July Anniversaries

On July 1, 1952, Houston television viewers got to see live network television for the first time with the completion of the first coaxial cable link. The networks had put a lot of pressure on AT&T to get the whole country connected in time for that summer’s political conventions and several cities came on-line on that day, including Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio. The Today Show with Dave Garroway on NBC was the first program aired, starting at 7am. Up until that time, network programming had aired in Houston as much as 6 weeks after being originated.

On Monday, July 3, 1950, KLEE-TV, Channel 2, became KPRC-TV. The station had been on the air since January 1, 1949, and was the second TV station on the air in Texas and, according to my calculation from this list, about the 52nd nationwide.

On the evening of July 13, 1944, Texas Star Broadcasting’s KTHT began ‘test’ broadcasts from studios in the Southern Standard building at 711 Main from 8:30pm to midnight, then continued with ‘test’ broadcasts from 6am to midnight for several days until final approval from the FCC. It operated on 1230 kilocycles with 250 watts, then moved to 790 kc and boosted power to 5000 watts 4 years later and KNUZ took its place on 1230. The head of Texas Star was Harris County Judge Roy Hofheinz. There will be more on KTHT's launch later this month.

On the 31st of July, 1961, Taft Broadcasting launched KODA-AM, 1010, from new studios at 4810 San Felipe, a daytime only station affiliated with ABC. The station is now KLAT, La Tremenda.

Broadcasting Yearbook gives July, 1961, for the start of KILT-FM on 100.3 megacycles but I have not been able to find anything about it that early in the papers.