by Richard Schroeder. The book is full of interesting things including how radio and television began in the major cities of Texas. Lots of information on Houston as well including how channel 8 began, how channel 39 was originally KNUZ-TV, and that channel 11 was originally assigned to Galveston but they weren't allowed to move their broadcast tower much further north toward Houston because it was afraid that the signal would interfere with channel 11 in Fort Worth!

Some of the info in my post above was from the Shroeder book; I see that I neglected to credit it. It's a much better book than the Harris - better researched and documented. There's an amazing amount of information in that little book, although he necessarily leaves out a lot of stuff in such a broad survey.

[940]

Some of the info in my post above was from the Shroeder book; I see that I neglected to credit it. It's a much better book than the Harris - better researched and documented. There's an amazing amount of information in that little book, although he necessarily leaves out a lot of stuff in such a broad survey.

It is a great book and I just assumed that you probably had it as well b/c of all the good information you posted that I recognized. I've read it once all the way through but I find myself picking it up again and reading parts of it b/c it's so interesting and also b/c broadcast communications was my major at Trinity U.

[brucesw]

My source says that the "K" is standard because all stations west of the Mississippi begin with K. Those east of the river begin with a "W".

Thus, KPRC was K Port, Railroad, Cotton.

Yes, the K was obligatory, but so what? KPRC was the first station in Houston and one of the first stations anywhere to request their calls instead of just taking an assigned call from a serial list; surely the writer of the front page story in the newspaper that owned the station knew what the calls were supposed to stand for.

The fact it was obligatory did not prohibit broadcasters from finding ways to incorporate it into a slogan or nickname:

KTRH - Kome to the Rice Hotel, You're Keyed to the Rice Hotel, (studios were on the 5th floor of the Rice) Keep Tuned Right Here, and, as some have suggested, Keep The Resume Handy.

KTHT - Kome to Houston Texas, You're Keyed to Houston Texas.

KRBE-FM, originally a classical music station - You're Keyed to Radio Broadcasting Excellence.

KCOH - KiloCycles over Houston, You're Keyed to the City of Houston

(Keying in on a station refers to the old crystal sets).

WTAW (B/CS) - assigned by the Commerce Dept from a serial list, it was taken to mean "Watch the Aggies Win."

Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, who signed all licenses, wrote to the owners of WBAP in Fort Worth in 1922 that their calls - assigned, not chosen - should stand for "We Bring a Program.' It was also said to stand for "We Bore All People" and, during Prohibition, "We Bring a Pint."

Edited February 5, 2006 by brucesw

[Mister X]

The PRC in KPRC stood for Post Radio Company according to an old book I have called "Ray Miller's Houston". Ray Miller hosted a local TV show called "The Eyes of Texas" which ran on channel 2 for many years.

Edited February 5, 2006 by Mister X

[940]

The PRC in KPRC stood for Post Radio Company according to an old book I have called "Ray Miller's Houston". Ray Miller hosted a local TV show called "The Eyes of Texas" which ran on channel 2 for many years.

In the book, "Texas Signs On", it mentions what the various old call letters stood for..and in fact, many of the original radio stations had requested call letters as they did stand for something, as brucesw mentions in his examples above..here are some more of some original stations' call letters and what they stood for originally.

KPRC Houston (Kotton Port Rail Center)

WCAR San Antonio (Alamo Radio) became KTSA San Antonio (Kome To San Antonio)

WOAI San Antonio (World Of Agriculture Information)

WBAP Fort Worth (future Pres. Herbert Hoover personally assigned the call letters..(We Bring A Program))

KFRO Fort Worth..later transferred to Longview (Keep Forever Rolling On)

WRR Dallas (Where Radio Radiates)...of note, this was licensed to the City of Dallas and was the first broadcasting station in the entire state of Texas and about the fifth or sixth in the US. July 1921

WFAA Dallas (Working For All Alike)

KFDM Beaumont (Kall For Dependable Magnolene)..magnolene being the trade name of the gasoline sold by the Magnolia Petroleum Company..eventually Mobil..

WQAC Amarillo (Where Quality Always Counts)

The first broadcasting station in Houston was WCAK licensed to an Alfred P. Daniel of 2504 Bagby Street in early 1922. KPRC began broadcasting in 1925.

Edited February 5, 2006 by 940

[Mister X]

KPRC could have stood for Kotton Port Rail Center for all I know, but the book I have says that KLEE was bought by the KPRC radio station which was owned by the Post Radio Company (PRC). The call letters were changed after the tv station was bought to match the radio stations call letters. The book I read this in is called "Ray Miller's Houston". The book was published in 1982. It says in the biography that Ray Miller started at KPRC radio in 1939 as a reporter. His show, "The Eyes of Texas" started in 1967. I don't know when it ended.

I don't have any proof of what the call letters stood for (other than this book) but it seems logical to me that PRC stood for Post Radio Company, since it was owned by the Post Radio Company.

Not trying to contradict anyone here, just thought I'd share the info that I had. I can't wait to check out "Texas Signs On".

Edited February 5, 2006 by Mister X

[editor]

It should also be noted that the station slogans back in those days were adapted to fit their assigned call letters it was many years before broadcasters were allowed to pick their letters.

The K/W split is violated in a lot of places. San Antonio and Dallas have already been noted here. A few more off the top of my head:

KQV/Pittsburch

KYW/Philadelphia

KDKA/Pittsburgh

KFIZ/Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

WNAX/Yankton, South Dakota

WHO/Des Moines

WIBW/Kansas City

Here's a map of where the violators are today:

The map excludes Louisiana and Minnesota because the boundary is fuzzy in those states because of the river's course.

The first three on my mind are all in Pennsylvania because that's one of the places I went to college. The professors there will tell you that KDKA was the first radio station. But that's wrong. It's just something they say because they're in Pennsylvania.

The KFIZ allocation came around 1997 when the FCC abandoned the K/W split rules for all of a week or so. It was the only station quick enough to take advantage of the brief rule change, duming WFON for KFIZ, which it eventually dumped again for WFON, and then again changed back to KFIZ-FM under a grandfather clause. Last I heard the AM side was WFON, and the FM was KFIZ, but that was several years ago.

The reason the K stations ended up on the west coast and the W stations on the east coast was because ships in the Pacific had W call signs, and ships in the Atlantic had K call signs. This was, of course, before the Panama Canal made it more common for ships to sail both sides of the United States.

[940]

^^ Great map!! It's also interesting to note that Mexico was given the "X" call letter designator and Canada was given the "C"...

[brucesw]

The first broadcasting station in Houston was WCAK licensed to an Alfred P. Daniel of 2504 Bagby Street in early 1922. KPRC began broadcasting in 1925.

Shroeder's book is fascinating - he must've spent 15 years on the research - but it's not without errors. The first radio station in Houston was WEV, licensed to the Hurlburt-Still Electric Co., on the air before Daniel even got a license. Daniel always operated WCAK from his home, more like an amateur station than what we would think of as a broadcasting station, and he worked at WEV as announcer and engineer.

KPRC could have stood for Kotton Port Rail Center for all I know, but the book I have says that KLEE was bought by the KPRC radio station which was owned by the Post Radio Company (PRC). The call letters were changed after the tv station was bought to match the radio stations call letters. The book I read this in is called "Ray Miller's Houston". The book was published in 1982. It says in the biography that Ray Miller started at KPRC radio in 1939 as a reporter. His show, "The Eyes of Texas" started in 1967. I don't know when it ended.

I don't have any proof of what the call letters stood for (other than this book) but it seems logical to me that PRC stood for Post Radio Company, since it was owned by the Post Radio Company.

Not trying to contradict anyone here, just thought I'd share the info that I had. I can't wait to check out "Texas Signs On".

When the radio station signed on in 1925 when the calls were originally selected the name of the paper was the Post-Dispatch; there was no Post Radio Co. or Post-Dispatch Radio Co. When Ross Sterling became governor and sold the newspaper and radio station, the company was named the Houston Printing Co., which I think it stayed until it became H&C Communications. So far as I know there never was a Post Radio Co.

Ray Miller is one of my heros but I think he made a boo-boo.

The first three on my mind are all in Pennsylvania because that's one of the places I went to college. The professors there will tell you that KDKA was the first radio station. But that's wrong. It's just something they say because they're in Pennsylvania.

Westinghouse Broadcasting had a massive propaganda campaign for years to spread the claim that KDKA was the first radio station. In fact a guy named Elery Stone in the Bay area was broadcasting music and weather announcements several years before WWI; his operations eventually became KGO, San Francisco. There was also a station in Detroit that was on before KDKA -- can't remember the calls off hand. And there are other claims.

When I worked for Westinghouse I was told one in every six workers in Pittsburgh worked in a Westinghouse facility. This was a couple of decades ago.

Edited March 23, 2006 by brucesw

[HoustonianInColorado]

Is there still a station WACO in Waco, TX?

Also, I seem to recall that Canada took over a few call signs that start with "V" when they acquired Labrador and Newfoundland, formerly separate from that nation.

[technoevil]

I was wondering how most of the stations decided to place their towers in the Missouri City area and why? Also, were their towers orignally placed there or were they somewhere else?

[brucesw]

Is there still a station WACO in Waco, TX?

Apparently there's a WACO-FM but not AM. http://www.radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locat...tate=TX&x=0&y=0

A lot of the old heritage calls have been tossed in today's corporate broadcasting world.

[brucesw]

I was wondering how most of the stations decided to place their towers in the Missouri City area and why? Also, were their towers orignally placed there or were they somewhere else?

KPRC and KTRH had a joint transmitter plant at Deepwater in the late 30s; they were only the second two stations in the nation to have a joint site.

Height of the antenna doesn't matter for AM but does for FM; FM waves don't follow the curvature of the earth so coverage depends on 'line-of-sight.' There were 4 FMs I think on the Tenneco bldg. in the late 60s. When 1 Shell was completed, it blocked the signals (to the northwest?). Broadcasters convinced Gerald Hines to allow a mast on top of 1 Shell that eventually held 8 FMs. The mast is still there but I don't know if any stations ever use it anymore.

I was told many years ago that Hines was so pi$$ed at what the mast did to the aesthetics of his building plus dealing with one particular engineer that he vowed never to agree to let an antenna be put on top of one of his buildings again.

Anyway, broadcasters realized Houston was still growing and it was only a matter of time before another building went up taller than 1 Shell that would create signal problems, so they began casting about for a site outside of the downtown area where tall towers could be put up. Just why Mo City - officially the Senior Road Tower Group - was chosen I don't know, but it has to do both with spacing of signals on the dial and geographically plus of course the need to not obstruct flight paths. FM stations in other cities were having the same problems and also moving to the country.

BTW, does anybody know just where Deepwater was? I know it was on the La Porte - Houston highway and I find a Deepwater street in Pasadena just inside the Beltway -- was that where it was?

Edited March 29, 2006 by brucesw

[gnu]

BTW, does anybody know just where Deepwater was? I know it was on the La Porte - Houston highway and I find a Deepwater street in Pasadena just inside the Beltway -- was that where it was?

I didn't grow up in Pasadena but I always assumed that it was right around SH225, Preston, and the Beltway.

That is where Deepwater Junior High is and the HL&P Deepwater plant is on the ship channel roughly north of there.

Maybe the joint transmitter plant was where where the KXYZ tower was(is?). I think its right there just west of Preston at 225. This may be it on the left of this google map i pulled up (between burke and preston). Note deepwater park on the right side of the map.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=pa...49,0.021629&t=h

Edited March 29, 2006 by gnu

[brucesw]

I didn't grow up in Pasadena but I always assumed that it was right around SH225, Preston, and the Beltway.

That is where Deepwater Junior High is and the HL&P Deepwater plant is on the ship channel roughly north of there.

Maybe the joint transmitter plant was where where the KXYZ tower was(is?). I think its right there just west of Preston at 225. This may be it on the left of this google map i pulled up (between burke and preston). Note deepwater park on the right side of the map.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=pa...49,0.021629&t=h

Thanks. I was expecting it to be right on the ship channel. In that same area there's also a Deepwater Elementary and the subdivision between S. South (?) and the Beltway, south of 225, is Deepwater Terrace on the Key Map.

I'll have to get over there and take a look at the KXYZ plant and see if it looks anything like the pics from the 30s; probably not.

[gnu]

Thanks. I was expecting it to be right on the ship channel. In that same area there's also a Deepwater Elementary and the subdivision between S. South (?) and the Beltway, south of 225, is Deepwater Terrace on the Key Map.

I'll have to get over there and take a look at the KXYZ plant and see if it looks anything like the pics from the 30s; probably not.

Deepwater had a train station - according to this entry in the online Handbook of Texas

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online...s/DD/hrdwr.html

DEEPWATER, TEXAS. Deepwater, between Pasadena and Deerpark in southeastern Harris County, was named for its location on the Houston Ship Channel.qv The community, which developed around a station on the Galveston, Houston and Northern Railway, had a population of fifty in 1893. A local post office opened in 1894 and closed in 1921, when mail was delivered from Pasadena. By 1896 Deepwater had a population of 200, a sawmill, a blacksmith, a hotel, a church, a general store, and the weekly Enterprise newspaper. In 1905 the local white school had forty pupils and one teacher, and the local black school thirty-five students and one teacher. By 1914 the population had risen to 250, but the town had begun to decline, and the general store was its principal business. In the 1980s Deepwater was engulfed by Pasadena and was marked only by an abandoned railroad station at the former townsite.

I think the tracks used to run along 225 in that section of the highway (like they do east of Deer Park) but were realligned at some point to go up closer to the ship channel. So, since the station was at the townsite, then it should have been right there somewhere.

[brucesw]

Deepwater had a train station - according to this entry in the online Handbook of Texas

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online...s/DD/hrdwr.html

I think the tracks used to run along 225 in that section of the highway (like they do east of Deer Park) but were realligned at some point to go up closer to the ship channel. So, since the station was at the townsite, then it should have been right there somewhere.

Doh! I looked up Deepwater in the Handbook several months ago after I first read about it but didn't find that entry. I must have entered Deep Water, which pulls up a long list of useless entries.

Thanks for digging that out.

[editor]

^^ Great map!! It's also interesting to note that Mexico was given the "X" call letter designator and Canada was given the "C"...

Canada shares C with at least one other country: Cuba. Canada has something like CA through CM and Cuba has CM through CX or something. There may be other countries also sharing C, but I'm too lazy to look it up right now.

Also, there are V stations in Canada. VOCM in Saint John's, Newfoundland is the biggest one. That's because before Canada was unified Newfoundland and Labrador was a separate country and assigned part of V.

I'm pretty sure Mexico shares X, but again, I'm really too lazy to look.

Great Britain has G, but you almost never hear any station say it aloud.

Japan has J, and because Japan's laws were written by the Americans after World War II, all of the Japanese radio stations do a legal ID at the top of the hour just like American radio stations. I have The 76.1 JODW/Tokyo legal ID as my e-mail alert noise. Here's an MP3 of it if you're curiouis or want to use it, too.

Westinghouse Broadcasting had a massive propaganda campaign for years to spread the claim that KDKA was the first radio station. In fact a guy named Elery Stone in the Bay area was broadcasting music and weather announcements several years before WWI; his operations eventually became KGO, San Francisco. There was also a station in Detroit that was on before KDKA -- can't remember the calls off hand. And there are other claims.

Yeah, I was thinking of the Bay Area station, too. I believe it was run out of San Jose and had a call sign like 8SJ or something similar. I'm almost positive it had a number in it.

[editor]

I was wondering how most of the stations decided to place their towers in the Missouri City area and why? Also, were their towers orignally placed there or were they somewhere else?

TV stations tend to put all of their towers together because it used to be that everyone had an antenna on thier roof to bring in the TV signal. This is especially important for TV, as opposed to radio, because there are fewer TV stations, so many more people from much father away will try to get the signal. So what happens is the first TV station puts up its tower, and everyone aims their antenna at it. So then as other TV stations come along they have to locate near the first one because that's where everyone's antenna is already aimed. If they try to go it alone, it tends not to work out.

Such was the case for WFRV-TV. All of the Green Bay, Wisconsin TV stations had their towers in a place called Scray's Hill, except 'FRV. If you aimed your antenna at WFRV you would only get that one station. If you aimed at Scray's Hill, you would get four. So, natrually, everyone aimed their antennas at Scray's Hill to pull in WBAY, WLUK, and the others. This left WFRV at a significant disadvantage.

So, why was WFRV out in the cold in the first place? Because the people who built it thought that the Fox River Valley (Appleton/Oshkosh/Fond du Lac) was going to be the big city in northeast Wisconsin. So they started a station licensed to that area (thus, WFRV - Fox River Valley). They expected people would aim thier antenna to the south-southeast to pick up WFRV, and also bring in the singals of the Milwaukee stations beyond. But three things happened. 1: Green Bay ended up being the big city. 2: People were more interesterd in a closer, more "local" station in Green Bay than one from the big scary city of Milwaukee. And 3: People in Wisconsin's hinterlands developed culturally to learn to hate big cities. So they hate Madison. They hate Chicago. And most of all -- they hate Milwaukee.

Fortunately WFRV (channel 5, if it matters), was then owned by Westinghouse (now CBS), which had pockets deep enough and lawyers smart enough to figure a way out of this mess. (Why CBS has an O&O in Green Bay is a story for another time.) They petitioned the government to move WFRV out of the Fox River Valley and into Green Bay with WBAY and the other big boys. The FCC agreed -- but with one condition. WFRV had to operate a second station in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

For those who have never been to the U.P. of Michigan, it is a broadcasting wasteland. There are more signals in the deserts of West Texas than in the U.P. Before satellite and cable TV, and at the time WFRV applied for the move, there was one, maybe two, TV stations in an area the size of Oklahoma. Westinghouse needed to move its signal to Green Bay bad enough that it agreed, and thus WJMN/Escanaba, Michigan (channel 3) went on the air -- completely run from WFRV's (then) new studios in Green Bay.

The specifics of the agreement state that WJMN must be run as a Michigan station, not as a branch of a Wisconsin station, so certain changes are made. When the news rolls in Green Bay displaying the "5 Eyewitness News" logo, an identical animation rolls for the Escanabe station displaying "3 Eyewitness News". When the time 6:31 is displayed in the lower right-hand corner of the morning news on WFRV, the time 7:31 is displayed on WJMN, because it's in the Eastern time zone. And to this day, WFRV/WJMN is the only CBS station from Milwaukee to Sault Saint Marie, Canada. And it is not unheard of for news crews to drive five hours one way to cover a story in Michigan that all the other stations in Green Bay are ignoring.

In another peculiar development, WFRV almost picked up a third station years later. It would have been the only CBS station from Chicago to Canada. But, again, that's a story for another time.

The mast is still there but I don't know if any stations ever use it anymore.

They do not. It is used by Harris County emergency services. The FMs went to higher platforms with fewer obstructions like Missouri City, and the massive KLDE tower out in the Brazos wasteland.

[DMac]

K otton

P ort

R ail

C enter

Danny Mac

[david perkins]

For 57Tbird...

I checked the papers for contemporary accounts and they confirm the story above. However, the schedule for KLEE-TV Sunday eve, 1/2/49, included 'Cotton Bowl' at 7pm. It was only a :30 minute program which the paper described as 'scenes from yesterday's Cotton Bowl game at Dallas (SMU 21 vs. Oregon 13), I guess what we would call a highlight reel.

In addition, the game was filmed in entirety and many copies made to be distributed across the state for theatrical exhibition. In Houston the Metropolitan, Tower and Kirby theatres all had screenings scheduled for Monday eve, 1/3/49.

I thought at first you were talking about this next game "IT WAS DECEMBER, 1949, when the Notre Dame Fighting Irish came to Dallas, undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the nation. SMU was a 28-point underdog.

Doak Walker, injured, was not in the lineup. But rampaging Rote rushed for 115 yards, completed ten passes for 146 yards and averaged 48 yards punting. When the game ended the score stood at Notre Dame, 27, SMU, 20." That's from the Dallas Morning News and I watched that game in Fort Worth on WFAA-TV channel 8 from Dallas. Channel 4, KRLD in Dallas, channel 5, WBAP in Fort Worth and WFAA were the only tv stations in DFW then.

About Ray Miller, he was the news director for both KPRC radio and TV when I was there on the radio side as Charlie Brown playing country music. He was the best I saw in my on the air career. Sam Sitterlee was PD on the radio side. Did you know Cal Thomas the famous conservative columnist was a newsman there then? Wasn't very good. He couldn't tell truth from fiction. Still can't. Kay Bailey (now Hutchinson) Senator from Texas was a TV reporter then too. I suppose some werewolf bit her one night and she turned into a Republican. Oh well. Ironically, talking about WBAP and KPRC and K west of the Mississippi River with W east of it (generally), I guess I'm the only dj ever to have been on both WBAP and KPRC. I grew up in Fort Worth so that's was an honor for me. I guess there's a trivia question there; "Did KPRC ever play country music?" The answer is yes in the late 60's.

David Perkins

now retired in Fort Worth

[JasonDFW]

So they hate Madison. They hate Chicago. And most of all -- they hate Milwaukee.

Informative post. I'm not sure about them hating Madison though, definitely not to the degree of Milwaukee. And just as an FYI, Appleton-Oshkosh did in fact end up being the big market, and Green Bay the smaller one.

Jason