Houston Radio History

The KTHT GI House

2012-01-13T21:43:00.007-06:00

Two of the biggest challenges facing the country at the close of World War II were jobs and housing for returning veterans. The Houston City Council declared housing to be the number one problem facing the city in 1946 and the issue was complicated by the shortage of building materials nationwide. Hundreds of vets were housed in trailers on the U of H campus and likewise at Texas A & M in College Station. The government stepped in with public housing projects aimed at veterans - almost a thousand units were announced for Houston - and private builders and developers advertised the suitability and affordability of their houses for veterans.

Roy Hofheinz, who always seemed to me to be as interested in the public service and public affairs aspects of radio as the entertainment and money-making end of the business, came up with a public service project to highlight the crisis: KTHT would undertake to build a house for a veteran's family within a fixed budget and time frame and document the process as it was underway.

Taking into account the effect of wartime inflation on housing prices a budget of $7000 was set and 30 days were allotted to find a site and complete the house but the project ran into problems right away. It took longer than anticipated to locate a suitable lot and the tract settled upon cost more than budgeted but a site was selected on Rice Boulevard in West University Place and representatives of veterans organizations took part in the ground breaking ceremonies on March 22, 1946.

As work progressed KTHT broadcast live from the scene twice daily, 200 half hour programs in all, entitled 'KTHT Builds a GI House' starting on March 19. The station refused to pay black market prices for scarce building materials but also did not want any sympathy donations or price breaks so an anonymous buyer made all the purchases. On a couple of occasions, necessary supplies could not be found at a fair price or at all and work was halted. Then the station would announce the reason for the delay and usually supplies would materialize in a while; again, the station insisted on paying full price in order to insure a fair representation of the difficulties a veteran would face if he or she were to undertake a similar project on their own.

Other media in town took notice of the ongoing effort. All three papers and all three existing radio stations sent reporters to cover the story which also was to garner national attention.

Owing to the materials delays and some weather delays, the project took a couple of weeks longer than anticipated and came in a couple of hundred dollars over budget but by the end of June, 1946, the completed house was sold for $7000, the advertised price, to Robert D. Niemeyer, an ex-Navy pilot and employee of Gulf Oil.

The Houston Chronicle, controlled by Hofheinz' political foe Jesse Jones, published an editorial praising KTHT and Hofheinz for calling attention to the housing problem. It was, according to Hofheinz' biographer, the beginning of a thaw in relations between the two men. City College of New York gave the station an award of merit for the most effective promotion of a public service program in 1946.

The KTHT GI House still stands, 65 years later, on Rice Boulevard, just a couple of blocks off of Weslayan in West U. There was a picture printed in the old Scripps-Howard Press showing the finished house with some KTHT personnel in front but it was not legible enough to use so I didn't even bother to get a copy of it and I am not able to describe all of the changes and alterations that have been made to the house over the years but it is obvious a half story has been added to the original one-story 1940s bungalow. The property originally budgeted at $7000 is now on the Harris County tax rolls appraised at over $450,000.

Michael Petrizzo - RIP

2012-01-13T18:28:00.009-06:00

Longtime owner and General Manager of KCOH.

Chronicle obituary.

A Tim and Bob Gallery

2012-01-04T21:05:00.039-06:00

Often referred to as Houston's first morning duo, Tim and Bob were together on KPRC for over a decade. For more on the duo on this blog, click on the label at the end of this post; for other mentions of either individual enter the words 'Byron' or 'Nolan' in the search box.

The St. Patrick's Day Parade was one of their biggest promotions. Unfortunately I don't have dates for these pictures.

Bob Byron, left, and Tim Nolan. Judging by the decorations on the cake, this had something to do with St. Patrick's Day, too.

KPRC carried the syndicated 1960s comedy feature Chickenman and the Fearless Feathered Fighter came to town to promote the series.

And now for something a little different:

Judy Bonham, Byron's oldest daughter, to whom I am indebted for these pictures, notes the guys seem to be enjoying themselves.

Miscellaneous clippings and shots:

This clipping was from the Houston Post on a Friday in August but unfortunately the date and year is cut. It appeared top left, right under the masthead and above a story about heart surgery for a Cuban boy.

And a couple of personal mementos from Byron:

My thanks to Judy Bonham for providing all these shots and my apologies for taking so long to get them online. My thanks also to all the children of Tim and Bob I have corresponded with over the last year or so for their help.

One of the reasons I delayed publishing these pics was to try and identify the football player in the third from the last picture. I wasn't in Houston during most of the 60s and have no idea who it is, but have a suspicion that he was rather famous for some reason. I will appreciate it if anyone can identify him or add any information about any of these photos such as dates or names. For instance, if anyone can hazard a guess about the name of the movie on the marquee in picture # 1, we can probably date that picture but since Glenn McCarthy appears in two different shots in two different vehicles, the pictures probably do not all date from the same year.

Another Historical Site of Interest

2011-11-20T11:07:00.005-06:00

I always assume that many of the readers of this site are interested in the history of Houston beyond just the history of radio and television, hence the section on the sidebar devoted to History Links. Here's another site I just learned about, a personal reminiscence of growing up in Houston, primarily in the 50s and 60s. It's a great collection of photos and facts drawn from many different sources and tied together with a narrative. I particularly appreciate the fact that the sources are always documented; too many people assume anything they find on the web they can use as though it was their own without crediting or asking permission. (Yes, there is some material from this site on there).

For those just interested in broadcast history, there's material related to radio on the page entitled The End of the Journey. Material concerning Houston TV in that era is on the page entitled More Life in Houston. And some of Marving Zindler's career is detailed on the page entitled More Memories.

Classic TV discussion - 11/18/11

2011-11-18T12:57:00.005-06:00

I've been contacted very belatedly about this and thought I would pass it on. Tonight, Fri 11/18/11, at 8 pm on Channel 8, Ernie Manouse leads a panel discussion "A Conversation On…Classic Houston TV," discussing Houston television's past with Doug Johnson, Warner Roberts, Jan Glenn, Jim Bernhard and Harold Gunn.

I'm hoping for some juicy behind-the-scenes tidbits.

A Conversation On...

Update: It was a great show including not only fascinating tidbits but clips of some classic moments/bloopers. I wish I'd had more time to promote it. I'm sure there will be re-airings.

Congratulations to Dave Ward

2011-11-08T04:30:00.003-06:00

Celebrating 45 years at KTRK-TV on Wednesday, November 9, 2011, and now a Houston institution. A tribute from the Chronicle, a bit of history and some old pictures in a slide show.

Quite a record - congratulations Dave.

'Crash' Collins - KLOL - RIP

2011-11-06T18:49:00.000-06:00

Yet another obituary, from 29-95.

Roy Lemons - RIP

2011-11-02T22:33:00.003-05:00

I happened across news of Lemons passing on the internet. The name probably does not ring a bell with many in Houston radio today but he was with one of the most important stations in the 60s - KIKK. He wrote me a few years ago and filled in some valuable information on both KRCT and KIKK.

Here is an online obituary.

Bill Zak - RIP

2011-10-28T20:12:00.004-05:00

Sad to report on the passing of yet another long-time Houston radio man, Bill Zak of KTRH.

Here is the obituary in the Chronicle.

I have found references indicating he started at KTRH in the 1940s; others say the early 1950s. I have found a Billboard reference that seems to indicate he was a disc jockey back in the day when KTRH interspersed CBS network programming with local music shows; however, given the cryptic style of Billboard, it's not entirely clear he was a disc jockey. But he will be most easily remembered by most for hosting 'Garden Line' with Dr. Ben Oldag, who died less than a year ago.

Here is a tribute that I found a long time ago, entered into the House of Representatives Congressional Record by Representative Jack Fields, on the occasion of Zak's retirement.

A KILT Tour - 1961

2011-10-24T17:50:00.014-05:00

My correspondent, John Hill, has provided me with a wealth of information about KILT in the early 1960s, including a description of the equipment in use at this time. This is fascinating information for radio and equipment geeks and for everyone who worked in the McLendon building over the years, and so I am reproducing it here as John related it to me. Note: KILT first occupied the facility in 1957 and moved out in 1995. Although the building is still standing, there is no broadcast equipment or operation at this location now.

In 1961, the KOST-FM (now KILT-FM) transmitter, a Gates 5KW kit, was located in the engineering workshop on the 2nd floor of the McLendon Building at 500 Lovett Blvd. The antenna was a 4-bay horizontally polarized "V" array atop the tower immediately behind the building. The UHF (News COMM) antenna was also mounted on the tower.

We ran KOST-FM from 6-midnight (the minimum time to keep a license current) and John Trotter would sign it on as "This is KOST'n KILT in Houston. At the time, KOST was "costing" KILT but, Gordon McLendon had the foresight to know what a more significant role FM would play in the future of broadcasting.

There was a lot of old paperwork at the AM transmitter site that indicated it was the original site. The Collins 5V main transmitter, and the 1V back-up transmitter, were not original. Since the McLendon's were pro-Collins, I'll guess the Collins gear was installed after they purchased the station. The antenna phasing cabinet, between the two transmitters, was earlier vintage than the Collins transmitters, but had been well maintained. The board and turntables at the transmitter site were definitely 'early marriage.'

With regard to the studio layout at the McLendon building, as you looked at the building, there were two sides. KILT occupied the left side. (John believes an insurance company occupied the right half of the building). The receptionist, copy, sales and management offices were on the first floor. The stairway, near the left front lobby glass window before the atrium, went upstairs to the studios.

On the second floor, the break room faced Lovett Blvd. Following the hallway toward the back of the building, on the left, there was the newsroom, On-Air studio #1, another much larger studio that we called "Studio B," On-Air studio #2/Recording Studio/Master Control Room, Engineering Office, and Engineering Shop. The right side of that hallway was solid wall.

Between the Newsroom and Studio #1, there was a double glass window so that the on-air newsman and on-air DJ were facing each for "tighter" production. Both had their boards in front of them.

There was another double glass window between Studio 1 and Studio B, which had a table and chairs. The back wall of Studio B had a double glass window so those at the table (voice talent) were normally looking up and through the double glass to the recording engineer, who had a board in front of him. Or, when in Studio B, the on-air DJ would have eye contact with me as I operated the on-air board in #1, there again for hand signals, nods...whatever cue, for tighter production.

With all that glass, we had visibility from the Master Control Room to the Newsroom so that the on-air newsman had eye contact with whomever was at the board of the Master. (In those instances, lights were usually turned off in Studios #1 and B...otherwise field glasses helped!)

Occasionally, the on-air jock would be in Studio B and I would be operating the on-air board while the jock was (usually) doing an interview, such as the train wreck we had when Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis came in. (We finally had to break that off, get John Trotter back in the on-air #1 and tape the interview which took over an hour for a 10 minute "clean" interview...not to mention the tape edit time). All our interviews were...uh, interesting.?!!

Equipment-wise, the Newsroom had 5-Model 19 teletypes, 4 on line and a back-up, a Collins board, several rack mounted recorders, patch panels, a Collins cartridge playback machine and our UHF transmitter/receiver for mobile news unit COMM.

On-Air #1 had a Collins board, 4 Gates turntables, 4 Collins cartridge playback machines, a rack/cabinet mounted Schaffer remote control system (AM transmitter remote controls), an FM transmitter control panel, and a rotating cartridge bin. It was pretty much a full house.

Studio B was for voice work only; it had a table with several phased mics, two wall mounted play-back speakers and about a dozen chairs. It was more like a small conference room.

On-Air #2/Recording Studio/Master Control had a Collins board, 2 Gates turntables, 2 Ampex 361 recorders on wheels, 2 Collins ATC record/playback machines, two racks with patch panels, McIntosh audio amplifiers and two rack mounted receivers for on-air monitoring. (The DJ was listening to the AM receiver, rather than his console output, so we would have another indicator if we went off the air.) On the back wall we had a cabinet with a disc cutter, its McIntosh driver amplifier and our cartridge and tape erasing devices, all of which I'm sure are long since dust-biters.

The engineering office was rather small with a desk, chairs and filing cabinets.

In the engineering shop, there was the 5KW KOST-FM Gates transmitter and the controls for the natural gas powered Onan generator that was mounted inside the FM tower base behind the building. There was also a sizable work bench with various test equipment and spare parts bins.

We replaced the older cartridge machines and all studio mics with the relatively new Collins ATC's and Telefunken microphones that were removed from the M/V Mi Amigo, which was home to McLendon’s ‘pirate’ radio ship operation off the coast of Norway, when Radio Nord was disassembled at Pier 37 in Galveston. KILT was the recipient of a good bit of studio gear.

Note: Although it was not a Houston radio station, its connection to Gordon McLendon and KILT warrants more information; for more on Radio Nord and it’s successor ship, see:

Radio Nord in Wikipedia

Pictures of Radio Nord, more pictures, and still more pictures.

Radio Atlanta in Wikipedia

Note: the Soundscapes site says the ship was outfitted at Copenhagen; John was told it was outfitted at Galveston by KILT transmitter supervisor Frank Maher. This was before John joined the station. Although both operations were referred to as 'pirate' radio stations, both actually operated under the laws of that time.

See also the KILT staff directory, the story of Bob Horn/Bob Adams, and the Hooper Ratings for this era.

Red Jones - KILT

2011-10-15T15:00:00.010-05:00

Another KILT Ex has checked in.

Red Jones worked for KILT from 1957 to 1962, with a stint as Program director from ‘59 to ‘62. He got out of the Army in September, 1956, and joined KXYZ doing evenings in November of that year, working with Chuck Dunaway and Larry Kane among others. About a month after KILT signed on in March, ‘57, Don Keyes hired Red to do overnights but he soon moved up to Noon to 3 pm. After Keyes left to go back to Dallas, Jack Sharp was PD; Red replaced him in 1959 and moved to 3pm-7pm for the rest of his time in Houston.

Red says when he made PD, Bill Weaver told him ‘You run the upstairs and I’ll run the downstairs’ and he never went back on his word. As far as he remembers, they never had staff meetings - everybody did their own thing and it paid off. They had great Hooper and Pulse numbers and a dominant staff including the likes of John Trotter, Rob McLeod, Bob Presley, Bill Slater, Joel A Spivak., Cecil Tuck, John Land, and Thom Beck. Glen Cook was CE and Hank Poole was production engineer. It was fun times according to Red (and fun to listen to, too).

He was invited to interview for a gig at WABC, New York, and did. He didn’t get the job but when KILT heard about it he was ‘eased out.’ News Director Cecil Tuck took over as PD for a brief spell.

Red was hired by Kent Burkhart, another KILT alumnus, as PD of WQXI, Atlanta, and spent the rest of his career in Georgia radio. He’s retired now after 63 years in radio and living in Georgia. He was inducted into the Georgia Radio Museum and Hall of Fame in 2008 and recently celebrated his 80th birthday, still going strong.

His Georgia Radio Museum and Hall of Fame page (a much more impressive site than out TRHOF) contains more biographical information about his early years in South Texas and Austin and his stint with AFN in Germany before coming to Houston, plus much more about his long career in radio in Georgia, in a collection of clippings from his career.

The picture above is from the GRHOF site.

A KILT Footrace

2011-10-13T19:47:00.005-05:00

J.R. Gonzales' Bayou City History blog in the Chronicle has posted a story about a big promotional event staged by KILT in the Astrodome in 1969 between Roy Hofheinz, owner of the Astros, and Mayor Louie Welch, a foot race to promote physical fitness and the KILT Jog Corps.

The Great Indoor Contest

It's a great little story about an event I never had heard of with pictures of Hudson and Harrigan and probably some other KILT staffers of that day.

Weaver Morrow - RIP

2011-09-30T08:04:00.005-05:00

I am very shocked and saddened to report the passing of Weaver Morrow, longtime Houston radio man. I first met Weaver in the first week of September, 1970, during the first days of KAUM. He was a Houston Radio Legend from the first moment he cracked the mic; his humor turned the market upside down and was a huge part of the success of KAUM - and we were the most successful of the ABC-FMs, at least at first. Radio people came from all over to hear what we were doing that had vaulted us from something like 27th to 7th in the ratings in one rating period. The ABC execs in NY suggested moving him to afternoons, when more of our audience would likely be awake; they listened regularly and so did the other ABC-FM PDs. Everyone loved him. I was so disappointed when he first left the market and glad when he returned. He had long stints at KRBE-FM and KODA-FM.

Chronicle obituary and services

Elvis in Houston - the Venues, the DJs

2011-08-19T16:26:00.005-05:00

James V. Roy is a researcher who has put together a website devoted to Scotty Moore, the legendary guitarist and first personal manager of Elvis Presley. His very comprehensive article on Elvis' early appearances in Houston, before he became a national star, is a very fascinating account of the venues Elvis played at as well as mentioning many of the DJs and radio stations that were very involved in live music back then and makes very good reading related to this blog.

Bob Horn/Philly Bandstand - Bob Adams/KILT

2011-06-25T23:36:00.008-05:00

This is a story I only recently learned of, a small part of Houston radio history, brought to my attention by John Hill. It’s the story of how the creator of Bandstand, as in American Bandstand, wound up a deejay on KILT, then an ad agency and bar owner in Houston.

The details have been spelled out, not without contradictions, in several accounts online and in a book, Bandstand: The Untold Story, by Stan Blitz.

Briefly, Bob Horn was a popular deejay on Philadelphia’s WIP in the late 40s with a late nite program called ‘C’mon And Dance.’ He was hired away by rival WFIL to create a similar show on that station which became known as Bob Horn’s Bandstand. He also got his first taste of TV, hosting a game show that bombed.

It’s not clear who’s idea it was but the late nite radio show was given a television spinoff on WFIL-TV, also called Bob Horn’s Bandstand, which featured Horn introducing film clips of artists performing their songs and occasional interviews with artists passing through Philly. It bombed, and was taken off the air after a month and the station started running movies in its stead.

Conflicting claims have been made as to whether station management or Horn himself suggested the show be moved to a larger studio and teens invited in to dance on-air, but the idea went over with management and a new version of Bob Horn’s Bandstand premiered on WFIL-TV on October 7, 1952, heavily promoted by the radio and TV outlets and their parent, the Philadelphia Inquirer. Teens were slow to respond on the first day but by the third day, it was said there were a thousand waiting to get into the studio and Bob Horn’s Bandstand was on it’s way. The first advertiser was Earl ‘Madman’ Muntz of Muntz television fame.

Over the next four years, the show garnered as much as 60% of the daytime Philly TV audience according to some accounts and caught the attention of TV executives elsewhere. There was even talk of going national. Early on, the teens danced to artists like Joni James and Frankie Laine but as the music changed during the decade, so did the show. At times it ran as long as two hours a day, five days a week, all done live.

Then in 1956, Horn’s career hit a couple of major road bumps. First, the Philly PD, the Inquirer and WFIL-TV were conducting a month-long drive against drunk driving and Bob Horn was caught driving drunk and assessed a $300 fine. Then he was involved in a minor accident driving the wrong way on a one way street, resulting in some injuries. He was adjudged intoxicated, but not enough to impair his driving, and his insurance company paid $100,000 in claims.

In addition charges of statutory rape were brought against him by a teen-aged dancer or would be dancer on the show. Horn’s family has said there was an extortion attempt that preceded the charges and the prosecutors knew of it and cooperated in amassing the money for the payoff but took the case to court anyway. A first trial resulted in a hung jury while a second trial found Horn innocent.

But he was finished in Philly radio and TV. He had been taken off Bandstand and a producer had filled in as host for a short time while the station sifted through it’s other deejays for a replacement, finally selecting a 26 year old named Dick Clark, who had to be given a crash course in rock ‘n roll. A year after taking over for Horn, Clark pitched the show to ABC which picked it up for a trial run then took it on as a permanent fixture of their afternoon schedule, renaming the show American Bandstand.

Meanwhile, Horn was out of work when an old employer, Gordon McLendon, called. He had heard of Horn’s predicament and offered him a job at his new station in Houston. Horn accepted and made the trek across country, changing his name to Bob Adams for his new career.

According to the schedule published in the Chronicle, March 14, 1957, Bob Adams was on the air from 9pm to Midnight on the first day of the new station. In an accompanying article, Bill Weaver was quoted as naming Bob Adams as one of the new announcers but also mentioned other deejays who would be joining the staff, including Bob Horn of Philadelphia. One of the online accounts of Horn’s life says he didn’t get to Houston until July of 1957. It’s not known if the Chronicle reporter misunderstood Weaver or if someone else began the use of the name Bob Adams on KILT, but it didn’t matter much, because Horn/Adams didn’t last long as an announcer on KILT. His East Coast style didn’t sit well with KILT’s audience and he was taken off the air and put in sales before long, becoming according to one account the top producer in the KILT sales staff. It was said the audience may not have liked his sound but advertisers loved hearing his stories of how he created Bandstand.

Eventually he left the station and opened his own agency, Bob Adams Associates, credited with creating Houston’s first Midnight Madness Sale. He also bought a ranch in the country and a bar in Bellaire called the Town and Country Lounge. John Hill’s contact with Adams came when he visited the recording studio that John ran at the back of the second floor of the McLendon Building at 500 Lovett Blvd. to record spots for his clients. He preferred to use Bob Presley and Rob McLeod to voice his spots.

Bob Adams life seemed to be going very well in Houston until the summer of 1966 when he suffered a heat-stroke induced heart attack while mowing his lawn and died. He is buried at Forest Park on Lawndale where his simple grave marker includes the epitaph ‘Bandstand.’

The History of Rock website has the most thorough account of Horn’s career, including photos, reproductions of newspaper clippings concerning the trials, and a shot of the grave marker. The original article is in bold while additions to the story credited to Peter Horn, Bob Horn’s son, are in un-bold typeface.

Philadelphia’s City Paper did a story on American Bandstand for the fortieth anniversary a few years back including some references to the early incarnation of Bandstand, and this article in the Tucson Sun introduced me to Stan Blitz and his book, which I have not seen.

I’m hoping some readers of this blog who were around back then, those who were just listeners or old radio pros or advertisers, can provide some more details of his career in Houston. I wonder, for instance, if any of the local TV teen dance show hosts, Larry Kane, Bob Byron, etc., knew of his role in the creation of the genre and ever conferred with him and where his bar was.

Larry Kane Show Clips

2011-06-14T20:18:00.007-05:00

I've heard from Bud Buschardt, a graduate in RTV from the University of Houston who worked at KUHF and KUHT and went on to a long career at WFAA-TV and KVIL, Dallas, and then the ABC Radio Networks. He now teaches communications classes at the University of North Texas and was inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2010.

Buschardt has talked to his friend and classmate Kerry Richards who was the director of the Kane show beginning in the mid-60s and who confirmed that the tapes of the show were destroyed while in storage in an un-air conditioned warehouse. The only videos known to exist are those that were traded with stations in other markets that were doing similar teen shows. One such clip was provided by Buschardt to Ovid Stevens, a member of the 1960s Dallas psychedelic rock group Southwest FOB. Stevens has posted the clip on YouTube. The song was produced by Buschardt's record company. Kane's mention of the smash hit Harper Valley PTA dates this clip to the spring of 1968.

Stevens was the guitarist and founder of the group which also included Dan Seals and John Colley. Seals was the younger brother of Jim Seals of Seals and Croft; he and Colley teamed up to form the soft rock group England Dan and John Ford Coley in the 1970s. After the group disbanded, Seals had a lengthy solo career as a country artist and died in March, 2009.

There is also an edited version of the clip which runs only 59 seconds and shows only Kane's intro to the band and his interview with members afterwards.

Since this Blogger template unfortunately does not accommodate YouTube videos, here are the links. The long version has been uploaded a couple of times; here's the original upload by Ovid Stevens with comments. And the shorter version.

There is also a 9 minute clip in black and white with KUHT leader posted by Jay Dooling, one of the dancers on the show. This was filmed while the show was still being broadcast from studios on the UH campus at the facility on Cullen Blvd. that that had been the original home of KNUZ-TV and later became the long time home of KUHT. Buschardt believes the episode dates from January, 1963. Two dancers, Dooling and his partner Mary Ann Masters, are tagged in the video, about half way through. This one shows only the dancers, however, Kane's appearances are edited out.

The dancers on the Kane show had to take dancing lessons before they could appear and their talent is clearly showcased, especially in some of the uptempo numbers near the end of the clip.

Still another 14 minute clip consists of home movies of a couple on the show; it's in color but the video is poor and there's no audio.

If anybody knows of any other clips online please let me know.

KILT Staff DIrectory

2011-06-09T13:16:00.016-05:00

I have been corresponding with John Hill, CSRTE, an engineer at KILT from 1960 to 1964, who has been filling me in on a lot of facts and data from that era. He lost almost all his family, musical career and radio memorabilia thanks to tropical storm Claudette in 1979 and only a few pieces survive, among them a staff directory. I have organized it by department instead of alphabetically and added a few facts on some of the personalities I have from my own research.

Beverly Bales - Secretary to GM
Sabra Hall - General office
Dino Thompson - Receptionist

Bruno Leonardt - Sales Manager
Paul Fielding, Dickie Rosenfeld, Charlie Trub and Ted Van Brunt - Sales
Sue Reid - Sales Secretary
Sandra Arnold - Traffic
Barbara Van Horn - Continuity

Glenn Cook - Chief Engineer
John Hill - Recording Engineer
Tim Milton Kingston - Transmitter Engineer
Frank J Maher - Transmitter Superintendent

Rob McLeod - Program Director
Chuck Benson - Assistant to the PD
Gene Kelly, Dick Lahm, Bob Presley, Bill Slater, John Trotter - Disc Jockeys
Milton Allen (Graves) - Weekend Disc Jockey

Cecil Tuck - News Director, Program Manager
Thom Beck - News Editor
Dick Dobbin, Rick Eiser, Gary Fuller - Newsmen

Reed Robinson, Larry Thomas - Porters

Missing from the list was Bill Weaver, General Manager.

Also missing were two other transmitter engineers, Bryan Burne and Sam Warren, working at the transmitter on West Rd., west of the Dallas highway (US 75/I-45).

As John remembers it at the time of this list, the air shifts were: Gene Kelly, Midnight to 6 A. M.; Chuck Benson 6-9 AM; Rob McLeod 9-12 Noon; Bob Presley from 12 Noon-3 P. M. (with his KILT Pool & Patio show); Bill Slater 3-6 P. M.; "Honest John" Trotter 6 PM.-Midnight.

I had in my notes from the Chronicle that Trotter had been brought in to do mornings in January, 1961, replacing Joel A. Spivak, I believe, but was demoted to the 6 to Midnight shift as a way of suggesting it was time for him to leave. He did shortly thereafter for KEWB in Oakland, CA. In 1965 he was one of the original group of Western Gentlemen who brought country music radio to WJJD, Chicago and later he worked at KBOX, Dallas. He died in Abilene in 1976 and was inducted into the Country Radio Broadcasters DJ and Radio Hall of Fame in 1996.

Bob Presley went on to a long career in Houston radio at KPRC and KILT.

Bill Weaver left KILT to work for Cap Cities Broadcasting in 1966; he had married his secretary. He touched base with John in Nashville in 1982 at which time he was Executive Vice President at WWCO, a 24 hour station in Waterbury, CT. He died in retirement in San Antonio in February, 2008.

Both Bob Presley and Bill Weaver were inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2003.

Milton Allen (Graves) left for WNOE, New Orleans, one of McLendon's wife's stations; Chuck Benson left for WGR in Buffalo, NY, followed by Bill Slater. John left shortly thereafter, too. After WGR, Bill Slater went to KFWB, Los Angeles (64-65), KRLA (64-67), and KPPC (69-70) according to a Los Angeles radio website. He died in 2002 at age 67 and there were probably some other radio gigs. I have not had any luck finding more information about the other personalities and will appreciate hearing from anyone who can fill in the details of their careers.

See also the Hooper Ratings for the Houston market from this era, courtesy of John. There will be more posts on the blog soon based on the communications I'm having with John.

Updated 7/29/11.

Hooper Ratings - December, 1961 - January, 1962

2011-05-24T15:19:00.007-05:00

The Ratings are in!

KNUZ was still doing quite well vs. KILT with it's 250 watts; second place ain't bad. Note only two FMs showed up.

Thanks to John B. Hill, an engineer at KILT from 1960-1964, for sharing these. John has shared some other memorabilia from that era and filled in some facts and anecdotes about the McLendon operation, both AM and FM. See the KILT Staff Directory from this era here; there more published on this blog in the near future.

Joel A. Spivak, RIP

2011-05-20T13:12:00.003-05:00

I'm a little late with this but just recently came across the news myself.

The Washington Post obituary.

This is not a name familiar to many today, probably, but if you were around Houston radio in the late 50s early 60s, especially if you were a teen and listened to KILT, you'll remember Joel. I remember him doing evenings on KILT; he was my favorite jock of all the voices brought to town by Gordon McLendon when he purchased KLBS. Later he did mornings before being demoted again to evenings and then leaving town. I believe he left once in the late 50s to join Eliot Field at KFWB in Los Angeles from what I've read. He was low key, funny, weird, sardonic, in an era before boss jocks. There's one anecdote in the obit about his career in Houston and I'll have a few more in an upcoming article from a former co-worker. I remember the time he joined the Salt Grass Trail Ride, broadcasting his show each evening from along the trail, one night from the studios of KWHI, Brenham, after it had signed off. I lived to hear his faux commercials, especially a running series about Polly Pelham Pizza - "look for it wrapped in old newspaper in the freezer of a grocery near me."

KPRC-TV Memories

2011-01-17T05:53:00.004-06:00

I found this video clip on HAIF of a recent Channel 2 reunion. Never having worked at 2 nor in television anywhere in Houston, I recognize only a few of the former air personnel but some of the stories are interesting.

UPDATE 1/20: AS EXPLAINED ON THE LINK, THE VIDEO WAS TAKEN DOWN BY YOUTUBE DUE TO A COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT.

Ben Oldag - RIP

2010-12-04T17:00:00.002-06:00

Dr. Ben Oldag, a long time, very familiar voice on Houston radio, has passed. He will be most familiar from his long-time work on KTRH on garden and farm programs but he started his career on KFRD in Rosenberg and worked also on Armed Forces Radio.

Here's a bio I found at the site of his last employer and a notice about the memorial service.

FM Chronology - The 1960s Part III - KBNO-FM, KAJC-FM, KWHI-FM, KLEF-FM

2010-11-12T00:30:00.008-06:00

Broadcasting Yearbook gives January 1, 1964, for the launch of KBNO-FM at 93.7 mc but the station got on the air a couple of weeks before that. A story in the Chronicle on December 7th reported that the station expected to get on the air between the 10th and 15th. It was to operate 24 hours a day from studios on the 34th floor of the Gulf Building playing ‘popular music and show tunes,’ according to General Manager Dick Kenyon. The owners were Independent Music Broadcasters of Ohio which also held the license for WDBN-FM, Cleveland/ Akron. The Chronicle was publishing radio listings only sporadically; there were none published from the 10th of December through the 20th but on the 21st , KBNO-FM appeared in the paper’s listings for FM stations. According to a feature article in the Post in 1981 on the meanings of Houston call letters, at one time a listener contest on KBNO came up with the phrase Keep Beatle Noise Off as a slogan for the station but by the fall of 1971, KBNO-FM became KRLY-FM, a Top 40 station. The station was very successful for most of the decade but started slipping in the early 80s and by mid 1981 was identifying as Love 94 FM. Then as of March 20, 1984, it became KLTR-FM, K-Lite, a lite rock station, and flipped again as of December 20, 1993, to become KKRW, the Arrow, a Classic Rock station.

The Chronicle reported on Sunday, January 26, 1964, that KAJC-FM had begun broadcasting the previous day at 102.1 mc. It has been claimed that this station was previouly licensed to Alvin Junior College as KAJC-FM and operated at 102.3 mc and was bought by some employees of NASA but the Chronicle article made no mention of the previous operation and referred to it as a new station calling itself ‘The Voice of Spaceland.’ It was to operate 24 hours a day with ‘popular, semi-classical, and semi-jazz music and news.’ Jeff Thompson, fomerly of KXYZ was the Manager. Broadcasting Yearbook gives the launch of the station as February 1, 1964. The City of License was Clear Lake.

The station later changed call letters to KMSC-FM, which stood for ‘Manned Spacecraft Center.’ KMSC-FM later became KLYX-FM, ‘Klicks, The Music Station,’ and moved its studios to a motel on the Southwest Freeway at Buffalo Speedway in Houston. It featured an adult soft rock format and was automated in 1974. KLYX-FM was then briefly a news station. From 1975 to early 1977 it carried an NBC 24 hour news and information service but the network did not last. As of 3pm, Friday, February 25th, 1977, KMJQ-FM, "Majic 102" was born on this frequency and it has retained those calls and been a major factor in the ratings ever since.

On September 15, 1964, KWHI-FM, Brenham, signed on at 106.3 mc. The station ran small ads in the Chronicle for some time advising it was ‘Now on the Air’ from 5pm to 11pm daily.

On the 21st of October, 1964, Houston got another Classical music outlet when KLEF-FM took to the airwaves at 94.5 mc. This frequency had been occupied since late 1960 by KARO-FM but it’s not clear if KARO-FM had been on the air continuously since its launch or if it was on the air at the time of the switchover. Houston based Apollo Broadcasting was the owner of the new station; they also owned KRBG-FM, San Francisco and had an application for an FM in St. Louis. The station was to be full-time in stereo (18 hours a day) from a transmitter atop the Tennessee building putting out 45,000 watts. Roland Schmidt was the Manager; he had previously worked for both KODA-FM and KTRH-FM, both of which had regularly scheduled classical music programs. The program director was Ray Landers and the Chief Engineer was Bert Adkins. Broadcasting Yearbook gives the launch of the station as 11/1/64.

KLEF-FM continued as a full time Classical music station until March of 1986 when it flipped to KJYY, ‘Joy FM,’ which lasted until April, 1988. KLDE-FM, an oldies station, was born on that date. The music library of KLEF-FM was donated to the University of Houston station, KUHF-FM. On July 18, 2000, KLDE switched frequencies with co-owned KTBZ-FM, moving to 107.5 while The Buzz took over 94.5.

The same week that KJYY-FM launched, KIKK-AM moved into a new 2 story facility in Pasadena.

A Day in the Life -

2010-11-10T13:02:00.016-06:00

- of a Houston radio listener, Friday, June 30, 1961, and Saturday, July 1, 1961, from the Chronicle and Post. The Chronicle was an afternoon paper at that time, hence the day's listings begin at mid-afternoon.

The same page of the Chronicle carried a brief announcement that the next day, Saturday. July 1, KHGM-FM, 99.1, would switch call letters to KODA-FM. President Paul Taft explained it was just the first step in an expansion that would bring a new AM station to Houston in a few weeks, KODA-AM, at 1010 kc.

By this time the Post was running only abbreviated radio listings. As the decade wore on and TV continued its ascendancy as the primary home entertainment medium, the Chronicle would follow suit. Both papers eventually would offer only very brief mentions of developments in radio, sometimes not for days or weeks after the fact.

AirChexx.com - Houston

2010-10-15T13:21:00.003-05:00

I found this small collection of Houston air checks, including one TV ad for KLOL-FM, at AirChexx.com. Scroll down the page to the Houston listings.

This will be posted on the sidebar under the Radio Links.

Mark Stevens (Stevens and Pruett) - RIP

2010-10-12T15:39:00.003-05:00

Mark Stevens, half of the radio team of Stevens and Pruett on KILT and later KLOL-FM in Houston has died. He also worked extensively in DFW radio and more recently as co-host of a foodie show, Stevens and Cleverly.

I first heard Mark on KFJZ, 1270, Fort Worth in the 70s during a very brief stint I did in Fort Worth radio. I thought he was great, a hard-working, very entertaining jock. I thought he was the best jock in Fort Worth at the time and the first Top 40 jock I had heard outside of Houston and my favorites on KLBS and KILT that I was really impressed by.

I never met the guy. By the time the two of us got to Houston we worked in very different formats and I always found it too much of a culture shock to listen much.

Here's an ongoing thread on the Houston-Galveston board of Radio-Info; and, one on the DFW board where the news first broke.

Here's the story on chron.com.

FM Chronology - The 1960s Part II - KHCB-FM, KLVL-FM, KLJT-FM

2010-10-02T10:20:00.007-05:00

Broadcasting Yearbook gives March 10, 1962, for the launch of KHCB-FM, at 105.7 mc. A religious station since its inception, the calls stood for ‘Keeping Him Close By.’ There was no story in the Chronicle, not even in the Church Chronicle, a weekly special section. Listings first appeared in the paper on March 16. The station operated originally only from 4pm to Midnight daily.

The Post published a feature article on the station in August of 1963. At that time the station was operating from studios at 126 Almeda-Genoa Road and had experienced recurring difficulties meeting its budget each month, but operations had expanded to 24 hours a day. There were only 4 paid employees, only 3 of which were full-time. Between the hours of 7pm and 6am volunteers exclusively manned the station. Funds were being raised to make a down payment on a new 10,000 watt transmitter to replace the 1000 watt unit in use. The article stated the call letters just stood for Houston Christian Broadcasters.

The Yearbook gives August of 1962 for the launch of KLVL-FM , 92.5 mc, in Pasadena, but the station never appeared in either the Chronicle or Post listings any time during the month, nor were there any stories about the station. It first appeared in Chronicle listings on September 7 showing that it was simulcasting the programming of KLVL-AM. By a year later, the programming was listed in the Post as ‘Latin American Popular Music.’

The station was sold in 1969 to Sudbrink and became KFMY-FM with a transmitter atop the Pasadena State Bank and only a few hunded watts of power. Due to complaints by KFMK, the calls were changed to KYED-FM, pronounced 'keyed;' they played oldies and big band music. Then the station was sold again and became KYND, “Kind 92,” boosted power to 100, 000 watts allowing coverage of the entire Houston area and carried the beautiful music syndicated format of Stereo Radio Productions, or SRP, from Jim Schulke and Phil Stout. This format was popularly known as the Schulke format, although Jim Schulke was the sales part of the team and Phil Stout did the programming. KYND became a ratings leader in Houston for a dozen years, forcing KXYZ-AM to drop beautiful music programming, before being defeated in the ratings wars itself by KODA-FM in late 1981. It flipped to 93Q, KKBQ-FM in late 1982 with John Lander and the Q Morning Zoo and played Contemporary Hit Music. It had moved to 92.9 mHz in late 1982, prior to the format flip. Those call letters are still used, although the station flipped to Country music in the fall of 1991.

In April, 1963, my home town of Lake Jackson got am FM. KLJT-FM signed on at 107.3 mc, co-owned with KBRZ-AM, Freeport. The studios were just 3 long blocks from my home, on Willow Drive at the old Angleton-Clute Road. The building now houses the Brazosport Board of Realtors. When I was home that summer briefly, I visited the studios to see Scott Galbreath, the first and only DJ (the station simulcast KBRZ during the day). The studios were in a small cinder block building with only 2 rooms; the doors were unlocked and I walked right in. The transmitter and antenna were right outside the back door. I had known Scott for years and was mildly envious of him for having gotten the job, but radio was still just a fancy to me, not something I was seriously thinking about getting into.

The station later changed call letters to KGOL-FM and in the spring of 1981 announced plans to install a new 100,000 watt transmitter and become a Houston station. Station officials told the Chronicle the format was Christian Beautiful Music, playing such artists as B.J. Thomas. The frequency subsequently was changed to to 107.5. The station has also been known as KZFX, (1986), Z107, and KRQT. It became KTBZ in early 1995 and then switched frequencies with co-owned 94.5 KLDE and became KLDE-FM, Oldies 107.5. Call were flipped again on December 14, 2006, to KHTC-FM. As of June 1, 2009, the station became known as 107.5 The Eagle with the calls officially KGLK-FM.

Edited 6/12/11 to add information regarding calls on KLVL-FM.

New Galleries

2010-09-28T11:35:00.001-05:00

A couple of new galleries have been added on the sidebar, one devoted to Memorabilia and another to miscellaneous ads related to radio.

Gallery I is off-line right now, being edited, and will re-appear devoted to miscellaneous pictures of people - broadcasters - I have collected or have been shared by readers of the blog.

Bayou City Houston Blog on Artists visiting Houston

2010-09-22T11:41:00.012-05:00

In his Bayou City History blog in the Chronicle, J.R. Gonzales has been doing a series on artist's visits to Houston, including Johnny Cash and June Carter, Rush, Sonny & Cher. and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

It's a little it of history plus some great pictures and comments by readers.

A Day in the Life.....

2010-09-21T12:00:00.008-05:00

....of a Houston viewer, Friday, August 4, 1961.

Published in the Houston Now section of the Houston Post, Sunday, July 30, 1961.

FM Chronology - The 1960s - Part I - KQUE-FM, KARO-FM, KOST-FM, KXYZ-FM

2010-09-20T23:42:00.020-05:00

This article was edited 10/1/10 to include some new information about the programming of KXYZ-AM/FM in the 1960s.

The decade of the 1960s would prove to be a very active one on the FM dial in Houston with many new stations signing on, but it was not until the end of the decade that FM began to make an impact in the ratings. A year and a half after KHGM-FM moved off the 102.9 frequency to 99.1, Veterans Broadcasting launched an FM in its place. KQUE-FM signed on at 6am, Tuesday, October 1, 1960, to broadcast 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. Webb Hunt was the first Program Director. Teaser ads in the papers ran heavily; ‘Cue – for the best in FM Radio. K-Que. Coming.’

An early program schedule in the newspaper listings had Webb Hunt, 6a-10a, KQ Music Hall, 10a-12N, Felix Martin, 12-2pm, Bob Brock, 2p-4p, Joe Walker, 4p-6p, Felix Martin, 6p-9p, and Bob Brock, 9p-12M.

The second new FM of the decade came on the air just 2 weeks later. KARO-FM took to the airwaves the weekend of the 15th and 16th of October with 8000 watts on 94.5 Megacycles. The studios were on the 11th floor of the American Investors Building at 600 Fannin and the transmitter was atop the building. Robert L. Weeks was the Station Manager and Bert Wiel Assistant Manager. The schedule printed in the papers showed the station was only on the air from noon to midnight originally but by years’ end the broadcast day had been extended to start at 9am. It’s been alleged the call letters were taken from Karo syrup because the programming was sweet, sappy music. The 1962 Houston telephone directory gave Mr. Weeks’ address as San Diego, CA.

KARO lasted just over 4 years before becoming KLEF-FM, a full-time classical music station. However, it’s not clear that KARO was on the air continuously during the 4 years; there were many times when program listings for the station were missing in the papers.

By mid-1961, Gordon McLendon’s FM took to the air waves. KOST-FM first appeared in the radio listings in the Chronicle the weekend of July 15-16; there was no story. The station operated at 100.3 megacycles and simulcast KILT-AM. Broadcasting Yearbook confirms the year 1961 but whether this station had previously been known as KZAP-FM as early as 1959 is not known. Other call letters that have been used on this frequency include KILT-FM and KXAS-FM, ‘Texas 100.’ It has been a country station since the Spring of 1981. (Spring 81 ARB was KILT-FMs first as country).

The Broadcasting Yearbook for 1979 gives 1960 for the first year of KXYZ-FM but it was not until the last quarter of 1961 that the station returned to the air after a hiatus of eight years. In a story about Gerald Chinski’s resignation as Chief Engineer on October 1, Chronicle Radio-TV Editor Howard Stentz noted Chinski would be leaving after 26 years with the station as soon as the FM station was on the air in a few days. KXYZ-FM first appeared in the Chronicle listings on Wednesday, October 4, simulcasting the AM 24 hours a day.

The stations had just changed hands that summer. The sale of the combo from N.A.F.I. Corporation of Los Angeles to Public Radio Corporation of Houston for $1,000,000 was finalized in early June. Public Radio Corporation was Lester and Max Kamin of Houston and Morris Kamin of Victoria; they also had stations in Tulsa and Kansas City. Lester Kamin had been a DJ in Houston in the 1940s and had owned an advertising and public relations firm locally. Sam Bennett, former GM of KTHT came on board as new GM and Milt Willis, former PD of KTHT became the new programming head.

KXYZ-AM and and FM was locally owned and simulcast a heavily proudced beautiful music format until mid-decade when a heavy personality format was installed. In 1968 the stations were purchased by the American Broadcasting Company which returned a produced, matched-flow beautiful music format on the air under the direction of Paul Mitchell. This did well in the ratings until the first matched-flow beautiful music FM came on the air, KYND, the one-time KLVL-FM on 92.9, began to eat away at the numbers. By the spring of 1970, KXYZ-FM was broadcasting the ABC Love format which consisted of syndicated tapes of album-oriented rock programming. KXYZ-FM flipped call letters to KAUM and went live and local with the album rock format the first week of September, 1970. KAUM dropped the album rock format after just a few years and went through several format changes before changing call letters to KSRR in mid-1980. (KAUM last noted in Apr/May 1980 ARB; KSRR shown in Oct/Nov 1980 ARB). The station changed call letters again in the 80s to KKHT and then to KNRJ. (I first have KNRJ in 1989 RnR Ratings Report, Vol II) and by the Spring of 1991 had adopted KHMX-FM. (Spring 1991 ARB). More will be posted on this site on the history of KAUM.

The image above comes from the Houston Press in 1961.

Don Robey and Peacock Records

2010-09-12T16:06:00.006-05:00

They re-aired what was apparently the very first episode of Postcards from Texas on Channel 55 this week including a feature on Don Robey and his Peacock Records. Included are interviews with Texas Radio Hall of Famer Skipper Lee Frazier, John Nova Lomax and Roger Wood of Houston Community College.

You can watch the video here.

The show has changed time slots; it now airs on Sunday afternoons at 3pm on Channel 55.

A KTRH Gallery

2010-08-11T00:50:00.042-05:00

Updated 6/6/11

Barry Sheft, a newsman and part-time DJ at KTRH; courtesy of Texas Radio Hall of Famer Bud Buschardt.

Chad Lassiter, first all-night talk host on KTRH, courtesy of Sam Lester.

The following photos are courtesy of Charlie Pena. Because of the size of the post and because I may add to it over time, I've experimented in this post with including smaller images in the post; it is still possible to see larger images by clicking on them.

A fascinating document, believed to be in Jesse Jones' own hand. It's dated a month before the sale of KUT to Jones was okayed by the FRC and on Texas State Hotel stationery rather than Rice Hotel stationery. Because of the mention of the Columbia Chain this must've been a projected budget for KTRH. And are the figures monthly or yearly? $175 a month for an announcer sounds like a princely sum.

Shots of the KTRH facility on the La Porte Highway, today's 225, probably taken in early 1930 after the move had been approved by the Federal Radio Commission but before operations began in Houston. I have always assumed the building faced the present day highway as later buildings on the site have done (KXYZ occupies the site today), but is the roadway pictured in front of the building the highway or just a driveway? Just a few years earlier, in the mid-1920s, there was no paved highway to Austin and no bridges over some streams that had to be crossed but this would have been a heavily traveled route on weekends as Houstonians made their way down to La Porte to Sylvan Beach Park and Bayshore Park. Perhaps the buildings faced in an easterly or westerly direction.

In the twenties and thirties and beyond, communities and broadcasters were proud of their broadcasting facilities and picture postcards were produced showing off buildings, often with the antenna in the background. I've searched for such postcards for the Houston stations and this is the closest I've seen. It at least identifies the Rice as the home of KTRH.

An unknown technician and what appears to be an electrical transcription machine and a portable one at that. Before the advent or wire recorders and, thankfully, tape recorders, this is how recordings were made by radio stations for rebroadcast or time-delayed broadcast. A large, long playing disc was produced which could be played back immediately.

KTRH owner Jesse Jones.

The group includes station owner Jesse Jones and comedian Jack Benny. I'm guessing the man on the left is a station announcer and the woman is a listener. It was a lot easier for network radio programs to go on the road than it is for TV shows and many shows, if not most, traveled, especially quiz shows and comedy shows. Benny may have been in town originating his show from KTRH or may have been in town for some other occasion. The show probably would have been performed live on the stage of the Music Hall or one of the big downtown movie houses rather than the KTRH studios so a large live audience could be accommodated.

A country music band, probably referred to as a hillbilly band at the time. Correspondent Andrew Brown has identified the fiddler as Dickie Jones and the group as Dickie Jones and his Rhythm Riders. Jones had several bands and performed in the Houston area a lot; this group was active ca. 1948-1950. The female may be Helen Smith. In the 1940s and early 1950s all the stations in town except KCOH aired at least some hillbilly music.

Unknown group although the person second from the right appears to be W. Albert Lee, owner of KLEE and KLEE-TV. He was associated with the Houston Fat Stock Show and Rodeo for years and because of the cowboy hats this may have something to do with that event. It's been suggested that's film star Tom Mix beside the microphone but it doesn't look like him to me and that's not his trademark style of hat, plus IMDB says Mix was 6 feet tall which would make 3 other men in that photo around 6'4". The gentleman on the right looks familiar and may have been a Harris County Sheriff.

Pictures like this make it evident how 'mic flags' got their name.

An unknown keyboard performer, possibly a station employee or a visiting artist.

This appears to be a man-in-the-street program, possibly on the sidewalk along Texas Avenue outside the Rice Hotel. Judging by the vehicles visible in the background and in the reflection and by the military uniforms, I'm guessing this was in the 1940s and after the end of World War II. This was long after Vox Pop had gone to the network but there would have been may occasions for a man-in-the-street program.

Dr. Ben Oldag, on the left, and Bill Zak (corrected). This is the most recent photo in the collection and probably dates from the 1970s.

Thanks again to Charlie Pena for sharing these photos and if anyone can help with identifying any of the individuals pictured, please contact me by email or post a comment.

The KTRH Transmitter in 1930

2010-08-10T09:12:00.013-05:00

I have been sitting on this clipping for several years hoping to come across a better picture of the transmitter itself, but to no avail. So I decided to go ahead and post it. The description of how the transmission process works is priceless so I've posted the article in its entirety instead of trying to summarize it.

This is the 1000 watt KUT transmitter that Jesse Jones purchased and had moved down from Austin, according to legend in the back of a pick-up truck (must've been piled pretty high).

The explanation under the photo reads: "...part of the KTRH apparatus housed in the modern hollow tile and concrete building at Deepwater, .... From right to left the control panels govern first, amplification, and application of speech to transmitter; crystal control for keeping frequency at 1120 kilocycles and the large water-cooled tube for building power up to 1000 watts. From the power tube the program is sent to the tuning house, antenna and ground whence it takes the air route to your receiver.

One side of the building houses the radio equipment, while the other is ideally arranged for the home of T.F. Smith and his family."

I'm not an expert on 1930s era broadcast equipment but I wonder if the article got it's directions reversed and it should read left to right? Perhaps some blog reader can comment.

This was one of many congratulatory ads published in the special section of the Chronicle when KTRH launched. It was just a bit too large for the scanner bed; all that is missing was the address and phone number of the advertiser, 1010-12 Main St., Fairfax 1361.

KLOL - 1974

2010-08-09T19:48:00.010-05:00

The KTRH brochure published here and here included these pages on sister station KLOL-FM. The brochure makes reference to KLOL approaching its fourth year; the station launched in August, 1970.

Jesse Jones - Houston Radio Pioneer

2010-08-09T18:48:00.021-05:00

Charlie Pena has managed to reduce the size of the KTRH brochure excerpted here and has forwarded it to me in a form which fits on my scanner. Here is the cover and two pages devoted to Jesse Jones, KTRH founder.

Other sources have identified Tilford Jones of KXYZ as Jesse Jones' nephew, not cousin.

In a history published in 1990 for the 60th Anniversary of KTRH John T. Jones explained the origin of the name of the Rusk Corporation. He said they were casting about for a name that wasn't used and decided to name it after a Houston street. They began at Buffalo Bayou and started ticking off the street names until they got to Rusk, which happened to be the street their offices were located on.

This portion of the brochure was followed by four pages of text and photos on KTRH as already published on the blog plus two more pages of photos.

This was followed by a section on sister FM KLOL-FM.

How KTRH Talked Its Way to Greater Success

2010-07-02T09:45:00.031-05:00

This is a brochure produced by KTRH promoting their News-talk format and it's another item shared by Charlie Pena. The brochure was apparently produced ca, 1973 - it makes reference in the text to having been doing the format for 11 years and from another source I know KTRH launched news-talk in 1962. The station flipped to an all news format in July, 1974.

The copy is too large to scan as a whole so I have broken it down into sections which are arranged below in the order they appeared; the brochure was 3 columns wide with text at the top and photos below; it probably had at least some color but the copy is only black and white. Only a couple of comments are necessary for explanation below.

This photo is not tagged but I believe it is another photo of Jack Ford who also appears in another photo below. Corrections are welcome.

One photo from the brochure was clipped and showed only half the face of weekend news editor Carl Cramer so I have not used it.

Another thanks to Charlie Pena for sharing this material.

See the rest of this brochure published here and here.

Marty Ambrose - Rest in Peace

2010-07-01T14:24:00.005-05:00

I was sad today to learn of the passing of Marty Ambrose, long time traffic announcer in Houston, who succumbed to the ravages of Lou Gehrig's disease. If at any time in the last 30-odd years you've ever been stuck in Houston traffic and turned on the radio to find out what the problem was and how to get around it, then you've heard Marty. His calm and reassuring delivery probably did as much to ease the pain of the situation as any information he had to pass along.

He was there at the beginning of traffic reporting in Houston and I met him back in the 70s when I was at KODA. I seldom actually worked with him on the air as I seldom worked in drive-time shifts but I know he was as nice a guy as you could ever want to meet and a total professional.

My condolences to his family and to the greater Houston radio family on the loss of a great one.

Here's a recent interview Channel 13 did with Marty.

And the Chronicle published a nice tribute to Marty on July 4th.

A History of Houston Broadcasting, 1990

2010-06-30T22:11:00.025-05:00

Twenty years ago an employee of KTRH, Philip H. Boudreaux III, produced a history of Houston Radio: The First Sixty Years. The 33 page essay is fully annotated and was based on newspaper research and personal interviews, particularly concerning events in the more recent years. I think what I have is only a draft, judging by editing marks and simple typos; there are some facts stated which are in conflict with some information I came up with but Boudreaux also uncovered some important facts that I had not been able to find.

I'll be incorporating this material in articles already posted on this blog, giving credit to Boudreaux, but here are a few of the more significant findings:

In my article on the launch of Alfred P. Daniel's WCAK I reported that Anna Clyde Plunkett had claimed in 1955, commenting on Daniel's death, that she had participated in the first radio broadcast in Houston on Daniel's station but failed to give the date or what station. Boudreaux reports the concert was on May 22, 1922, on Daniel's WCAK, not his earlier amateur stations, and it was one of the Houston Post-Dispatch sponsored concerts. From this we know that this was certainly not the first radio broadcast in Houston. Hurlburt-Still's WEV had commenced weather broadcasts on April 12 on 485 meters and the Post-Dispatch had reported on May 11 on a broadcast of an entertainment program on 360 meters on WEV which clearly was not the first by that station.

Plunkett had apparently actually claimed to be the first soloist to perform on Houston radio but even that claim does not hold up. David Westheimer, Radio-TV editor of the Post in 1955 had headlined the story 'First Performer Tells of Initial Broadcast.'

Regarding the decision of Ross Sterling, Sr., to start a Post-Dispatch radio station, it's been reported in several sources that it was his son Ross, Jr., who was interested in radio and talked his dad into taking action. Boudreaux says Sterling had two sons, Walter and Ross, Jr., and both were interested in radio and convinced their dad to buy the 500 watt Westinghouse Electric transmitter. Additionally, when the decision had been made to proceed with the station after a period of mourning over the death of Ross, Jr., Sterling turned to his son Walter to name the station. He picked the call letters KPRC to stand for Kotton Port, Rail Center. I don't know that anyone has claimed for sure who picked the call letters though I had speculated it was Daniel's suggestion.

Later in the decade when the Post-Dispatch took over the Fort Bend School Board's KGHX and moved it to Houston to be a sister station to KPRC, Sterling again turned to his son Walter to pick some call letters. He chose KTLC, to stand for K-The Largest City, referring to Houston as the largest city in Texas.

These facts came out in an interview with Walter Sterling in 1982.

Regarding the naming of KTRH in 1929, it would seem to be self evident: Jesse Jones owned the Rice Hotel and the new radio station which was to have studios in the hotel, but according to an interview with John T. Jones, it wasn't quite that direct. The elder Jones had originally wanted to put the radio station in the Houston Chronicle building but met with resistance from the paper's editor, W. O Huggins, so Jones turned to his hotel manager who declared he would be happy to provide space for the station provided it was irretrievably tied to the hotel. Hence the call letters KTRH which were announced as meaning K - The Rice Hotel.

Everything I have seen has identified Tilford Jones, head of Harris County Broadcast, owners of KXYZ, as Jesse Jones nephew. Boudreaux identifies him as a cousin.

My thanks again to Charlie Pena of Clear Channel Radio for sharing this material with me.

A Wealth of Information

2010-06-30T21:51:00.006-05:00

I recently had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Charlie Pena, Facilities Manager for Clear Channel here in Houston. He put together the very impressive tribute to KPRC's 85th anniversary and a display of the histories of the CC stations in the office and studio complex. I had the opportunity to tour that very impressive facility with Charlie and then we sat down and he shared with me even more. Charlie is a history buff and he's been in the position several times over the years to save memorabilia from the stations he's been associated with. And now, he's offered to share some of his material with the readers of this blog.

Over several posts I will be making use of that material including photos and documents from KTRH's 80 year history, an article on KTRH as an all news station in the 1980s and a history of Houston broadcasting put together 20 years ago by a KTRH employee.

My thanks to Charlie for sharing this material; all of us who are interested in the history of radio in Houston owe him a debt of gratitude.

Tim and Bob

2010-06-06T21:20:00.031-05:00

I have nominated Tim Nolan and Bob Byron, KPRC's Tim and Bob morning team for 15 years, for the Texas Radio Hall of Fame this year. The Hall is relatively young and there are perhaps thousands of broadcasters who deserve to be included yet to be nominated. So far those inducted have tended to be the still-living and there's a notable shortage of founders, pioneers and stars of earlier decades. I'm hoping readers of this blog and others who are voting members of the Hall will use at least one of their votes each year to recognize those who've gone before us in this industry.

I had to provide a brief bio of both guys for the Hall so I'm expanding upon that here and providing some retrospectives of their careers. My thanks to the children of both Tim and Bob for helping me gather this information. I will be posting a gallery of pictures in the near future. It will include at least 20 pictures, which will present a problem for some users, so I will post it in the archive and include a link here. There will be photos of their St. Patrick's Day Parades and other promotions and antics.

Tim Nolan

Robert T. Nolan was born in East Liverpool, OH, in 1921. According to his daughter Pat his mother urged him to leave town so he wouldn't end up working in the steel mills so he headed west to Hollywood and went to radio school, then took a job at KXLA, Pasadena, CA.

In 1947 he joined the staff of KREL, Baytown (1360 AM) when it first signed on and eventually rose to be the General Manager. By the mid 50s he was doing mornings on KXYZ, 1320; there's a picture of him in the KXYZ brochure in the KXYZ Gallery.

In March, 1957, Jack Harris hired him away from KXYZ to join KPRC where he was eventually paired with Bob Byron, who had previously worked at KLBS and was already on the air at KPRC, to do mornings. It's been said that Harris hired him initially with the intention of creating a team but it wasn't until 1958, apparently, that the team started working together. Initially they had separate shifts then Harris had them doing an hour of their shows overlapping. The team was to be together on the air until 1973.

According to son Tommy, Tim was a Little League coach, Usher at St. Thomas More Catholic Church and an all-round great guy. He had many serious health problems in later years but always bounced back and was back on the air in just a couple of weeks. He had offers to go elsewhere but his wife always convinced him that the Hobby's, owners of KPRC, had treated him so good that he should stay put and he listened to her.

Bob Byron

Bob Byron was born Bobby Eugene Allee in Martinsville, IN, in 1926. He is believed to have gotten his start in radio in the Chicago area. According to his daughter Judy Bonham he hated his name and had it legally changed to Robert Byron Allee, taking the name of a favorite uncle. In February, 1951, he accepted a job working for Roy Eisner at KECK, Odessa, TX, and spent a year or so there. In 1952 he took a job at KLBS (610) which had been taken over from the estate of W. Albert Lee by Gordon McLendon's Trinity Broadcasting in February. He stayed with KLBS after McLendon sold the station but left sometime before McLendon re-purchased it in 1957 to flip it to KILT.

In the late 1950s while teaming up with Tim Nolan on the morning show he also hosted a Teen Time Dance Party on Saturday afternoon on KPRC-TV. I had first heard Byron on KLBS and he was one of my favorite jocks on that station and part of my inspiration for eventually getting into radio. I liked Byron's dance show better than Larry Kane's much more popular show on Channel 13 but where I lived I couldn't hear KNUZ so I had no idea who Kane was.

According to Billboard Magazine in 1962 Byron spearheaded a drive to collect gifts for US Servicemen on duty in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This was just weeks after the final resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis; the US quarantine of Cuba had been lifted on November 20, 1962, and the US troops there had undoubtedly been much on the minds of people.

After the Tim and Bob show was taken off the air in May, 1973, Bob continued to work for KPRC on the TV side. Billboard, in noting the end of the Tim and Bob era, said he would be doing the announcing weekend evenings on TV. Judy Bonham says he was happiest entertaining people on the radio and awkward on TV; he also intensely disliked one of his bosses on the TV side and in 1978 contacted his old friend in Odessa and returned to West Texas to finish his career at KECK.

In 1964 the Houston Sales Association named Tim and Bob the Top Radio Salesmen for the year; that same year, a Billboard survey named them the top influence on album sales, according to record promoters, distributors and store owners. In 1966 a feature section on the Houston radio market in Billboard said comedy was the backbone of KPRC's programming and it hinged mainly on the success of Tim and Bob and their antics. The station and the team were again named overwhelmingly the top influence on album sales in the city. Program Director Tom Reiff said the station had gone to pains to encourage it's jocks to the extent that many advertisers refused to supply copy for schedules run on the station, instead preferring that the djs adlib and have fun.

Tim Nolan died in 1985; Bob Byron died in 1997 in Louisville, KY.

For additional information, here's an article on Tim and Bob by J.R. Gonzales of the Bayou City History Blog in the Chronicle.

And here's a thread about Tim and Bob in the Historic Houston forum on HAIF.

KGUL-TV Original Transmitter Site

2010-06-06T10:47:00.023-05:00

When Channel 11 signed on in 1953, the transmitter was located at what was then Arcadia, described as half way between Galveston and Houston but actually much closer to Galveston. I've just learned that the original building is still standing, although perhaps not for long. Arcadia has since been incorporated in Santa Fe along Highway 6 and the site is just to the east of and behind Santa Fe High, on Tower Road at Maple.

View Larger Map

Here's the article on this blog about the launch of KGUL-TV.

KPRC turns 85

2010-05-04T23:35:00.003-05:00

Charlie Pena is putting together the tribute on the website and doing a great job.

Check out the history and the gallery.

They'll be taking comments and memories from listeners and former staff.

The Beatles in Houston and KILT

2010-04-26T21:41:00.016-05:00

Postcards from Texas on Houston's 55 has done a feature on the Beatles only appearance in Houston, in August 1965. They talked with a couple of sisters who got to go to the show and interviewed Texas Radio Hall of Fame member Chuck Dunaway, who grew up in Houston and started his career in the Houston area and who was a disc jockey at KILT at the time, the station which sponsored the concert. Chuck reveals why Ringo Starr was so eager to come to Houston.

The show will be rebroadcast this Friday, April 30, at 1:30 pm or you can watch Part I of the feature online in this clip and Part II here.

The Larry Kane Show - KTRK-TV

2010-04-17T15:05:00.019-05:00

Larry Kane was a dj in Houston in the 1950s who had a popular dance show on Channel 13 on Saturday afternoons, Houston's version of American Bandstand. I haven't done anything on the blog yet on KTRK-TV but I came across this article from Billboard about the show and thought I'd include it here.

The show was discussed in this thread on HAIF with some comments by kids who participated. There was a link to some photos but it looks like that link is defunct. And Larry Kane and other shows were discussed in this thread.

Incidentally, I have been in touch with descendants of both Bob Byron and Tim Nolan for a planned feature on the Tim and Bob show. One of Byron's descendants is seeking information about the teen dance show he hosted on KPRC-TV also in the 50s. If anyone has any memories to share, please contact me through the comments or my email link on the profile page.

KLVL Feature on Postcards from Texas

2010-04-08T21:06:00.005-05:00

Postcards from Texas on Houston's 55 has done a feature on KLVL and the Morales family.

Watch the clip online here.

Great story; lots of good pictures of the radio station, info on the family plus some of the early performers and programs.

A KPRC-TV Gallery

2010-02-08T22:22:00.034-06:00

Correspondent Andrew Brown has come through again with a great picture of the KPRC radio and TV complex on Post Oak about where the Williams Tower now stands which the station occupied from 1953 to 1972.

I passed through those doors a number of times as a young kid. My Mother wanted to be on TV and appeared on several audience participation shows in the early days of TV including Darts for Dough, a game show hosted by Dick Gottlieb. This was my earliest exposure to broadcasting.

The book The Fault Does Not Lie With Your Set, written by Jack Harris, Paul Huhndorff and Jack McGrew, has many pictures in the back of the book including people, equipment and facilities. Here is a scan of one page with two shots of the building.

The bottom photo shows the scene on opening day when thousands of Houstonians turned up for a tour and open house. According to the book, operations began from the new facility on March 20, 1953, but other sources give the date as March 29. The new, state-of-the-art facility used a converted quonset hut to house the studios, as had been the case at the original KLEE-TV site, just a half mile south on Post Oak Rd.

KGUL-TV signed on in Galveston on Channel 11 on March 22 and for the first time KPRC-TV had competition for viewers.

An ad from Broadcasting Yearbook, 1960.

There are many pictures of KPRC-TV in the Bob Bailey Collection at the University of Texas, listed in the Off Site Galleries on the sidebar. I have only been able to find the following few using their search feature which requires that you know the way the picture was tagged:

This shot shows the KPRC staff assembled in the courtyard of the new building.

This shot dated 1960 shows the staff assembled in a studio. My guess is the gentleman in the dark suit at the front is Jack Harris, General Manager of KPRC Radio and Television. UPDATE: The correct date for this picture is 6/15/1950 - see the comment below by Bill Bremer.

This shot shows Director Alfred Hitchcock and actress Anne Baxter appearing as guests on a program. Athough the show is not identified, my guess would be this was Matinee, a daily afternoon variety/talk show that came on at 4 pm hosted by Dick Gottlieb, who appears on the right in the picture. I don't remember that set from Matinee, however. From the date, this must have been in the old building.

Here's another shot of the same set-up. Note the picture on the wall which is probably Buff Stadium. Baxter was starring in the Hitchcock film I Confess which was released on March 22 so they were probably in town to promote the movie. For Anne Baxter fans there are several more pictures in the collection of her at the time of this visit. There is one more picture of the studio setting but it shows nothing different.

Newsman Lee Tucker.

There is a photo of Ron Stone somewhere in the collection but it is mislabeled and I can't remember what name was on the picture so I can't find it.

As mentioned in this recent post, the feature on Post Cards from Texas on Channel 55 included many photos of the early days KLEE-TV/KPRC-TV. That post also included a link to a Chronicle feature with a couple of pictures.

While Bill Calder was a disc jockey on KPRC-AM in the 1960s he had a late night talk/variety show on Channel 2 that followed the Tonight Show. The Bill Calder website, maintained by his son Alex, includes 8 pictures of the show (plus photos of Calder during his days at KXYZ and KPRC radio in Houston).

The KTHT Cruising Studio - Another View

2009-12-03T23:47:00.006-06:00

Andrew Brown has found yet another article on the KTHT Cruising Studio, this one from the June 18, 1948, Houston Post. I'll just publish this one without further comment except to say - love those big air horns!

The original article, updated, with more pictures and information, is here.

More on the Marvin Zindler tapes

2009-11-19T11:12:00.006-06:00

The Bayou City History Blogger, J.R. Gonzales, has continued to post excerpts from the Marvin Zindler tapes but not all of them have been in The Roving Mike series. Recently J.R. posted what I guessed were excerpts from the production music library at KATL and just yesterday revealed excerpts from a live country music show that ran on KTRH with Western Swing musician Bennie Lueders, whom Gonzales tracked down and interviewed in Bastrop.

J.R. is hoping to be able to make more of the Lueders recordings available; if anyone can advise or help him, please contact him on his blog, by making a comment or emailing him from the link on the sidebar.

Thanks once again to J.R. for publishing these excerpts and stories and giving us a fascinating glimpse into what radio sounded like in Houston in the early 1950s.

There were probably live country music shows on every station in town in those days and besides that, on local television in the early days. One of these days, I'm planning a piece on my memories of Houston television's country music shows like Utah Carl and Curly Fox and Miss Texas Ruby and others.

A Feature on the Early Days at KLEE-TV/KPRC-TV

2009-11-03T12:28:00.024-06:00

I just recently discovered Postcards from Texas, a great program on Houston's 55, KTBU-TV, on Sunday afternoons. It's hosted by Mike Vance and takes a historical look at stories from Houston and South East Texas. I found out that back in May they did two segments on KLEE-TV, Houston's first television station, with interviews with some of the people who worked there in the early days, a couple of engineers and a copy writer among them.

There are some factual errors, among them the claim that KLEE-TV was the 12th television station in the nation (one authoritative list counts 48), that after the change of ownership KPRC-TV had the market to itself for only a few months (it was almost 3 years), but all in all it's a great bit of reporting. Many of the remembrances actually apply to KPRC-TV after the change of ownership but that milestone is not mentioned until almost the end of Part 2. There is also a different account of how W. Albert Lee came to be involved in TV from that recounted by his biographer, Hilton Waldo Hearne.

With Mike Vance's help I was finally able to locate the video clips online, under the My Houston's 55 Community on the navbar on the station's website, so all can enjoy. (The program that included these two episodes will be rebroadcast on December 13).

Check out the videos. There are no video clips of the early days, of course, but there are lots of great still shots of the people and equipment.

Part 1

Part 2

Additionally, when the Chronicle's Bayou City History blogger, J. R. Gonzales, first touted the program back in May, he dug up a couple of stills of KPRC-TV from the Chronicle archives that are worth checking out.

Check out Postcards from Texas on 55, Sundays at 4pm, rebroadcast the following Friday at 1:30.

Pioneer AMs in Texas

2009-11-01T07:13:00.002-06:00

Chris Huff of the DFW Radio Archives has compiled a list of the first 40 AM stations on the air in Texas.

As followers of this blog already know, none of the first ones in Houston survived but there is one Houston station on the list, KTRH, which started in Austin, of course.

The 1960s - KIKK, Talk Radio, KODA, KENR

2009-10-29T19:49:00.019-05:00

Most of the new station activity in Houston in the 1960s would take place on the FM dial; it was to be as active an era on FM as the 1920s or 1940s had been on AM. By mid-October, 1960, there were already two new FMs on the air as KARO-FM took to the air at 94.1 megacycles the weekend of the 15th and 16th. There will be more about this in the FM Chronology. Normally the launch of a new station would have had the radio industry buzzing but not only was there little publicity regarding the launch of KARO, industry types and many others were busy talking that weekend about the news of a Vice Squad raid at the offices of KILT. It was front page news in the Chronicle on the 15th with a follow-up story on Sunday. It seems the HPD Vice Squad had gotten a tip there was an office pool at KILT and, equipped with a betting slip provided by the anonymous tipster and a marked $1 bill, moved in on Friday afternoon. An undercover officer entered the station at 500 Lovett Blvd. and said he was there to place a bet. The slip and money were taken by a young copy writer, whose name is omitted here to protect the innocent. The officer then went back outside and motioned to the uniformed officers to move in. The copy writer was promptly arrested and just as promptly fainted.

The problem seemed to be that bets had been taken from persons outside the employ of KILT; one account alleged an employee of Air Call, which was located across the lobby from the KILT offices and I believe co-owned, had been allowed to place a bet the previous week and the young woman said she thought the man was an employee of one of the other companies in the building; she also had reportedly commented after the undercover officer left that she didn’t think they should be taking bets from non-employees. Felony bookmaking charges were filed; the $1000 bond was posted by the station.

Station Manager Bill Weaver was indignant. The next day Mayor Lewis Cutrer called Weaver to apologize for the raid and both men agreed the Vice Squad should have better things to do, but the Vice Squad officer who set up the raid, Capt. H. L. Ellisor, and the Police Chief both backed the action. The total netted in the raid was 11 betting slips and $9.00 (two of the bettors had not anted up). Weaver observed the Vice Squad must have been very busy the previous week during the World Series as there had been rumors of $1000 betting pools in town; Ellisor said no raids had taken place because no complaints had been filed. Weaver also said he had been told there was a betting pool at HPD the previous week.

I wasn’t in town at that time but I have my suspicions about who the anonymous tipster was.

In mid-December the Chronicle’s Open Mike column published an article headed ‘Dial a Station and Talk, Talk, Talk’ noting a growing trend of telephone talk shows on the radio. KXYZ had launched an evening program called Expressions a few months earlier and was so pleased with the results, plans were already being made to add more talk shows after the Christmas season, according to GM Cal Perley, but this did not come to pass. A change of ownership in a few months led to cancellation of Expressions and dismissal of some employees; the show would resurface later on KFMK-FM.

KTRH had noted the trend and launched a call-in program called ‘At Your Service’ which took calls on a wide range of topics. The Chronicle article opined that eventually talk, talk, talk might become so pervasive there’d be little room for rock ‘n roll on the radio. It took the rise of FM radio and a couple of other factors but that prediction, which must have seemed highly unlikely at the time, eventually came true.

Whether Expressions was the first listener participation talk show in Houston is not known and the Chronicle did not mention any other local stations that had latched on to the trend.

In the same column the Chronicle reported that KNUZ program director Ken Grant was talking about an unusual success story for that time of year, an album doing a brisk business and drawing lots of listener calls that had nothing to do with Christmas. The Humorous World of Justin Wilson had been aired on both KNUZ and sister station KQUE-FM and there were reports it was breaking sales records.

On March 19, 1961, formal transfer of ownership of KTHT to Winston-Salem Broadcasting from Texas Radio was completed. General Manager Sam Bennett resigned and the new owners unveiled a new moniker for the station, Red Carpet Radio. Within a few months the station would become known as Demand Radio 79.

On May 1, 1961 KRCT changed call letters to KIKK, again proclaiming the switch in a big ad in the Chronicle. A story in the TV section of the Chronicle the previous day helpfully noted the DJs would refer to the station as ‘kick,’ ‘for kicks.’ Owner Leroy Gloger told the Chronicle reporter the change came about because research had shown call letter confusion among listeners. By that time, the station had studios in the Montague Hotel at 804 Fannin at Rusk as well as in Pasadena.

According to Roy Lemons, who worked for KIKK during most of the 1960s as Sales Manager, the KIKK call letters were the idea of a San Antonio country broadcaster A.V. 'Bam' Bamford, who owned KBER in San Antonio. Bamford knew that the calls had been dropped by a California station. He also came up with the "boots" symbol over a drink at the Montague. The logo was designed by Don Newcomer, a Heights resident who charged $250 for the soon-to-be-famous KIKK design.

The ad in May, 1961, just used block lettering for the call letters; it is not known yet just when the familiar boots came to be used for the ‘k’s but it is believed to be at least by 1963.

In the first week of June the FCC approved the transfer off KXYZ from NAFI Corp. of Los Angeles to Public Radio Corporation of Houston. The new owners consisted of Lester and Max Kamin of Houston and Morris Kamin of Victoria; they also owned stations in Tulsa and Kansas City. Lester Kamin had been involved in advertising and radio since at least the 1940s when he was a disc jockey in an era when disc jockeys were often well known people who hosted shows spinning records in addition to their other jobs. Sam Bennett, formerly of KTHT, came aboard as GM and Milt Willis, PD of KTHT, came aboard as the new Program Director.

Within a few days, Bill Roberts’ column in the Post announced that Cal Perley and Ken Collins had departed KXYZ. They had been closely associated with the Expressions program and announced they were already talking to KFMK about re-launching the program there.

July 31, 1961 saw the beginning of KODA-AM at 1010 kc, a daytimer and the first new Houston AM radio station in more than a decade, joining its sister station KODA-FM which had taken over KPRC-FM in 1958 as KHGM-FM and recently changed call letters to KODA-FM. KODA-AM brought the ABC Radio Network back to Houston; ABC had been dropped by KXYZ several years earlier and carried for a while by KWBA, Baytown. The station featured ‘good music’ news, sports and a traffic helicopter, the KodaBird. KODA-AM and FM were owned by Paul Taft of Taft Broadcasting who originally had been General Manager of KGUL-TV, Channel 11, Galveston in 1953. Taft also owned the Muzak franchise for Houston. Westinghouse Broadcasting, Group W, bought KODA-AM and FM in 1978 and quickly spun off KODA-AM which changed call letters to KLAT, La Tremenda, obtained permission to become a 24 hour operation, and still operates on 1010. The KLAT calls went into use on August 29, 1979.

KANI, Wharton, signed on June 17, 1962, at 1500 kc and those calls are still in use.

At the end of June, 1967, LIN Broadcasting of Nashville purchased KILT and KOST-FM from Gordon McLendon for $15 Million dollars. McLendon said he had plans to purchase a UHF station in the market when one became available.

January 17, 1968, KENR, ‘Keener,’ became only the second new AM signal in the market in the decade at 1070 kc. Originally a daytime only station, KENR expanded to 24 hour a day operation within a couple of years. The format was country.

Bill Edwards of Saginaw, MI, was the owner and he told Chronicle TV/Radio reporter Ann Hodges the station was the culmination of a nine year dream. Edwards, who had apparently never even been to Houston before his permit was granted, said nonetheless he had been fascinated by Houston for years and considered it the ‘most exciting and most profitable of major radio markets’ and was proud of his engineers for finding a way to squeeze the station in on the crowded dial. Jack Fiedler of WNUS, Chicago, was to be the first General Manager. Edwards also owned WKNX-AM/TV in Saginaw.

Although the station had a good run as a country station, it eventually left that field to KILT-AM/FM and KIKK-AM/FM. The station tried country gold and then aired a radio magazine format for a while. For a while it was known as KRBE-AM and carried classic rock and simulcast KRBE-FM. The call letters in use on 1070 now are KNTH; it is a newstalk station.

Brief Postscript on the 1970s

In 1974, KEYH, started broadcasting at 850 kc; originally a news station it’s now a Spanish station, still operating with the same call letters. Also that year, KACO, Bellville, signed on at 1090 kc. The station on that frequency now uses the old Houston call letters KNUZ and is a Hispanic religious station.

To be Continued.

FM Chronology - The 1950s - Part 2 - KFMK-FM, KHGM-FM, KHUL-FM, KRBE-FM and a Gordon McLendon permit

2009-10-24T13:35:00.018-05:00

It was not until 1958 that there were any further changes on the FM dial in Houston. A list from ‘North American Radio and TV Station Listings’ by Vane A. Jones for that year has four FMs again listed for Houston: KFMK, 97.9; KPRC-FM, 102.9; KTRH-FM, 101.1, and KUHF, 91.3 KFMK-FM was the first commercial FM on the air in Houston without a sister AM. The station was apparently ready to go on the air in mid-January, 1958 but had to await regulatory approval and finally got on the air Sunday, February 2nd at 5pm. The station operated with 10,000 watts from the Medical Towers Building at 1709 Dryden. The newspaper listings showed the frequency just as 98 mc but later as 97.9; the format was popular music. Bob Gardner, who had previously worked at KLBS before it was taken over by McLendon and in Beaumont radio and at KTRK-TV, was the General Manager.

Interest in FM broadcasting was beginning to pick up around the country and before the year was over there were more developments on the FM dial in Houston. In November of 1958, Paul Taft purchased KPRC-FM and changed the call letters to KHGM-FM which stood for ‘Home of Good Music’ or ‘Houston’s Good Music.’ The call letter switch took place at 1pm on Sunday, the 9th of November. Taft had resigned as General Manager of KGUL-TV, channel 11, earlier in the year and formed Taft Broadcasting.

Just before the switchover, KPRC-FM had been operating only from 6pm to 11pm daily and the new ownership meant an expansion of broadcast hours. KTRH-FM was on from 1pm to 12 Mid, KFMK-FM from 8am 12 Mid and KUHF-FM from 7am to 9:30pm.

On April 26th of the following year, KHGM-FM moved to 99.1 mc, signing on at 12 Noon after being off the air for 24 hours to complete the changeover of equipment. The station boasted 49,000 watts and claimed to be the most powerful FM in Houston. This apparently coincided with a move to a new facility at 4810 San Felipe on the city’s far west side. Ads highlighted the station was to be a showcase of ‘tasteful music,’ 17 hours a day with the library having been selected as a result of a survey of 2000 homes. The regular broadcast day was to start at 7am.

On July 1, 1961, the call letters of KHGM-FM were changed to KODA-FM to match an AM sister station. KODA-FM is still on the air today on 99.1 MHz and as the heir to KPRC-FM is believed to be the oldest FM in Houston and either the first or second oldest FM in Texas, depending on whether KPRC-FM was on the air continuously in the 1950s. KODA-FM was later to claim to be only the second station in the nation to broadcast full-time in stereo. Meanwhile the KHGM-FM call letters were later used on a station on 95.1 mc in the Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange area.

Taft Broadcasting was also to operate the Muzak franchise for Houston in addition to an AM station, KODA-AM, and was also involved with the first sound system at the Astrodome and as a contractor for NASA. Taft Broadcasting LLC is still in business, run by Paul Taft’s son, Philip, although they have not owned any broadcast properties in Houston since 1978.

At least two more and possibly three new FMs started broadcasting before the end of the decade. A story in the Chronicle in eary September said KHUL-FM would be on the air on September 22 but it was not until 7am on October 4, 1959, that the station started broadcasting on 95.7 mc. The call letters of this station were pronounced ‘cool’ and initially it operated 24 hours a day. Studios were located on the 15th floor of the Park Towers, a high rise apartment building at 1700 Holcombe Blvd. at Braeswood which is no longer standing. T. A. Robinson, Jr., President and owner, said the station would program ‘tasteful arrangements’ of music by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rogers and Hart, Oscar Hammerstein, Vernon Duke, James Van Heusen, Lerner and Lowe and Duke Ellington.

KHUL has been remembered fondly as a jazz station by many but that can not be confirmed from the newspaper accounts and early listings; it may have evolved into a jazz station later. An ad in 1963 touted ‘All Night Jazz’ and ‘Swinging Standards all day and evening.” An ad for the station in 1964 mentioned ‘Jazz after Midnight’ in addition to other special programs and did not claim it was a full time Jazz station.

A typical program schedule in the papers in late 1959 showed KHUL Start at 6am, KHUL, Calm and Collected at 12:05pm, KHUL and Refreshing at 3:05pm, KHUL of the Evening at 6pm and KHUL All Night at 12M with news 4 times a day. Those program titles could refer to easy listening programming.

The twenty-four hour a day broadcast schedule did not last at KHUL-FM. An ad for the station in early 1962 said KHUL ‘Stays up til 2am, Friday Saturday and Sunday, Midnight Monday thru Thursday’ and could be found ‘Just Under 96 on Your Dial,’ for ‘Good Music and News.’

The station changed hands and call letters in the mid to late 60s becoming KIKK-FM and operating as a country station for more than three decades before becoming a smooth jazz station, KHJZ-FM, The Wave, in 2001. It is now Hot Hits 95-7 (KKHH).

On the same day the paper announced KHUL’s impending launch it also noted KUHF-FM was installing the first stereo control room in the city and KHGM-FM had published a program guide.

At 6pm on November 8, 1959, KRBE-FM came on the air at 104.1mc. This was originally a full-time classical music station with studios in the 1400 Hermann Drive high rise apartment building across from the Rose Garden in Hermann Park. Some have asserted the calls were because the station was located on Kirby drive just north of US 59 but the station did not move there for almost a decade. Ads appearing in the papers the day the station launched indicated the call letters stood for ‘The Key to Radio Broadcasting Excellence” but it has also been noted the calls happened to be the initials of the owner’s business, Roland Baker Enterprises.

Ellis W. Gilbert was the President and General Manager and also had an air shift. Gilbert had just recently resigned as manager of KTRH-FM, which also scheduled a lot of classical music, and according to a story, had been known as ‘Mr. FM’ in the early 50s when he hosted ‘House of Music’ on the ‘now defunct’ KYXZ-FM. Other air personalities included Roy Landers, Eamon Grant and Eddie Bates. The station has had the same calls throughout its history.

According to the history of Dallas radio station KLIF Gordon McLendon owned an FM in Houston in 1959 with the call letters KZAP-FM but exactly how those calls figure into Houston radio history is not clear. Gordon McLendon was one of the first to recognize the value of ‘parking’ call letters that he wanted to use and that may be what happened in this case. When McLendon bought a San Francisco AM and flipped it to KABL, the previous call letters KROW were assigned to his proposed FM in Houston. Later, McLendon switched the KROW calls with his proposed calls for an FM in Dallas, KOST-FM, and that is the call the Houston FM signed on with. Just how KZAP figures into to this is not clear. The first mention of KOST-FM, 100.3 mc, is not found in radio listings until mid-1961 and when it actually first got on the air is not known. I have found only one listing in the Houston papers for a KZAP-FM, much later in the 1960s.

FM Chronology - The 1950s - Part 1 - KUHF-FM, the end of KXYZ-FM

2009-10-20T20:17:00.009-05:00

At the beginning of the decade of the 1950s there were four FMs on the air in Houston. The first year would see KOPY cease operations in the Spring and KUHF-FM launch before the end of the year. A list published in the Broadcasting Yearbook for 1950 shows KXYZ-FM, 96.5 mc with 15,000 watts, KTRH-FM, 101.1 mc with 33,000 watts, KPRC-FM, 102.9 mc with 57,000 watts, and KUHF-FM, at 91.3 mc, which had a Construction Permit for 9600 watts.

Both KUHT and KUHF have station histories on their websites and the story of KUHT as the first educational TV station in the nation is well known. According to the KUHF web site, that station signed on November 6, 1950, making it at least the 4th oldest FM station still on the air in Houston and the oldest one with the original call letters. There have been several hiatuses in KUHF’s history and some may have lasted as long as several months but at the present time there is no evidence the license ever lapsed.

The Chronicle took note of the launch of KUHF-FM on Sunday, November 5th, noting the station would go on the air at 91.3 megacycles for six hours a day on the 6th with the formal dedication services set for December 1. The facilities were in the tower of the new Ezekiel W. Cullen building which had just been dedicated the week before; 5 stations had provided live coverage of that dedication, a big day in the history of the University. The new station’s facilities included two studios that could hold more than 100 people each. Dr. Wilton Cook, Chairman of the Fine Arts Department, was in charge of the station. He said the plans were to use as few transcribed programs as possible, to allow radio majors at the University to get as much experience as possible and expose as much on campus talent as possible. A leased line to KTRH would make it possible for that station to air simulcasts and re-broadcasts of some KUHF programs to reach a wider audience that didn’t have an FM receiver.

I understand the staff of KUHF-FM has been researching the station’s history for the upcoming 60th anniversary in 2010; I’m hoping they will come up with an audio retrospective. The station website includes a brief chronology of important milestones in the station’s history.

Besides the 4 Houston FMs, White’s Radio Log for Winter, 1951, a national monthly publication, listed KREL-FM, Goose Creek (Baytown) at 92.1 and KLUF-FM, Galveston, at 98.7. Neither of these were to last.

For the next several years the FMs that were on the air in Houston struggled with the same problems facing FM operators across the country: few listeners and poor advertising revenues. As far as is known there were no new stations either applied for or on the air in Houston until late in the decade and as of September 10, 1953, the number of stations dwindled to just three as KXYZ-FM ceased operations. The station was to remain silent until late 1961 when it returned to the air with the same calls and frequency. Fred Nahas was President of the radio station when it ceased broadcasting; it had been programming Classical and semi-classical music. Nahas said all the staff would be devoted to putting KXYZ-TV on the air, a UHF station that they hoped to launch on Channel 29 in 1954 but never did.

Charles Nethery

2009-09-18T18:24:00.006-05:00

Some punchlines just write themselves and some blog posts do too. I received the following communication from Tim Campbell with attached photo concerning his grandfather, one of the early announcers on KXYZ.

"I really love your site.

My grandfather, Charles Nethery, worked at KXYZ in the 1930's.

He was on of the regular announcers, etc. He left KXYZ somewhere in the late to mid 40's with T. Frank Smith, Sr. to start a radio station in Corpus Christi -- KRIS AM. This later developed into KRIS TV in 1956.

Frank Smith worked at KXYZ in upper management.

He stayed with KRIS & Frank Smith Sr until he retired in 1977. He was VP Programming, news anchor, editorial commentary, etc. He did it all.

He died five years ago --- lived a long healthy life to 93 years old.

I am sending this pic that I found and keep in my office -- he is probably in his late 20's. I figure it was early in KXYZ -- early 30's???

My brother has a box of pics /clips from KXYZ early days in the Texas Hotel and later in Gulf Building.

One story was -- my grandfather tied himself to a pole on top of the Gulf Building to provide "live" coverage of a hurricane.

If I get more-- I will share."

Thanks, Tim. We'll be looking forward to hearing from you again with more pictures or more stories.

Solved Mysteries - The KLEE-TV Reception Hoax

2009-09-14T20:35:00.004-05:00

Most people probably never would have heard of Houston's short-lived first television station were it not for a widespread story of its signal mysteriously being received in England, three years after it had ceased operations (call letters changed to KPRC-TV).

The hoax took years to unravel and not until after it had appeared in the pages of Reader's Digest and become widely known. Even today, long after it has been debunked, the story continues to raise its head from time to time.

Snopes has a full explanation.

Marvin Zindler on KATL

2009-09-02T04:50:00.003-05:00

JR Gonzales of the Bayou City History blog in the Chronicle has notified me he's come across some audio tapes of an old Marvin Zindler crime reporting series on KATL in the early 1950s called The Roving Mike. There will be several installments throughout the month. Here's a link that will take you to a file with all the posts.

Check it out. It's going to be a fun month!

The 1950s Part II - KILT, KILE, Galveston, KRCT,Pasadena

2009-08-28T11:47:00.013-05:00

Updated 6/18/11 to add information about the change of ownership of KRCT.

Around the end of February, 1957, the McLendon Investment Corp. completed purchase of KLBS from the Howard Broadcasting Corporation for $535,000, thus repurchasing the station Trinity Investments had owned from 1952-1954. It was said to be the largest cash transaction in Houston radio history. Glenn Douglass, General Manager of KLBS, told the Chronicle there was much speculation on the part of the staff about what was to happen as McLendon was known for making wholesale personnel changes when he took over a station. The line-up included Bob Yongue doing mornings, Bob Gwyn, Dave Chase, Mark Noble and Mike McKay. The station was airing a number of paid religious programs daily including Rev. Lester Roloff at 7am, an Assembly of God program at 9am, Unity Viewpoint at 9:15 and a Dr. Weber from 9:30 to 10am.

On the fifth of May, Jack Harris, GM of KPRC-AM/FM/TV announced the radio stations would begin Houston’s first regular stereo broadcasts that week, from 9:05 to 10pm, five nights a week. Listeners were to tune one station to the AM, another to the FM to get the stereo effect. KPRC-FM PD Ronald Schmitt had secured more than 80 hours of programming that would include music outside the regular Classical fare of the FM station.

The same day, Bill Weaver, a new GM at KLBS, told the Chronicle changes at that station would be coming in a couple of weeks. Weaver had been brought in from KTSA, San Antonio. The big changes were announced just a week later on May 11 and occurred on May 14, a Tuesday, although the new calls, KILT, appeared in the Chronicle the previous afternoon.

The new line-up included Eliot Field from Boston doing mornings, Bob Stephens of Miami on 9a-12N, Art Nelson from Dallas on early afternoons. Don Keyes of San Antonio was the Program Director and did afternoon drive. The newspaper schedules showed Buddy McGregor, 6-9pm, and Bob Adams, 9pm-12M. Other deejays announced included Tom Fallon of Kansas City, Mike Whalen and Bob Horn of Philadelphia and Joe Long of Knoxville as News Director. Mike McKay and Mark Noble were the only holdovers from the old staff; McKay did overnights while Noble was not listed in any slot for several weeks. All the religious programming was dropped.

A full page ad in the Post was designed to look like a Wanted Poster with six pictures bearing only serial numbers and warned Houstonians to be on the lookout for

‘...these men. They are about to steal the Houston radio audience. These men have begun operations on Color Channel 61 Today. These colorful characters are highly entertaining. Their deep resonant voices will ‘con’ you into listening to KILT, Houston’s new radio voice, around the clock every day.

REWARD: Twenty four full hours of daily listening pleasure.

After Field left for a gig in Los Angeles, Keyes took over as morning man.

The same week of the big flip, Tim Nolan moved from the job as morning host on KXYZ to the same post at KPRC where he soon was to be teamed upwith Bob Byron, a KLBS-ex, to form Houston’s first duo team in morning drive, Tim and Bob; they were to be together for more than a decade.

For more on my memories as a kid of listening to KLBS and KILT, see my ‘Thanks for the Memories’ segment here:

KNUZ, expecting tough competition from the new station, had just purchased a helicopter and ran ads promoting itself as Houston’s only radio station with wings and touting its top ranking. The helicopter had just been put in use when some heavy flooding hit the area and was used in exclusive reports.

Toward the end of the summer a group of Galveston businessmen completed the acquisition of KLUF from it’s founder and owner George Roy Clough and his sons. Clough, whose name was pronounced cluff, hence the call letters, was, even by his own admission, a contentious man who made many enemies and brought a lot of attention to Galveston, not all of it favorable. The son of a telegraph operator and former race car driver, Clough’s knowledge of radio had led him into the field but by this time he was serving as Mayor of Galveston, said to have run initially because he was angered over a city water bill and vowed retribution. He served two terms as Mayor but lost a re-election bid for a third term and a subsequent try for city council. For years he operated a radio and television shop next to his home at 34th and Ave P. He died in November, 1966.

The new call letters for the station were KILE and it debuted on September 2, 1957, at 6am. According to GM Robert. L. McClellan there was all new equipment and programming. Tim Lewis was News Editor and the staff also included Bill Bance, Tom Beck and Warren Anderson. The morning show was called Hit the Deck while an afternoon program was called Teen Tempos. Most old-timers in the Houston/Galveston area will remember KILE as a Top 40 station and it has had many alumni working in Houston radio.

The call letters of this station are now KHCB and it has recently been relicensed to League City.

The first week of October, 1957, KRCT began broadcasting from new studios at 227 East Sterling in Pasadena. The station always ran lots of ads in the Chronicle with the first concerning the changeover appearing on October 2 proclaiming a Grand Opening going on the 3rd thru the 6th with everyone invited to stop by to visit the new facilities. $1000 worth of door prizes were to be given away. The on-air schedule included Hal Harris from 6a-10a, Gabe Tucker, formerly of KATL and KLEE from 10a-1p and Sleepy Bob (Bob Everson) from 1-5pm. Leroy Gloger liked to claim that 650 was Houston’s only ‘clear channel’ station but the clear was assigned to WSM, Nashville, the Houston station was always limited to daytimes only. Over the years the station was also promoted as the ‘Voice of Labor.’ The format was always country.

An application for approval of the sale of the station was announced November 18, from W. D. Christmas to John H. Touchstone and Leroy J. Gloger for $175,000. Touchstone had been a 7 % owner; he and Gloger were to be equal partners under the new ownership. The transfer was approved a month later. In March of 1959 they sought approval of a transfer of the license and CP from Bay Broadcasting to Industrial Broadcasting noting this was a corporate change only, not a change of control. This was granted in mid-May. Touchstone was President, Gloger was Vice President and General Manager.

KRCT was to become KIKK in 1961.

The image above is from the Galveston Daily News.

Update to the KXYZ Gallery

2009-08-17T11:50:00.003-05:00

Twelve images from a brochure published in the 1950s have been added to the KXYZ Gallery, originally published on 5 August 2009. Scroll down or find the gallery under the KXYZ station profile on the sidebar.

Tim Nolan and Bob Byron

2009-08-10T21:54:00.004-05:00

I've been working on an article on these two broadcasters, most famous as the duo of Tim and Bob on KPRC for nearly 15 years, but I've been beaten to the punch by JR Gonzales of The Chronicle, who published an article on the show today.

It's a good article. JR has access to the archives with an index so he found a lot more than I had found but I've been in touch with descendants of both Tim and Bob and will also have a lot more on their respective careers with, I hope, more pictures.

In the meantime, don't miss JR's article.

A KPRC and KPRC-FM Gallery

2009-08-08T02:06:00.028-05:00

Update 6/9/11: Photos of KPRC-FM and KPRC-AM from June, 1949, and an ad from 1965 have been added below.

A letter by Alfred P. Daniel, program director of KPRC, dated 1932, confirming a date and time for a prospective guest on a KPRC program. The image in the lower left is the Post-Dispatch building on the southwest corner of Polk and Dowling showing the flattop antenna on top (see below for another image). By this time the KPRC transmitter and antenna were located at Sugar Land and the former KPRC antenna was being used by sister station KTLC. The image in the upper right is the Post-Dispatch 'skyscraper,' 22 stories tall, on the corner of Fannin and Texas, now the Magnolia Hotel. The building was completed in 1926 and starting February 3, 1926, KPRC programs began emanating from a suite of three studios on the top floor that were to become known as the Skyline Studios of the Houston Post-Dispatch. They had a view of perhaps the whole city at that time as this would have been one of the tallest buildings in town.

Image courtesy of Andrew Brown.

For a very good shot of the Post-Dispatch skyscraper dating probably from the late 20s, see the first post in this thread on HAIF.

Alfred P. Daniel, Dean of Houston Radio. Owner of Houston's second radio station, WCAK, program director of Houston's first radio station, WEV. First program director and announcer on KPRC in 1925. Photo by Paul Huhndorff, published in Jack Harris' book The Fault Does Not Lie With Your Set.

The Houston Post building, originally the Houston Post-Dispatch building, on the southwest corner of Polk and Dowling, now demolished. First occupied in 1925 just weeks before KPRC signed on. The radio station occupied the structure on the roof for the first nine months of its existence but had long since moved out of the building when this picture was taken. Photo by Al Shire from the website Toasted Posties.

Judd Mortimer Lewis, early KPRC children's show performer 'Uncle Judd,' Post columnist and first Poet Laureate of Texas. Lewis' great grandson Judd Perry maintains this website devoted to his poetry.

The following photos are courtesy of Robert Wilford, an engineer at KPRC, and date from June, 1949.

Pictured is Raymond Franks in the AM Master Control. Franks was a student at Rice who worked at KPRC while going to school and moved to California on graduation.

This is Jim Bailey taken in what was called the 'broom closet' at KPRC-AM. It was located at the end of a hallway. According to Robert Wilford, Jim was a very good announcer with a voice to match. He was the one who did the Houston Symphony broadcasts originated by KPRC for the Texas Quality Network (WSAI, WFAA, KARK) weekly. The broadcasts were sponsored by the Texas Gulf Sulfur Corporation.

An ad from Broadcasting Yearbook, 1965.

KPRC-FM

The following pictures are also from Robert Wilford. All the photos date from June, 1949.

The FM control room, located in the City National Bank Building at Main and McKinney, a new building at that time but since demolished. The transmitter and tower were atop the building. The people are unidentified.

The FM transmitter.

Robert Wilford is shown working on one of the 250 FM receivers that were being installed in the city's buses as mentioned in this blog post. The other people are unidentified.

An unidentified piece of equipment.

This gallery will be listed under the KPRC station profile on the sidebar and will be added to from time to time as more pictures become available.

A KXYZ Gallery

2009-08-05T03:46:00.039-05:00

Twelve images have been added to this gallery since it was first posted with the latest update being 17 August 2009.

A KXYZ Rate Card from 1936.

A KXYZ ad dated January 20, 1949

A KYYZ ad, undated.

Some KXYZ stationery and a letter from one KXYZ engineering employee to another in the Army in World War II. Dated 1942 the stationery shows KXYZ was using the color green long before Glenn McCarthy took over (the 1936 rate card above is a pale lime-green color).

The ads and letter are courtesy of Andrew Brown.

The following images are from a brochure published by KXYZ in the 1950s. Although a letter from Fred Nahas makes reference to KXYZ serving Houston for 27 years (KTUE became KXYZ in August, 1930), there are other clues that the brochure was published in 1956 or perhaps early 1957, such as the reference to Buff Baseball on KXYZ in 1956 and the fact the morning man pictured, Tim Nolan, left KXYZ in March, 1957, to join KPRC.

The first 2/3rds of the brochure dealt with Houston and its history, with images from over the decades, plus modern photos of the city and its industries and landmarks and some shots of outlying communities. I have posted only the images from the last third of the brochure dealing directly with KXYZ.

There are numerous images of Houston radio people of the era, some of whose careers were just beginning and others who were at their peak, plus one of Ted Hills, who had been involved in Houston radio since the 1920s and served as program director of several stations over the years.

These images are from the archives of the Houston Public Library.

This gallery will be listed under the KXYZ station profile on the sidebar and may be added to from time to time.

The 1950s - Part I - KLVL, KMCO, KLBS, KBRZ, KCOH, KYOK

2009-07-24T14:14:00.020-05:00

The number of stations on the AM dial in the Houston/Galveston area continued to grow throughout the 1950s but at a much slower pace than in the 1940s. By the end of the decade, FM began to come into it’s own.

As mentioned previously, KLVL signed on May 5, 1950, at 1480 kc, licensed to Pasadena. (Posts including mentions).

On April 16, 1951, KMCO signed on in Conroe at 900 kc. In 1979, the call letters of the Conroe station were KIKR; presently, KREH, licensed to Pecan Grove and a Vietnamese language station known as Radio Saigon, operates on the 900 frequency.

After the death of W. Albert Lee in November, 1951, Trinity Broadcasting Corporation purchased KLEE from his estate for $300,000. Trinity was made up of B.R. and Gordon McLendon of Dallas and oilman Hugh Roy Cullen of Houston. They owned KLIF, Dallas, KELP, El Paso, and the Liberty Broadcasting System. The station’s new calls were to be KLBS and the change took place on April 25, 1952, probably at midnight since both stations operated 24 hours a day. Ray A. Lewis was general manager of Trinity; Tom Cavanaugh was to be the General Manager of KLBS.

Gordon McLendon also said plans were being made to move the Liberty network’s headquarters to Houston from Dallas by sometime early in 1953 with about 150 jobs accompanying the move. KLBS would be the key station of the Liberty Broadcasting System and there would be a 100% change in the programming of the station. “Our goal is to salute Houston daily with top local and national entertainment, public interest and sports features,’ McLendon told the Houston Chronicle. The proposed move never took place as the network fell apart. McLendon was to sell KLBS in less than 2 years, only to repurchase it in 1957 and flip the call letters to KILT.

The Liberty network’s re-creations of baseball games had been a huge success and are what the network is mostly remembered for but there was a full range of programming offered including soap operas and newscasts originating from Washington, D.C., with such noted journalists of the day as William L. Shirer, Raymond Gram Swing, Joseph C. Harsh and John C. Vandercook. By the end of 1950, Liberty was supplying programming 16 hours a day and by August, 1951, had 431 affiliates, second only to the Mutual Broadcasting System. In Houston, LBS programs were heard on KATL. Less than a year later, 100 of the affiliates had pulled their affiliations, the broadcast day had been cut to 8 hours and the network was unraveling. Finanical problems were at the fore, with the loss of a $1,000,000 advertising contract with Falstaff beer the biggest single blow. This is what had led Hugh Roy Cullen to buy a stake in the network. Cullen, probably the richest Texan of the period, was impressed with McLendon and put $1,000,000 into the company without ever looking at the books. The network continued to lose money, however, and a second major blow was the refusal of Western Union to provide the wire service accounts that were necessary to the re-creation of ball games, a refusal that was upheld by a Federal judge in Chicago on April 14, 1952, one day before the start of the ‘52 baseball season.

For a first hand account of a McLendon sports recreation, see Don Keyes' account of working with McLendon, posted online a few years ago. Keyes was to be the National Program Director of the McLendon station group in later years, after the demise of LBS, and did mornings on KILT in Houston in the late 50s, being most famous for a flag-pole sitting stunt at Gulfgate Mall in 1957 (story here).

For a history of Gordon McLendon and his Liberty Broadcasting System and his ‘home’ station KLIF, see this excellent, comprehensive site maintained by Steve Eberhart. Also see the biography Gordon McLendon: The Maverick of Radio by Ronald Garay.

In October, 1952, KBRZ, Freeport came on the air at 1460 kc with studios and transmitter on the old Angleton-Velasco Rd., now known as FM 523, just outside of the Village of Oyster Creek, and with the antenna in the salt grass prairie abutting the Intracoastal Waterway. Chuck Dunaway worked at KBRZ in the early 50s and chronicled his experiences there in his This Is the Way I Remember It. By the late 50s, Jim Hairgrove, who owned KFRD in Rosenberg, had bought the station. Hairgrove also served as a State Representative from Lake Jackson and President of the Texas Association of Broadcasters. Curiously, though it was a natural, he did not like his station to be referred to as K-Breeze. This webmaster had my first on-air experience on KBRZ in the winter of either 1958 or 1959, co-hosting a Teens Against Polio radiothon, broadcast live from Brazosport High School in Freeport.

The first week of August, 1953, a group of investors headed by Robert C. Meeker acquired the license to KCOH and announced plans to change the programming over to serve Houston’s Black community. The office, technical and sales staff were to be retained but an all new air staff would be brought in. Vernon Chambers, who for three straight years had been voted one of the nation’s best Black disk jockeys, was named program director. Walter Rubens was the commercial manager. KCOH was the first Black-owned radio station in Texas according to the Handbook of Texas and only the second programmed for a Black audience in the state.

The official switch over of programming was supposed to be on August 21, 1953, but a look at the daily listings indicates the changes may have been made gradually or the station might have already been programming some toward the Black audience before the change of ownership. Programs included Harlem Breakfast and Harlem Nights, Tuxedo Junction and Cool and Easy. It is, of course, impossible to know what the musical content of those programs was just from the names. On the 21st, the newspaper schedule showed Chambers Corner, King Bee and Hattie Holmes, Sweet and Solid, Jammin’ Jamboree, Swing Low, the Rhythm Parade and the PM Ramble on the schedule.

A similar switch seemed to be taking place on KATL in the same time period. Program listings included Dixie Downbeat, RFD 1590, and the Chuck Wagon Call that had been the station’s morning show for years, but also Trummie Cain and Ramblin’ Round, both of which were later seen on KCOH schedules. In early 1954 King Robinson, General Manager and part-owner, announced that he and William H. ‘Little Eva’ Talbot, majority owner, had received an inquiry from a couple of Louisiana businessmen interested in buying the station. An announcement was expected soon and it came on the 15th of January. Jules Paglin and Stanley Ray, who owned stations in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Lake Charles, bought KATL for $200,000. Their group was known as the ‘OK’ chain and they were considering KYOK as new calls on 1590. No changes in programming were planned, it was stated.

KYOK was to become Houston’s second Black radio station; program changes apparently were brought into place gradually. Like most stations, KATL/KYOK was block programmed. Paglin and Ray eventually were to own a chain of black radio stations, including WBOK, New Orleans, WGOK, Mobile, WLOK, Memphis and WXOK, Baton Rouge. The new calls first appeared in the listings in the Chronicle on March 10 but not until March 18 in the Post.

In the summer of 1954 KYOK program listings still included Chuck Wagon Call, Let’s Polka, Gabe Tucker, Serenade in Blue, Kosher Kitchen and Hillbilly Hits, along with Sweet Chariot, Hotsy Totsy, Spiritual Sunbeams, and Little Betty. Hotsy-Totsy was to be a name of a KYOK jock for years. Tucker, a country dj, had worked on KATL, KLEE, and was to be on KRCT and KIKK for years.

Other stations, including KREL, also played rhythm and blues but KCOH took note of the new competition running ads touting itself as ‘Houston’s First and Only Negro Radio Station.’ The line-up on 1430 by this time included Chamber’s Corners, King Bee, Hattie Holmes, the Great Montague and Ramblin’ Around. A real estate program had been added on Sunday afternoons, patterned after a successful show on KXYZ, presented by a Black realtors association and aimed at Black homebuyers. It has also joined a new network, the 45 station strong National Negro Network, and started airing the first network program, a soap opera called Ruby Valentine, daily at 11am. There were plans for 3 more soaps and a dramatic series; network programs were distributed on tape.

Dan Ammerman - RIP

2009-05-13T19:08:00.002-05:00

Dan Ammerman

One time anchor of the Channel 13 News, before the long tenure of Dave Ward. Few in broadcasting in Houston today will remember him, perhaps, and I barely do since I was away from the area during much of the time he was lead anchor.

KTHT's Cruising Radio Studio

2009-05-05T11:33:00.008-05:00

Note: This article was edited and revised on October 17, 2009, to add two images and additional details, courtesy of some new finds by Andrew Brown.

Roy Hofheinz was an innovator. I’ve mentioned before that he was one of two individuals I’ve discovered in the course of this research project who most interested me. He made enormous contributions to the history of radio in this city, contributions which also had an impact elsewhere. One story I’ve wanted to tell for some time is the story of the KTHT Cruising Radio Studio.

There are only a couple of paragraphs in Edgar Ray’s bio of Hofheinz and I have wanted to find a picture and more details to do the subject justice. I have found the remodeled facilities for newspaper research at the Houston Public Library very unaccommodating, with no adequate lenses for scanning newspapers on the readers whose screens are uncomfortably high. Fortunately, though, Andrew Brown has shared clippings from his collection which provide a view of the entire unit plus glimpses of the interior of the unit and a very full description.

The first two images are from the station newsletter. I’m not sure which newspaper the clipping and the last photo is from, nor the exact date. From the typeface I’m tempted to guess the article appeared in the Houston Post but it would have been unusual for the Post to give such a glowing report on a competitor’s radio activities. The article mentions the unit was already en route to Philadelphia for the Republican convention which took place in June, 1948. The article in the station newsletter said the unit left Houston at dawn on June, 12.

One of Hofheinz’ hobbies was woodworking; he had hired an expert cabinetmaker, Stuart Young, to design and build the cabinetry for the KTHT studios and turned to him again for the building of the unit which the article says Hofheinz personally helped out on. Also involved was architect Bailey Swenson and two of the station engineers including O.B. Johnson.

The two-piece unit, built at a cost of $25,000, consisted of a gleaming, streamlined 26-1/2 foot trailer and a one ton truck that acted as power supply. The colors were green and silver. It could operate off a conventional 110 volt power source and public water hook-up but could also generate its own electricity to power the transmitting equipment and had a self-contained water supply.

There were sleeping quarters for four and dining accommodations for 10 (or 6 - both numbers in different parts of the article), including a complete galley that doubled as a photographic development studio. A powerful public address system, siren and powerful spotlights were included as well as a complete weather station with barometer, wind indicators and thermometers for use in covering hurricanes. The truck included storage facilities for remote equipment including the wire recorder and lengthy extension cords, complete parts and tube inventory, plus a monogrammed refrigerator and freezer. Hofheinz, always known as a generous host, would treat his guests at the conventions, in New York City and Washington to ‘Houston Fat Stock Show filet mignons and Texas shrimp,' served on monogrammed dinner ware with monogrammed napkins.

The three compartments in the trailer included an air conditioned and sound-proofed studio, a combination control room and galley with two shortwave transmitters, two transcription recorders plus playback turntables, 3 all-wave receivers, a consolette with 6 microphone channels, and a miniature control board, plus standard kitchen equipment including stove, refrigerator, cabinets and sink. The full-size beds in the sleeping quarters folded into sofas for daytime use; there was also an on-board bathroom. Walls of the studio and control room were decorated with photographs of KTHT’s news and public affairs involvement.

According to the article en route to Philadelphia the unit would stop in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Jackson and Washington, D.C. (Ray says the stop at D.C. took place on the way home). Between the conventions, the unit was taken to New York City and parked outside Rockefeller Center; network officials, celebrities and ordinary New Yorkers were invited on board for a tour. In D.C., the unit was parked outside the FCC and shown off to the Commissioners and staff and engineers.

At the conventions, runners went in and out of Independence Hall keeping in touch with convention activities; a leased line back to Houston was ‘kept pretty hot’ according to engineer Johnson, who also noted the unit attracted great attention. Interviews with important politicians were also transcribed for later broadcast. As at the UN sessions in San Francisco with the wire recorder in 1945, it was unprecedented for a ‘little radio station to be broadcasting as well as the networks.’

Back in Houston after the conventions, the unit was used to cover community events and major news stories (it had perhaps been inspired by the station's efforts to cover the Texas City explosion the previous year and a hurricane in 1946) and sent to schools all over the area to show students how radio programs were prepared and broadcast and recordings made.

Once again I am very grateful to Andrew Brown for sharing these finds.

A KTHT Gallery

2009-05-02T19:59:00.011-05:00

A KTHT Rate Card, published just months after the station signed on.

I am grateful to Andrew Brown for sharing this piece of memorabilia.

Photos labeled KTHT in the Bob Bailey Collection at the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. The personalities are Ted Nabors and Dick Gottlieb.

Photos labeled K.T.H.T. in the Bob Bailey Collection at the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. Roy Hofheinz.

At the time of this post those are the only photos in the collection that are online, apparently, but there are many more in the catalog.

Other Broadcasting related discussions online

2009-04-27T17:33:00.089-05:00

UPDATED 11/21/11

In addition to the articles sometimes published in the BCH blog relating to broadcasting, there have been many discussions on HAIF, the Houston Architectural Information Forum, about radio, TV, and personalities. There's a link to the Historic Houston forum on the sidebar but some of the discussions have also taken place in the Houston and the Media Forum. Here are some of the threads from the last year and a half or so. In some cases relatives of the personalities or participants in the shows discussed have contributed information but mostly it's memories (and sometimes, a few facts).

Radio related threads

KIKK

Tim and Bob, KPRC morning team

Alvin Van Black, KPRC and KTRH talk show host and KTRK-TV reporter

Paul Berlin, other KNUZ jocks, and the Larry Kane show on Channel 13

A KRBE Promo Stunt from the 1970s

TV Related Threads

A Thread on Houston TV Talk Shows over the Years

Larry Kane and Other TV Dance Shows

A Larry Kane Show clip

Don Mahoney and Jenna Clare, children's show hosts

More on Jenna Clare

Walter Cronkite

Kitirik

A Kitirik clip

Past TV Anchors

Ray Miller's Passing

TV Reporters

More on Past TV Personalities

KVVV-TV, Channel 16

Vintage Houston TV Commercials

A thread about Houston TV station sign-offs

Texas - the NBC soap, 1980s

Houston College Bowl TV show

In addition to these threads which have a historical connection, there are many threads on HAIF on the Houston and the Media board about broadcasting today, format changes, personality comings and goings, and other matters.

Some Threads on Music, Artists, Venues and Concerts

Liberty Hall

Bands and Orchestras from years gone by

Don Robey's Peacock Records

Rock Concerts of the 60s, 70s, 80s

Utah Carl

The Catacombs

P. J. Proby's early career in Houston

Famous Locations that no longer exist (mostly country nite clubs)

Features on Broadcasters

2009-04-25T12:21:00.016-05:00

UPDATE BELOW AS OF 5/15/9

J.R. Gonzales' Bayou City History Blog at the Chronicle continues to fascinate and every now and then he does a feature related to radio or television in Houston.

Several readers of this blog have contacted me with advice on how to link to the individual posts so I'm editing this article to make it easier but I still encourage people to just click on the main link above - JR's blog is very enjoyable whether it's about broadcasting or not.

Check out his posts on the following:

Long-time Houston radio and TV personality and wrestling promoter Paul Boesch.

Cadet Don of KTRK-TV.

Kitirk, Channel 13's mascot.

Early Houston radio pioneer Will Horwitz of WEAY and XED.

UPDATE: JR touted a TV show that covered early TV in Houston. The show has come and gone but there are pictures in JR's article.

(Besides the devious option noted in the comments you can get a direct link to individual posts by opening the 'Comments' or, if present, clicking on 'Continue Reading,' when the article is not all published on the main page of the blog).

A Day in the Life -

2009-04-25T09:17:00.008-05:00

...of a Houston radio listener. Sunday and Monday, December 5th and 6th, 1937.

Note Frank Tilton, the blind pianist from the early days of KPRC, on KTRH at 6:15pm Monday and Vox Pop with Dr. I.Q. that evening at 9pm.

Note also Don McNeill's Breakfast Club on KXYZ, Monday morning at 8am. KXYZ had just joined the NBC Blue Network in August.

The 1940s - Part 9 - KCOH, KFRD

2009-04-20T11:40:00.007-05:00

Just two and a half months after the launch of KNUZ, KCOH signed on at 1430 kc. The station ran teaser ads in the papers leading up to the first day of broadcasting which was May 5, 1948. The ads invited listeners to "Take the One Day Listening Test." The station referred to itself as Radio Penthouse and it was intended to be a ‘good music’ station; it’s studios were located in penthouse on top of the M&M building at Number 1 Main Street, now the University of Houston, Downtown. The stories announcing the new station in the Post and Chronicle emphasized there would be no hillbilly music and no noisy commercials.

Manager John Pace said not only would the station steer clear of hoedown-type music, it would lean toward the classics and try some new approaches in Houston radio. The programming would be 80% music, 20% news, sports, and public affairs. The music would range from classics through semi-classics and light concert to popular dance music with no hot jazz or jump tunes. There would be long periods of music uninterrupted by commercials and commercials would be presented softly, with just voice and background music. Starting the day with ‘light’ music, the programming would build to a 40 minute program dedicated to the Houston Symphony at midday.

It seems likely the station took its programming ideas from former Houstonian Lee Segall who may have been the first licensee. Segall had relocated to Dallas the previous year after failing to get an AM/FM license combo in Houston and put KIXL-AM/FM on the air, pioneering the Good Music format. KCOH also had a license for an FM station but the station was never put on the air.

It’s been concluded that KCOH was a classical station for the first few months but that is not apparent from the program listings; it appears to be what would come to be known as an easy listening station and was referred to in news stories subsequently as a ‘good music’ station. Easy listening or good music stations in those days frequently included ‘light classical pieces’ in their library and did so into the early 60s. It’s also true that KCOH, like most stations, was block programmed. Reading the radio guides in the papers in those days, one would frequently find scheduled classical music programs on any of the stations. NBC had it’s own symphony conducted by Arturo Toscanini, perhaps the most famous conductor of the era. On just one day in 1950, the Chronicle’s daily Radio Guide pointed out Houston listeners were to have the choice of a broadcast of a live Houston Symphony concert on KPRC, a transcribed concert of the Oklahoma City Symphony on KCOH, and a live concert by the New York Philharmonic on KTRH-FM.

The call letters KCOH have been said to stand for “City of Houston,” “Call of Houston,’ ‘Classical over Houston,’ and ‘Kilo Cycles over Houston.” Call of Houston, Inc., was the name of the company, headed by William A. Smith, K.C. Hughes and Ed Hoffman. John H. Pace, formerly of Wired Music, Inc., Houston’s first piped-in music service, was general manager and Phil Harlow, formerly of KXYZ, was program director.

KCOH was sold to Robert C. Meeker in 1953 and became the first Black owned radio station in Texas and perhaps only the third in the nation. KCOH is the second oldest AM radio station in Houston still using its original call letters. It is now a 24 hour a day operation.

On November 15, 1948, KFRD, Rosenberg, signed on at 980 kc. According to the city history on the Rosenberg website, the principals were Mart Cole, Sr., Wendell Shannon, D.I. Lowem, Walter Shult and Julius Junker. The city website gives the year as 1947. This station has featured country music, polka and Hispanic programming over the years. It currently is KRTX is a Tejano station.

A Day in the Life -

2009-04-20T11:21:00.010-05:00

...of a Houston radio listener. From the Houston Post, Wednesday, February 18, 1948, the first day of broadcast of KNUZ, 1230.

Gallery IV - Miscellaneous Ads

2009-02-24T22:38:00.019-06:00

Published in November, 1922. Bering-Cortes was one of the forerunners of today's Bering Hardware.

Once upon a time, everything in radio was battery-powered, not just receivers but studio and transmitting equipment, too. And we're not talking a couple of AAs, either. Batteries had to be charged up, of course. Automobiles did not have generators or alternators so garages were set up to service, i.e., charge, batteries and they serviced home batteries, too. One such business in Houston was the Hurlburtt Still Electric Co. who also obtained the first broadcasting license in Houston, for WEV, and whose garage on McKinney at San Jacinto served as the station's studios.

These ads were published in the Scripps-Howard Houston Press in the fall of 1950 when the newspaper and radio station were sharing news coverage and reporting. Gordon McLendon's Liberty Broadcasting System was heard over several radio stations over the years. KATL was the first affiliate.

Published July 23, 1960.

The ads for KFMK, KHUL, KODA, KRBE and KTLW all appeared in the Houston Now section of the Houston Post for August 4, 1961, which was shortly after KODA first signed on. I have misplaced my original for the Lone Ranger on KODA ad and do not know the date.

An ad from Broadcasting Yearbook, 1964.

Following are some ads from the broadcasting trade papers sent to me by Chris Huff of the DFW Radio Archives.

KLBS, 1957

An ad for the Veterans Broadcasting group of stations; date unknown but has to be later than late 1961.

KTHT, 1956

KYOK, 1956

A business card for Utah Carl, a Galveston performer on KLUF (1400),KGUL-TV and KTRK-TV, sent to me by Dave Westheimer.

My apologies for the quality of some off the images, the result of over-inked newspapers and the impossibility of getting a decent print off of a microfilm printer sometimes.

KATL and the Press

2009-02-24T17:18:00.012-06:00

The Press had been one of the applicants for a station on 1230 kc before the War and was one of the parties notified when the FCC reopened the license hearing on the petition of Roy Hofheinz in 1944, but the Press’ representative was off to the War and didn’t receive the notice until several months later. After getting on the air, Hofheinz formed a close working relationship with the Press and his new station apparently; he did the lion’s share of his advertising for KTHT in the Press and the paper covered station activities much more closely than it reported on the doings of the other stations in town - of course, both the Chronicle and the Post had their own broadcast outlets in KTRH and KPRC. News of KTHT activities, including the use of the first wire recorder, the GI house project, extended coverage of election returns, the cruising radio studio, KTHT-FM and others were frequently the topics of front page stories, or, if not warranting that much coverage, usually would be above the fold on page 2.

KATL had signed on just after the disastrous explosion at Texas City in 1947 when all the Houston stations distinguished themselves with their coverage, and by late that year had formed its own close working relationship that would give the Press a very large voice on the Houston radio dial and deepen KATL’s coverage of the news.

The KATL - Press agreement was headlined center page on page one on December 2, 1947, heralded as a public service of the two entities. 'See it in the Press, Hear it on KATL' was the catchphrase. ‘Press Time’ was to be broadcast 5 times daily, 3 times on Saturdays and twice on Sundays, live from the Press building at Chartres and Rusk. It would feature freshly gathered news, on-the-scene broadcasts with coverage by both KATL and the Press, ‘flavorsome’ special broadcasts, covering as many interests as the Press did itself, and special sponsorship of certain events such as a spelling bee, election returns, etc. It was described as a public service effort strictly, not for business purposes.

The broadcasts would be 10 to 15 minutes in length except for one scheduled on weekdays from 2:30 to 3pm (the Press was an afternoon paper) which would involve foreign correspondents, Washington reporters, comic strip artists, experts in fashion and cooking, chit-chat with entertainers and more. Saturday programs would be for ‘the kids.’ Sports Editor Clark Nealon, who later went on to be Sports Editor of the Post, would also contribute as would the Press’ popular columnists, Carl Victor Little, Andy Anderson, the Press’ Rambler, and The Stroller, Sigman Byrd.

A lavish reception was held at the Rice Hotel for both staffs to get acquainted and reported on also in the Press.

KATL for its part produced a brochure about the new alliance and blog reader Andrew Brown has shared some images from that brochure which show the announcers and engineers of KATL as well as some glimpses of equipment and the Press setup. I’m very grateful to Andrew for sharing this material.

I have a couple of captures of my own from the newspaper article which I will get around to uploading but they are not nearly as good as these.

Felix Hessbrook Morales

2009-02-19T18:03:00.009-06:00

EDIT: JUDGING BY THE MANY PHOTOS INCLUDED IN A STORY ON POSTCARDS FROM TEXAS ON HOUSTON'S 55, THIS IS NOT MR. MORALES. AT THIS TIME I HAVE NO IDEA WHO THIS IS.

Edited 4/17/10

I am grateful to Andrew Brown for sharing this photo of Morales, the owner of KLVL, from sometime in the 1950s.

I think I have included this already on the blog but will link to it again: biography of Felix Hessbrook Morales in the Handbook of Texas Online.

Andrew has forwarded a lot more pictures of Houston radio people and other materials relating to the 1940s and 1950s which will be posted soon.

Milton G. Hall

2009-02-19T11:56:00.007-06:00

I’ve heard from Ramona Klassen, Milton G. Hall’s granddaughter, who shared the picture as well as the following newspaper clippings (obituaries) from her genealogical research. Hall was the first program director of KTRH in 1930, later worked for Will Horwitz at XED, Reynosa.

MILTON G. HALL DIES IN TEXAS (Rochester NY Paper obit)

Milton G. Hall, 48 a former Rochester newspaper man, at one time assistant secretary of the Rochester Exposition and Horse Show and later manager of Station WHEC, died Tuesday(April 23, 1946) in Austin, TX., where he was managing a hotel.

Mr. Hall, a native of Texas, first came to Rochester during World War I. He served for several months as an instructor in the U. S. Army Aerial Photography School at Kodak Park and while there assisted in making an aerial map of Rochester’s coast line on Lake Ontario.

After the war he went back to Texas, where he worked at various times as city editor of the Galveston News and telegraph editor of the Houston Post. Back in Rochester in 1921, he worked for a short time for the old Post Express and later joined the staff of The Democrat and Chronicle. He also was associated for a time as advertising manager of the Regorson Corporation and with the Swope-Stanly Motors Inc., in a similar capacity.

In 1923 Mr. Hall was appointed assistant secretary of the Rochester Exposition and Horse Show. Three and a half years he resigned to become manager of WHEC, succeeding Ernest H. Veigel, who now is president of Rochester Business Institute. Mr. Hall left Rochester about two years later and returned to Texas, where he continued in radio.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Milton G. Hall Dies at Austin of Heart Attack (Texas Paper I think)

Milton G. Hall, 46 of 1804 Elman, well known newspaper and publicity man, died shortly after suffering a heart attack Tuesday morning in Austin.

Mr. Hall, according to word received in Houston Tuesday night, was stricken while standing in the lobby of a bank building. He died a short time after being taken to a hospital there.

Mr. Hall was a native of Coryell Co. Texas, and had been a resident of Houston for 20 years.

Active in radio work in Houston and throughout the country, Mr. Hall was the first program director of radio station KTRH. He was associated with that organization from 1930 to 1931.

Mr. Hall had done newspaper work throughout the country, and was formerly connected with the Houston Post. He was with the Post in the years immediately preceding the First World War.

He had done radio work in Buffalo, NY., where he was a continuity writer for station WMAK, and at station WHEC of Rochester, NY where he was station manager from 1925 to 1927.

He is survived by a daughter Miss Nancy Lee Hall of Rochester, NY; two sons, Milton Hall Jr. of Rochester and Maurice Clark Hall of Houston; four brothers, John R., Robert H, and Sherman Hall, all of Houston; J. W. Hall of Rochester and a sister, Mrs. Lee Heath of Warren, AZ.

The body is to arrive in Houston from Austin Early Wednesday. Funeral services will be held at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Fogle-West Chapel with Dr. Harry G. Knowles officiating. The place of burial is to be announced.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

MILTON G. HALL, NEWS AND RADIO MAN, SUCCUMBS (A Texas Newspaper)

Funeral services for Milton G. Hall, well known newspaperman formerly of Houston, will be held at 2:30 p. m. today at the Fogle-West Chapel, with Dr. Harry G. Knowles officiating. Burial will be in Woodlawn Garden of Memories.

Mr. Hall was stricken with a heart attack Tuesday in Austin and died in a hospital there. He had lived in Austin six months doing newspaper work.

He was 46 years old, and when last in Houston made his home at 1804 Elman. He was born in Coryell County and lived in Houston 20 years.

A graduate of Texas Christian University, Mr. Hall worked in the editorial department of the Houston Post and the Galveston News.

He was widely known for his work in Radio. He was program director for radio station KTRH in 1930 and 1931.

Mr. Hall was connected with radio stations in Buffalo and Rochester, NY. He was a continuity writer for Station WMAK in Buffalo and station manager for WHEC in Rochester.

Ramona adds “My grandfather was a real character. He wrote 2 plays, "The Leaning Tower of Pisa" and "Green Gold." He wrote an article "What's Normalcy." He was friends with Wiley Post and a newspaper man named Maurice Clark whom he named his 3rd child after. I have none of his writings.”

The 1940s - Part 8 - KNUZ

2009-02-15T16:48:00.008-06:00

Less than 3 weeks after KLEE signed on KNUZ came on the air on 1230 kc at 6am on February 18, 1948. The station had first been applied for in December, 1946, and approved in April, 1947, pending the move of KTHT off of 1230.

A story in the Post the previous day outlined the staff and that KNUZ was to be a local station and had no plans to try to affiliate with any network. The story referred to KNUZ as Houston’s seventh radio station and Dave Morris, who was general manager of Veterans Broadcasting Co. and one of the four partners who owned the new station, told the Houston Chronicle in an interview at the time of his retirement in 1994 that there were eight, but both were wrong. The Radio Guide printed in the Post February 18, 1948, included KLEE, KTRH, KTHT, KPRC, KNUZ, KXYZ, and KATL, plus KPRC-FM, KTRH-FM, KOPY-FM and KXYZ-FM. It might also have included KREL and KRCT, Baytown, for a total of thirteen.

Station personnel were detailed in the story; Biff Collie, who came to KNUZ from San Antonio to serve as sports reporter, later did mornings on KATL, KLEE and KPRC and hosted a certain up and coming singer from Memphis by the name of Presley at the Grand Prize Jamboree a few years later. The station was never a news station; Morris told the Chronicle the call letters were chosen because two of the owners had been newsmen. Morris had been Assistant General Manager of KTBS, Shreveport, before coming to Houston and had also worked at KTBC, Austin. Max Jacobs had been the Washington correspondent for the Post, Douglas Hicks had been with the Press. The other partner was Tom Harling. All were veterans.

Chuck Dunaway, a disc jockey who worked at several Houston area radio stations in his 40 plus year career, wrote in his The Way I Remember It the KNUZ studios were originally located in the Scanlon Building at 405 Main Street, taking up most of the 9th floor, then moved to 4701 Caroline, the former home of the Jewish Community Center.

According to Dunaway, Al McKinley and Webb Hunt crossed the street from KATL (literally) to work at KNUZ when KATL became KYOK. Hunt, with his trademark dark glasses, was to spend several decades at KNUZ and its sister station KQUE-FM. Dunaway also remembered the all night DJ in the early 50s, “Tiny Ted Jones, the Terror of the Turntables.” In 1950, Houston radio legend Paul Berlin arrived from Memphis to work at KNUZ.

KNUZ took over the 1230 frequency from KTHT, which moved to 790 kc as of 5:30pm on the 17th and increased power to 5000 watts. The station was authorized to operate 24 hours a day but only planned on an 18 hour day (KTHT had been a 24 hour operation since August, 1946). The Post ran stories on the move and KTHT ran ads advising listeners of the move, also. KTHT had moved into new studios at Jefferson and Brazos where the Crowne Plaza now sits after operating for several months in temporary quarters in the old South End Christian Church on Main in late 1947. Half a million dollars was spent on the new studios plant and 4 new towers on Miller road near the San Jacinto Monument and KNUZ took over the old KTHT transmitter site on Ennis St., on the near East side. There was a glass wall in the new KTHT studios so motorists on Jefferson could see programs in progress.

Before applying to move KTHT to 790 kc and increase it’s power, Roy Hofheinz had told some friends of his plan and suggested they apply for his old frequency. Hofheinz didn’t want his competitors to get their hands on the frequency when he vacated it. According to his biographer Hofheinz convinced the FCC and the owners of the new station to let him simulcast KTHT on both stations for 24 hours before the move but according to the papers the overlap was just over 12 hours. Every time they cracked the mike the KTHT announcers advised listeners on 1230 kc to move down the dial to 790 to continue listening to their favorites on KTHT. The new owners of KNUZ were not pleased; they were afraid they weren’t going to have any listeners left by the time they launched.

The story of Hofheinz’ lengthy struggle to win approval to move KTHT to a new frequency and boost power will be told in another post. The article in the Chronicle mentioned above was entered into the Congressional Record by former Representative Jack Fields.

On the same day KNUZ hit the airwaves the Post also carried a notice that the KLEE program director, Winthrop Sherman, formerly of the Mutual Broadcasting System, who had been on the job since October, had resigned. The station had been on the air only since January 31.

The Making of TV News, 1965

2008-12-27T07:49:00.004-06:00

I found this on a discussion board today; it's a documentary on YouTube about KPRC-TV in 1965, with a young Steve Smith and Ray Miller.

The link takes you to the discussion board where you can access the videos and follow the discussion if you wish.

The 1940s - Part 7 - KLEE

2008-12-13T06:34:00.015-06:00

Edited 6/3/11 to correct the site of the transmitter.

If KATL had been a something of a stealth entry onto the Houston radio scene the next new AM station in town was to make quite a splash. In early 1946, Houston businessman W. Albert Lee had decided to make a foray into broadcasting. He received a permit in May 1947 and got his station on the air Saturday, January 31, 1948, timed to coincide with the opening of the Fat Stock show that year. Studios were to be in the San Jacinto Hotel, which was being remodeled, but work went faster on a similar project at the Milby at Travis and Texas and the studios wound up there. Lee put a 62 foot Translux animated sign on the exterior of the hotel, the first of its kind in Houston, a smaller version of the famous one in Times Square in Manhattan. As he had done with 2 of his hotels and was to do with his television station less than a year later, Lee used his name for the call letters. KLEE operated at 610 kc with 5000 watts from a 4 tower array. Hilton Waldo Hearn, Jr.'s 1971 Masters Thesis on Lee placed the transmitter on Airline Drive but a Chronicle story placed it on the Dallas Highway. John B. Hill, an engineer at KILT from 1960-1964 who started as an engineer at the transmitter says it was on West Rd., just west of I-45, across 45 from Aldine High, which sits near the intersection of Airline at West. Lee still owned the station at the time of his death in late November, 1951.

As part of the build-up to the launch of the station, Lee turned on the Translux sign two weeks before broadcasting began, staging a big ceremony. The sign was on the Texas Avenue side of the Hotel, facing Jesse Jones’ Rice Hotel but was to be turned off at 10:30 every night. There were big stories in the newspapers almost every day in the week leading up to the launch.

KLEE received front page coverage in the Saturday morning Houston Post on the day the station signed on and the station placed a full page ad concerning the opening ceremonies scheduled for 5pm. The ad included pictures of station personnel and facilities, but has been difficult to reproduce from the microfilms or I would post it here. Gene Autry and his entire troupe were to be on hand, as well as actor Michael O’Shea, Virginia Mayo, Wild Bill Elliot, Albino Torres and his Orchestra and others. There was to be a special live, remote broadcast from the Fat Stock show, and, in the midst of all that, coverage of that day’s election returns on a vote on the subject of zoning for the city of Houston (the zoning proposal lost - duh).

Lee had purchased an 8000 disc library and subscribed to a music transcription service but the first song aired on the new station was performed live: Gene Autry's Cass County Boys played 'The Eyes of Texas,' punctuated by pistol shots and cries of 'Yippee,' to open the ceremony and Autry later sang his signature song ‘I’m Back in the Saddle Again,’ the first song sung on 610. All the show business people stuck around for more appearances on the station for a couple of days, with live broadcasts in one of the big studios starting at 6:10pm, open to the public.

Lee received congratulatory messages from many of his famous and rich friends plus his radio competitors, including Jesse Jones, the Hobbys, Glenn McCarthy and Coke Stephenson. Fred Nahas, who was to become a Houston radio legend in his own right, wrote that he was most impressed that Lee had four ministers pray at the dedication ceremony, a Rabbi, a Catholic priest, a Greek Orthodox priest, and a Methodist minister. Nahas had just launched Houston’s first Muzak-like piped-in music service.

The Chronicle ran a full length column in the Sunday paper on the launch under the headline 'Crowds view KLEE official opening here.' Ray Bright, Commercial Manager of KTRH across the street, had been hired as General Manager. WInthrop 'Bud' Sherman of WOC, Washington, DC, and the Mutual Radio Network had been hired as Program Director. He had also worked at KNOW, WBAP, WACO and KMOX. Paul Huhndorff was picked as the chief engineer; he would go on to put KLEE-TV on the air for Lee in less than a year and stay with the TV station when it was sold to KPRC. The chief announcer was Charles Rashall whom the Chronicle article said 'formerly was heard on coast-to-coast shows originating in the film capital.' Lee's biographer credits Lee with hiring a young Dick Gottlieb out of Texas A&M to do play-by-play of high school football games on Thursday and Friday nights for $25 per game, thus giving Gottlieb and entry into Houston radio. He was to go on to serve as an off-camera announcer on KLEE-TV and stay with the television station when it was sold, becoming known as 'Mr. Television' in Houston for the first decade and a half of Houston TV. However, the claim has also been made that Gottlieb first worked in Houston for Roy Hofheinz' KTHT.

Lee was apparently pretty difficult to work for. He went through 3 program directors in 3 years with Sherman leaving just 3 weeks after the station signed on. Ted Hills, who had been program director of early Houston radio station KFVI in the 1920s and KTHT in the mid 40s was one of the PDs. Without a network affiliation the station had to rely on local advertising sales completely for revenue. According to his biographer Lee attempted to motivate his sales staff but instead drove them away. He was known to fire announcers on the spot for an on-air comment he didn’t like.

Even before KLEE was on the air, Lee had traveled to the East coast, negotiating for talent to appear at the Rodeo, and been exposed to television. He came back to Houston determined to put a television station on the air and filed for a permit on October 8, 1947. The announcement of his intentions appeared in Television Magazine in November, 1947, and that same month in Houston Magazine. Approval by the FCC was to take only 3 months with approval on January 30, 1948, the day before his radio station signed on, although Lee apparently didn’t get the news for a couple of days. Studios were to be in the Milby Hotel with the radio station and the transmitter on South Post Oak near the Pin Oak Horse stables. KLEE-TV was to sign on New Year’s Day, 1949, Houston’s first television station, on Channel 2. There's more on KLEE-TV in the TV section on the sidebar.

The year following Lee’s death, KLEE-AM was sold to Gordon and B.R. McLendon’s Trinity Broadcasting of Dallas who changed the call letters to KLBS and made it a part of his Liberty Broadcasting System. McLendon announced plans to move the headquarters of the network to Houston and use KLBS as the flagship station, according to McLendon’s biographer, but they fell apart when McLendon had to give up the baseball game recreations which formed the backbone of the network programming. According to the History of KLIF website, McLendon owned the station from 1952 to 1954 and repurchased it to flip it to KILT in May, 1957. The studios were still located in the Milby Hotel when the call letters changed, but later moved to 500 Lovett Blvd. in the Montrose area where they stayed for almost 40 years. KILT has been the call on 610 ever since 1957. The station was a Top 40 station for many years and flipped to Country in 1981, then to Sports around 1995.

When I first read of the supposed intentions of moving the headquarters of Liberty to Houston I was skeptical. I have always thought of McLendon as a Dallas broadcaster and it was difficult to even imagine him abandoning Dallas and given his penchant for promotional hype, I thought he was probably just blowing smoke. However it becomes more believable when considering that, according to McLendon's biographer, Ronald Garay, Houstonian Hugh Roy Cullen had invested $1,000,000 in Liberty in August, 1951, to help prop it up. Cullen was considered by some the richest man in Texas at the time and had been expanding his influence politically. He had asked an aid to look into investing in Liberty but canceled the due diligence after just one meeting with Gordon. The two men had similar political ideologies and found they admired each other very much. Cullen extended another loan of $175,000 the next year as the network was collapsing and was one of the major creditors suing for a share of the assets after the collapse (the other was B. R. McLendon).

The Houston Post typically found a way to put it's own radio station on the front page during all the build up to the launch of KLEE. On Thursday, January 29, a front page story pointed out KPRC would be celebrating 20 years of being an NBC affiliate the next Thursday with a special concert at the Music Hall and on Friday, January 30, another front page story advised riders of the Houston Transit Company buses that they would soon be among the first in the nation to hear music as they rode the buses. In an experimental program sponsored by KPRC-FM, special receivers would be installed in buses to allow reception of KPRC-FM’s signal (and presumably no others). The receivers were eventually installed in 250 buses and the ‘experiment’ lasted until 1950.

The 1940s - Part 6 - More Suburban Stations

2008-12-08T18:42:00.006-06:00

The 1979 Broadcasting Yearbook gave August 1, 1947, for the launch of KIOX, Bay City, but that is possibly an error. A note in another story in the Chronicle in August, 1946, noted a permit had been granted by August, 1946, and another story in the Post in January, 1947, said KIOX, Bay City, was moving from 1110 to 1270 kilocycles; both stories suggest the station could have been on the air long before August, 1947. The station is no longer in existence.

In November, 1947, KTLW, Texas City, signed on at 920 kc. Presently, 920 kHz is occupied by KYST, still licensed to Texas City.

Tri-Cities Broadcasting announced on October 31, 1947, that it planned to put the Tri-Cities area’s second station on the air by the 10th of November but it was just over a month before it hit the airwaves. The original calls were KREL and it was licensed to Pelly as a full-time station on 1360 kilocycles with 1000 watts. The owners had explained the call letters referred to Robert E. Lee High School. Virgil G. Evans was the GM, having worked before at WMTC, Ocala, Florida. Harold Rench was to be the Chief Engineer; he was from Battle Creek, MI, and had worked at WSAM, Saginaw. Other staff members included Byard Sooy of Troy, AL (WTBF) who would cover sports, a strong point for the station; Bob Postner of Chicago (WBAU); Robert T. Nolan of E. Liverpool, OH, who had worked at KXLA, Pasadena, CA, and who would become station manager in a couple of years; George Vance of Detroit who had worked at KPRC; Bill Bates of Oklahoma City who had worked at WBBZ, Ponca City; and Harold Orton, a Lee College Student who wanted to get in to radio. The station would operate from 6a to 11pm from new studios on Decker Drive ‘at the InterUrban Crossing,’ near the Humble Refinery.

According to a post on ourbaytown.com, KREL played Rhythm and Blues but like most stations in that era that were not network affiliated, it was block programmed. Houston radio legend Dickie Rosenfeld got his first job in radio at KREL, doing sales and disc jockeying a country music show as Cowboy Dickie, before moving on to work at KPRC and then KILT. Another well known personality was Marvin Daugharty of Highlands, the morning show host, known as ‘The Deacon.’ He had studied at the National Radio Institute at Rice and also at the University of Kentucky, was also on the engineering staff at KREL and helped to put KLEE-TV on the air plus stints at KTHT and KRCT.

The station had a Fire Fighters Club for kids and also reminded teens not to forget the Three Rs: Rhythm, Records and Requests, daily at 6pm.

The station signed on with a special 2 hour program at 7pm on December 2nd. Regular broadcasting started on the 3rd. When Pelly and Goose Creek were consolidated in the newly incorporated Baytown in 1948, the city of license changed to Baytown. The station at 1360 has seen a number of call letter changes over the years including KWBA and KBUK; currently it is KWWJ, a Black gospel station.

The Houston papers did not include listings for suburban stations until the 50s.

NOTE: The Robert T. Nolan of E. Liverpool, OH, one of the original staffers at KREL, Baytown, became much better known in Houston radio circles and to listeners as Tim Nolan, one half of the long-running Tim and Bob morning show on KPRC.

W. Albert Lee - Houston Television Pioneer

2008-12-08T18:40:00.013-06:00

The owner of Houston's first television station was born on a farm near Hallettsville in February, 1892. By the time he turned 13, boll weevils had devasted his father's cotton farm and the family moved to Houston where Albert worked hawking newspapers on a street corner and then for a railroad. As a young man he formed a produce company with his two brothers, one of whom owned a grocery store on McGowen, and went to the Rio Grande Valley to be the produce buyer. He also was a watermelon farmer near Sealy before settling back in Houston as a commercial real estate broker downtown, and, beginning in 1925, a hotelman. That year a hotel owner in failing health had listed his hotel with Lee's brokerage and when it didn't sell, implored him to take it off his hands. Lee purchased the hotel and refurbished and opened it as the Lee Hotel, at Polk and San Jacinto.

By 1950, Lee controlled nine hotel properties, including the Walee, Woodrow, Bell, Stratford, Milby and San Jacinto in downtown Houston and the Fort Mason Inn, a resort in the Hill Country. Lee had taken out a long term lease on the Milby in 1937 and in that property and the San Jacinto, Lee controlled two of the largest and most well known hotels in downtown Houston besides the Rice and the Lamar.

He was friends with Jesse Jones and Herbert Hoover and most of the big businessmen of Houston of the era. He was appointed to serve on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles by Governor Coke Stevenson and was active in politics on the state and local level and even considered running for office himself.

He was one of the founders of the Houston Fat Stock Show in the 1930s and had been instrumental in convincing the organization to start presenting star performers in conjunction with the livestock exhibits in the early 1940s and had been personally involved in the negotiations with many of the performers; he counted show business personalities amongst his friends, too.

He decided to get into radio in early 1946. His partner was a friend and attorney Julian Weslow. He filed an application for a station to operate full-time on 610 kilocycles with 5000 watts, the second application for a permit on that frequency in Houston. Lee considered asking for the calls KWAL but opted instead to go with KLEE. His competition for the application was Robert T. Bartley, newphew of the powerful Speaker of the US House of Representatives Sam Rayburn, who had served as Director of the FM Department of the National Association of Broadcasters. Many assumed that Bartley's connections made him the favorite to win the permit but the FCC was not impressed with Bartley's investors nor his preparation for ownership. Bartley had never resided in Houston, indeed had only visited it twice, and all of his other investors lived in New England and none had ever been to Texas. The group did minimal research into the needs of the market. The permit was awarded to Lee in May, 1947.

Even while KLEE was being built, Lee visited New York to negotiate with talent to appear at the rodeo and was exposed to television for the first time. He came back to Houston determined to put a TV station on the air and filed an application for a station on channel 2 in the autumn of 1947, winning approval just 3 months later. It is believed the FCC expedited the approval process to be sure Houston had at least one TV permit before the freeze on new applications was put into effect. The FCC was favoring diversity of ownership in the awarding of TV permits and Lee got the nod also possibly because of his lack of other broadcasting or newspaper holdings.

Lee died the last week of November, 1951. He had sold his TV station a year and a half earlier. After his death, KLEE, 610, was sold to Gordon and B.R. McLendon's Trinity Broadcasting of Dallas who flipped the call letters to KLBS and affiliated it with their Liberty Broadcasting System, even announcing plans to move the headquarters of the network to Houston and use KLBS as the flagship.

So far as I know, all of Lee's hotel properties in Houston have been demolished but the Fort Mason Inn is still in operation the last time I checked.

The top picture shows W.A. Lee in 1938. The bottom picture, undated, shows Lee astride his horse at a surprise testimonial at the Rice Hotel attended by hundreds when he was presented with a silver-trimmed saddle by radio, recording and motion picture star Gene Autry.

The pictures and much of this information comes from Hilton Waldo Hearn, Jr.'s 1971 Masters Thesis at the University of Texas at Austin, W. Albert Lee, Pioneer of Houston Television. A copy of the thesis is available at the Metropolitan Research Center at the Houston Public Library.

Early FMs Update

2008-12-05T22:02:00.006-06:00

Chris Huff of the DFW Radio Archives has continued his work on compiling a catalog of early Texas FM stations from Broadcasting Magazine, White's Radio Logs and the Texas Almanac and other sources.

According to his findings, KLUF-FM Galveston was in operation from the Winter of 1949 to the Winter of 1954, operating with 8 kw on 98.7 mc.

Now that I have some better dates I may be able to find something about it in the Galveston newspaper archives.

More KILT Memorabilia

2008-12-03T18:15:00.016-06:00

Blog reader Charles Fairchild sent me this link to a flyer promoting KILT's Go Texan Hootenanny in 1966 (PDF file) along with an explanation:

"I attended that show when I was 12 because our family was friends with Terri Sharp's family. I looked her up recently living in Kerrville
and we had lunch and she is still writing and has a gold record for a
song Hank WIlliams Jr recorded called Cant Blame the Train. She also
wrote some songs that Don McLean recorded. Anyway while I was looking her up I found that program somebody had put on the internet under a google search of "Terri Sharp, a love that will last" which was her hit in 1966 and I sent her a copy. I think back then, KILT started using the rodeo for musical acts which has become a big event now. But in 1966 all those acts performed two shows in one day I think, each singing two or three songs depending on their ratings.

I got interested in looking up the old deejays listed on the program
which led me to your site. We had a dog named weird beard, all white with a black tuft on his chin (Russ Knight, I think he used to
broadcast from his house if I remember correctly). And I remember
staying awake with a transistor radio under my pillow listening to
Alex Bennett, who is on Sirius radio now according to the link on your
site to his. I guess I was hooked early on to talk radio, and later
was an avid listener of Alvin Van Black, Howard Finch and now there
are lots of them. I pod cast Dennis Miller but don't have time to
listen to all of them. Also a news caster from the 80s at KTRH named
Howard Phillips is in a Barbershop chorus I sing with these days.

Thought you would like it, and glad to help your interesting website,
I sure wish I could go back to Houston in the 50s and 60s for a day.

Charles"

Thanks Charles, I'm sure other blog readers will get a big charge out of this.

UPDATES: James Bond 008 used a fake British accent and became Alex Bennett, talk show host before leaving KILT. Alex Bennett at Wikipedia. Alex Bennett's website.

Bill Young became the long time and very successful program director of KILT-AM/FM and since leaving has run Bill Young Productions.

UPDATE 2: The Coastliners have been identified in a discussion on another forum:...
a group from Baytown/Lynchburg that came very close to hitting the big time and had several regional hits. They opened for many of the top rock acts that visited Houston in the mid-to-late 1960s. They were about the only white group that Don Robey signed for his label.

The 1940s - Part 4 - 1946

2008-12-03T12:14:00.007-06:00

Note: The article previously published as The 1940s - Part 4 - KATL has been retitled Part 5 to keep the articles in chronological order.

The only new stations to come on the air in Houston in 1946 were to be FM outlets but there was a lot of activity behind the broadcasting scene as the country and the industry continued the transition back to peacetime activities.

It had been reported in December, 1945, that a group calling itself Veterans Broadcasting had been formed to put Houston’s 5th radio station on the air on the 1230 frequency that was to be vacated by Texas Star’s KTHT; the application was contingent on approval of KTHT’s move. This was a group of Hofheinz associates that had been privately informed of his intentions so they could move quickly on the opening. Apparently the name Veterans had been chosen because all the principals were veteran broadcasters; the call letters KNUZ were to be used but the station was not going to be a news outlet, the calls referred to the fact that a couple of the principals had been newsmen.

One month later, on January 18, 1946, the Press reported not only on Veterans’ application but also the application of Hofheinz to move KTHT to 790 and an application for a station to operate on 610 kilocycles with the call letters KHTN.

The March roundup of FCC actions and filings reported in the Press on the 16th included news that hotelman W. Albert Lee had filed a competing application for a station on 610 kc, veteran Houston broadcaster and advertising man Lee Segall had filed an application for 1230, H. C. Coeblain and San Jacinto Broadcasting had filed for a station on 1470, Fred Weber, E.A. Stephens and William H. Talbot had filed for a station on 1590 and Radio Broadcast Associates, a group mainly based in San Antonio consisting of Eugene J. Roth, Jack. L. Pink and James M. Brown, had filed for a permit for a 250 watt station on 1180. Roth had put a station on the air in San Antonio in 1927 in the back of his auto repair shop on Main and taken the call letters KGRC, meaning Kome to the Gene Roth Company. Two years later someone had pointed out to him that he needed a government license to do what he was doing so he wrote to the Commerce Department and reported himself. According to Richard Schroeder in Texas Signs On, Herbert Hoover wrote back informing him that he was now authorized to operate a station in San Antonio with the call letters KGRC. That station had become KONO.

The Press reported on April 26 that Lee Segall had been granted an FM license; no other details were given. It is believed this license was transferred to the company that bought out Segall when he decided to relocate to Dallas and would have been a proposed KCOH-FM but never made it on the air. However, this was apparently the first license issued for an FM station in Houston in the upper (88-108mc) band.

The paper also noted W. Albert Lee’s and Roy Hofheinz’s applications and identified the head of the company seeking station KHTN on 610 kc as Robert T. Bartley, a nephew of powerful House Speaker Sam Rayburn. It was often speculated in coverage of this story that Bartley’s Washington connections made him a favorite to win the permit.

On May 4th, the Post reported its parent company, Houston Printing Co., had received a permit for an FM station to operate on 99.7 megacycles with 19.6 kilowatts. For more on this, see the FM Chronology. The paper also reported the FCC announced its intentions to hold competitive hearings on the applications of W. Albert Lee and KHTN, Inc. for a station on 610.

During May hearings resumed on Roy Hofheinz’s application to move KTHT to 790 kc and Lee Segall dropped a competing application for the frequency. It took almost 4 years for Hofheinz to win approval for his proposed move and brought him into conflict with one of the largest broadcasting outfits in the country; that story will be reported in a separate post.

On July 20 the Press reported the FCC had issued a permit the previous day for a new Houston AM station, the first since 1944. The operation was to be headed by Fred Weber of New Orleans, a former General Manager of the Mutual Broadcasting System who announced that no studio site had yet been selected. The station would take 10 months to get on the air and take the calls KATL. That is the subject of the next segment of this AM chronology.

Within 2 weeks Houston got a fifth radio station, Texas Star’s KTHT-FM. This is reported on in the FM Chronology. Later that month, the Chronicle reported that Metropolitan Houston Broadcasting Co. had filed for a permit for a full time station on 1060 kc to operate with 5 kW days and 1 kW nights. R.H. Rowley, Glen H. McLain, L.M Rice of Dallas and James A. Clements of Angleton were identified as the principals of the company. Clements was also a partner in Bay City Broadcasting which already held a permit for a station in Bay City, presumably KIOX.

In October a hearing on Radio Broadcast Associates of Houston’s application for a station was postponed. In its article the Press referred to Eugene L Levy, an error I believe, and gave the frequency sought as 1170 and the power as 1000 watts. The paper also noted that Roy Hofheinz and his partner, W.N. Hooper had amended their application for a station in New Orleans to request 50 kw rather than 5 and move the frequency from 1580 to 1540. This project of Hofheinz and Hooper was later scrapped due to cash flow problems.

Rounding out the action on the radio scene in Houston for 1946, the Press reported on November 2 an application had been filed for a Spanish language station in Houston to operate on 850 kc with 1000 watts daytime. Felix Morales had been trying since 1942 to get an AM station on the air in Houston; he would not succeed until May, 1950, with KLVL, 1480.

Just after the first of the year, both the Post and the Chronicle reported that Hofheinz and Hooper had filed for a station in San Antonio on 860. I believe this project did finally make it on the air.

KGUL-TV, Channel 11, Galveston

2008-12-02T21:18:00.009-06:00

“Local Television comes of age” the Houston Chronicle proclaimed Sunday, March 22, 1953, on the cover of its special TV section devoted to the launch of the area’s second TV station, KGUL-TV, Channel 11, Galveston. The station was set to go on the air that evening at 6pm with a 30 minute introductory show from the studios at 2002 45th Street, also referred to as 11 Video Lane. The studio was so small that only those who would appear on camera would be present; other dignitaries including stockholders in Gulf Television Co., would be at the Galveston Club across the street.

Paul Taft of Houston was President and chief stockholder of Gulf Television. He was the son-in-law of the founder of Houston’s Duncan Coffee Co. and had previously formed Sabine Televison to put a station on the air in Beaumont. That project foundered due to the FCC freeze on TV applications and while waiting, Taft had realized the potential for a station in Galveston serving a much larger target audience. There were two applicants for the allocation; Taft had forged a merger with Mirador Television-Radio Corporation owned by R. Lee Kempner and Associates and the other company withdrew its application. The permit was granted January 28 and the station was given 2 months by the FCC to start construction; instead, the station was starting operations 6 days before that deadline.

Stockholders in Gulf Television included mostly Galveston and Houston businessmen including James Bradner, the head of Galveston radio station KGBC. Actor James Stewart was also a stockholder and Stewart was in town on that day to host the opening ceremony which would introduce the station principals and programming.

The antenna was located at Arcadia, a town on State Highway 6 now within the boundaries of Santa Fe; the Chronicle described the location as ‘about half way between Houston and Galveston.’ In fact, the 500 foot tower topped by a 50 foot antenna was much closer to Galveston. The Chronicle also said the coverage area basically included the ‘tri-city’ area of Houston, Galveston and Freeport. With 235,000 watts, KGUL-TV was the most powerful TV station in Texas at that time. A coverage map printed in the Chronicle’s special section indicated the Grade-A coverage area would probably barely have reached past Loop 610 North in Houston while the Grade-B coverage area probably would not have reached Intercontinental Airport (neither of these landmarks was in existence at that time). It was estimated there were 237,000 TV sets in use in the coverage area with potentially 1 million viewers.

The station’s primary affiliation would be with CBS-TV with back-up arrangements with ABC and DuMont. Originally all programming would be either live and local or on film but a microwave link from Houston to Arcadia would bring the availability of live network feeds; that was expected to be completed in about 3 weeks. Network and telephone company officials in New York would work out which station, KPRC-TV or KGUL-TV, got to use the sole cable link from Dallas to Houston at any given time. A second coaxial link was expected to be completed by the end of the year. At that time, the new station planned to air a full-day schedule.

The station had 2 cameras, 2 film chains and 2 slide projectors. Initially it would be on the air starting at 4pm daily but that would expand once the cable connection was completed.

Some shows would be moving from Channel 2 to Channel 11 including Studio One, Godfrey and Friends, I’ve Got a Secret, Racket Squad, Mr. And Mrs. North, Private Secretary, Toast of the Town, Ken Murray and Alan Young. Jack Harris of KPRC-TV said most of those had been airing on Channel 2 late at night and would be replaced by feature movies. New shows on KGUL-TV never before seen in Houston included Captain Video, Plainclothesman, Jane Froman, City Hospital, Crime Syndicated, Danger, The Ruggles, Quick as a Flash, Four Star Playhouse, Video Theater, Big Town, Life Begins at 80, My Friend Irma, Beat the Clock, Jackie Gleason, Chance of a Lifetime and Gene Autry. Shows that had aired previously in Houston but weren’t currently on the KPRC-TV schedule included Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Perry Como, Burns and Allen, You Asked for It, Man Against Crime, Blue Ribbon Bouts, Big Town, Playhouse of Stars and Quiz Kids.

The station planned 3 local shows plus 2 daily newscasts. A homemaking hour would consist of a 30 minute cooking show presided over by George Young, chef of Galveston’s Jean Lafitte Hotel, followed by Wilma Rutherford, formerly of KRLD-TV, Dallas, who would discuss homemaking tips, fashion and decorating, etc. A musical show would be offered in the near future, alternating between the Al Pliner Trio of Galveston and Margie, Wink and Everest, a trio from Houston. Margie was identified as Margie Crumbaker, perhaps the same person who was later a columnist for the Houston Post.

Some accounts have claimed the first evening’s programming was to be a festival of James Stewart movies but that is not what was reported in the Houston Chronicle or Galveston Daily News. A line-up of CBS network shows was due after the brief opening show, followed by the feature presentation of the night, "Oil Town USA," a film which had been shot by the Billy Graham Evangelical Crusade at Rice Stadium in Houston.

What actually happened however was a breakdown in the equipment which left actor Stewart ad libbing in the lobby of the small building, holding a lavalier microphone, trying to fill. I was watching at this point - for some reason, I had some control over the TV though I was the youngest family member. I don’t remember that we had tuned in and caught the opening formalities but I was watching at this point and got bored. Stewart was not very good at ad libbing; I hardly knew who he was, anyway, as he had not been featured in many of the movies I saw at the Lake Theater in Lake Jackson at the weekly Saturday afternoon double-feature. Besides, there were now 2 stations to choose from and I switched the set over to watch Channel 2, thus becoming one of the earliest and youngest channel surfers in Houston.

Meanwhile on Channel 11, desperate measures were undertaken to save the evening. A local country western artist, Utah Carl, was summoned and he and his band showed up within minutes and performed an impromptu concert in the station’s lobby. The story of Utah Carl is recounted in this article by Galvestonian Bill Cherry for the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Station officials were so grateful for his efforts and so impressed with his showmanship that he was given a regular slot on the station, adding to the local programming. Live country music programming was actually quite common in early TV; long running Grand Ol’ Opry stars Curly Fox and Miss Texas Ruby had a program on KPRC-TV that lasted for 7 years and they had earlier had a show on WNBC-TV, New York.

The 16 page Chronicle special section included numerous articles about the pending launch of KUHT-TV, Channel 8, plus KNUZ-TV and plans at KPRC-TV to boost power when it moved into new studios on Post Oak Road in Houston.

The image above comes from the archives of the Galveston Daily News on microfilm at the Rosenberg Library in Galveston.

A Day in the Life -

2008-12-02T17:43:00.004-06:00

...of a Houston TV viewer.

Friday June 25, 1954, the last day for KNUZ-TV, Channel 39.

KILT Historical Photos

2008-11-21T19:13:00.015-06:00

One of the biggest stories in Houston radio in the 1950s was the Top 40 war between KILT and KNUZ. Actually, the war was over pretty fast. Gordon McLendon took over KLBS in May of 1957 and flipped the call letters to KILT on May 14th, launching a whole new air staff and his highly successful Top 40 format from KLIF, Dallas, and KTSA, San Antonio. According to Ronald Garay’s Gordon McLendon, The Maverick of Radio, within one month, by June, 15, 1957, all three rating services - Hooper, Trendex and Pulse - showed KILT had moved from last to first place in the Houston market. Garay says the Top 40 format worked better on KILT than it had on KLIF and Don Keyes once wrote that McLendon basically made no mistakes in his second foray into Houston.

As was typical of McLendon stations there were constant, attention getting promotions. There was the Treasure Hunt which, as it had in Dallas, led to people digging on private property. Houston listeners also heard the ‘Oops, sorry’ apology for some obscenities supposedly aired accidentally on the station during live coverage of a news event.

But apparently the most attention getting promotion, even garnering national news notice, was the flagpole sitter, who was none other than program director and afternoon drive DJ Don Keyes. Keyes was to work for McLendon for years, serving as National Program Director of the McLendon group after graduating from KILT. Soon after taking over KILT, McLendon had ordered Keyes up on a flagpole positioned in the parking lot of the new Gulfgate Mall which also happened to be situated next to the first freeway in Houston, the Gulf Freeway, now I-45 South. Keyes was to stay there until KILT beat KNUZ.

Google is in the process of uploading the photographic archives of Life Magazine, about 10 million photos, and I have discovered a couple of photos of KILT in June, 1957, one of Keyes, clad in a kilt, scaling the tower.

Somewhere I have read Keyes retelling of the story of this promotion but I cannot find it now. Keyes died in 2006 but shortly before he had posted some memoirs on line and I thought that was where I read it but apparently not.

Nevertheless Keyes' memoir is a great read.

Another photo from the Life collection shows new KILT morning DJ Elliot Field in the studio, flanked by a horse. According to the caption, Field had offered a pair of shoe laces in trade for anything of value and the winning offer was that 4 year old mare.

Note the plaid tie and plaid sport coat. I believe those are electrical transcription devices in the background. This photo will be of special interest to KILT alumnae. Unless I’m mistaken, that board was was still in use at the KILT studio at 500 Lovett Blvd, which McLendon built, up until the station moved to Greenway Plaza in 1995. It was in the News Production studio which may have been the original air studio. I wouldn’t be surprised if that Ampex in the background was still in use, too. I don’t know what McLendon’s policies were regarding equipment but LIN Broadcasting, which owned KILT when I went to work for it in 1983, did not believe in spending money for new equipment (or salaries); the KILT engineering staff did an amazing job of keeping ancient equipment working.

The Google Life Magazine Photo Archives

R.I.P. - TV News Pioneer Ray Miller

2008-09-30T10:23:00.007-05:00

The Edward R. Murrow of Houston TV News. Born in Fort Worth and moved to Houston in 1939. He was not the city's first anchor, that was his boss at KPRC-AM, Pat Flaherty, but the KHOU video includes a brief kinescope clip of him anchoring an early newscast on 2.

He is perhaps best remembered for building the shop at KPRC that was one of the best local TV news shops anywhere and for creating and narrating The Eyes of Texas beginning in 1967.

Watching KPRC-TV news day after day, years on end, made me proud to be a broadcaster, a Houstonian and a Texan. The Eyes of Texas was simply one of the most fascinating TV programs ever owing in large measure to the writing (but also the subject matter!)

It would be interesting to compile a list of the broadcast journalists who came through that shop and went on to other things - Steve Smith, later long-time anchor of KHOU, Conservative commentator Cal Thomas, Thom Jarriel of ABC and many others. But I think also it should be noted the number of local TV journalists who migrated to KPRC - it was the place to be if you wanted to work for the best - among them Larry Rascoe, Ron Stone and Bob Nicholas, all of whom came over from 11. Ironic that Miller wound up working with 11 after he left 2.

I have been looking through a couple of his Eyes of Texas Travel Guides that I have and his Ray Miller's Houston - there's lots of good stuff in there I had forgotten about including great old photos and facts.

I have not been able to get the KPRC video to load so I haven't seen it.

KHOU Ray Miller video

KPRC story with video

Dizzy Lizzy - KYOK

2008-07-29T04:55:00.007-05:00

I am grateful to Michael for sending me this piece showing Novella Smith who used the name Dizzy Lizzy on KYOK. I'm not sure of the date; KATL flipped to KYOK in late 1954 and the name Dizzy Lizzy may have been used by more than one person over the years.

Other names used by KYOK jocks included Groovy George, Razzle Dazzle and Hotsy Totsy. I probably listened to Novella as a kid but not much. I listened to KYOK a lot in the late 1950s but because of their highly directional signal and my location, I could only pick them up at night and I'm pretty sure she was on during the day.

Here's more on Novella Smith. There are more pictures related to KYOK listed under the pictures category.

The Ratings are in

2008-06-27T18:07:00.009-05:00

For the Fall of 1945

I thought maybe the big numbers for KTRH and KXYZ in the mornings reflected, respectively, Arthur Godfrey, who had just gone national in April of 1945, and Don McNeill's Breakfast Club, which had been national (although maybe not in Houston all the time) since 1933. However, when I looked at the radio listings in my files closest to this date, in the Spring of 1947, I found the Breakfast Club on KXYZ at 9 am but Arthur Godfrey was on KTRH at 2 pm (30 minutes, with House Party - Art Linkletter? - at 3pm).

I have no idea what was responsible for the big numbers on KPRC in the afternoon.

I'm grateful to Chris Huff of the DFW Radio Archives for sharing this graphic.

Ron Stone passes

2008-05-13T13:50:00.006-05:00

Long time Houston TV anchor Ron Stone, who spent 30 years on Channels 2 and 11 as anchor, has passed at the age of 72 from cancer.

Here's an obituary from KPRC-TV. I have missed him on the news since he retired in 1992.

Goodnight, neighbor.

April Anniversaries

2008-04-03T07:23:00.003-05:00

Broadcasting Yearbook, 1979, gave April, 1963, for the launch of KLJT-FM, Lake Jackson on 107.3. It was co-owned with KBRZ, Freeport, and had studio and tower on Willow Drive in Lake Jackson, just 2 blocks from my home. The station is now on 107.5; other calls have included KGOL-FM, KLDE-FM and KHTS-FM.

April 12 marks the anniversary of the first operation of a licensed broadcasting station in Houston in 1922, WEV. See the Chronology of the 1920s and WEV under Stations on the sidebar for more.

April 15, 1947, marked either the issuance of the permit or launch of operations for KWHI, Brenham, 1280, now operating once again with the original calls.

The Yearbook gives April 16, 1951, for the launch of KMCO, Conroe, a 500 watt daytime station on 900 kilocycles.

Easter Sunday, April 17, 1949, brought KREL-FM, Baytown, 92.1 megacycles, co-owned with KREL-AM, 1360.

On April 26, 1946, The Houston Press reported in passing that Lee Segall of Houston had been granted FM license. This is believed to be the first license for an FM station in the upper band in Houston but the exact date of issuance is not known. The permit was never activated.

Houston Radio History

The KTHT GI House

Michael Petrizzo - RIP

A Tim and Bob Gallery

Another Historical Site of Interest

Classic TV discussion - 11/18/11

Congratulations to Dave Ward

'Crash' Collins - KLOL - RIP

Roy Lemons - RIP

Bill Zak - RIP

A KILT Tour - 1961

Red Jones - KILT

A KILT Footrace

Weaver Morrow - RIP

Elvis in Houston - the Venues, the DJs

Bob Horn/Philly Bandstand - Bob Adams/KILT

Larry Kane Show Clips

KILT Staff DIrectory

Hooper Ratings - December, 1961 - January, 1962

Joel A. Spivak, RIP

KPRC-TV Memories

Ben Oldag - RIP

FM Chronology - The 1960s Part III - KBNO-FM, KAJC-FM, KWHI-FM, KLEF-FM

A Day in the Life -

AirChexx.com - Houston

Mark Stevens (Stevens and Pruett) - RIP

FM Chronology - The 1960s Part II - KHCB-FM, KLVL-FM, KLJT-FM

New Galleries

Bayou City Houston Blog on Artists visiting Houston

A Day in the Life.....

FM Chronology - The 1960s - Part I - KQUE-FM, KARO-FM, KOST-FM, KXYZ-FM

Don Robey and Peacock Records

A KTRH Gallery

The KTRH Transmitter in 1930

KLOL - 1974

Jesse Jones - Houston Radio Pioneer

How KTRH Talked Its Way to Greater Success

Marty Ambrose - Rest in Peace

A History of Houston Broadcasting, 1990

A Wealth of Information

Tim and Bob

KGUL-TV Original Transmitter Site

KPRC turns 85

The Beatles in Houston and KILT

The Larry Kane Show - KTRK-TV

KLVL Feature on Postcards from Texas

A KPRC-TV Gallery

The KTHT Cruising Studio - Another View

More on the Marvin Zindler tapes

A Feature on the Early Days at KLEE-TV/KPRC-TV

Pioneer AMs in Texas

The 1960s - KIKK, Talk Radio, KODA, KENR

FM Chronology - The 1950s - Part 2 - KFMK-FM, KHGM-FM, KHUL-FM, KRBE-FM and a Gordon McLendon permit

FM Chronology - The 1950s - Part 1 - KUHF-FM, the end of KXYZ-FM

Charles Nethery

Solved Mysteries - The KLEE-TV Reception Hoax

Marvin Zindler on KATL

The 1950s Part II - KILT, KILE, Galveston, KRCT,Pasadena

Update to the KXYZ Gallery

Tim Nolan and Bob Byron

A KPRC and KPRC-FM Gallery

A KXYZ Gallery

The 1950s - Part I - KLVL, KMCO, KLBS, KBRZ, KCOH, KYOK

Dan Ammerman - RIP

KTHT's Cruising Radio Studio

A KTHT Gallery

Recent Comments

Other Broadcasting related discussions online

Features on Broadcasters

A Day in the Life -

The 1940s - Part 9 - KCOH, KFRD

A Day in the Life -

Gallery IV - Miscellaneous Ads

KATL and the Press

Felix Hessbrook Morales

Milton G. Hall

The 1940s - Part 8 - KNUZ

The Making of TV News, 1965

The 1940s - Part 7 - KLEE

The 1940s - Part 6 - More Suburban Stations