- of a Galveston radio listener, Sunday, February 2, 1947. KGBC had signed on the previous day but there were no listings in the Galveston News for that day; these are the first published listings. The News also published the listings for the three Houston stations whose signals would reach Galveston. The only other Houston AM on the air at that time, KTHT, was still operating on 1230 kc with only 250 watts and probably was not listenable to most Galvestonians.
I had discovered this material several years ago but when I went to post about it on the blog, it had been taken off the web. I went looking for it and found it again. These archives are maintained by Indiana University. On the side-bar on the right, click on the sub-galleries for Rick Roberts, George Nelson, Skipper Lee Frazier and Travis Gardner for collections of photos relating to KCOH and KYOK. There is one photo in the Rick Roberts collection relating to KGBC, Galveston. There are only a few shots of the studios and personalities but it's great stuff.
KNRO-FM, Conroe, signed on in February, 1965, at 106.9 MHz. The exact date of the first broadcast is not known but Broadcasting Yearbook gives the date as February 14. A permit had been issued 2 weeks earlier for remote control operation. In early August of 1968, the station went to 24 hours a day, launching an all-night country music program hosted by a former Nashville musician, Bill Board. The midnight to 6am show was call the Tennessee Bill Board Country Music program according to Station Manager Bob Brown. (Note: I did not make this story up; it was published in Billboard). The station operated with 40,000 watts at that time.
The station was acquired by the Jimmy Swaggert Evangelical Association on March 31, 1978. In the 1979 Broadcasting Yearbook the calls are given as KMCV-FM but it is not known when those calls were adopted. The listing shows the station operating with 98,000 watts from a 530 foot tall antenna. Subsequently, Swaggert was to adopt the calls KJOJ-FM. The station was eventually sold to Regan Henry and US Radio which programmed jazz and shock talk as KKHU. It has also been known as U106.9 and ZRock.
Currently KHPT-FM, the Eagle, a Classic Hits station owned by Cox, operates on 106.9, simulcasting with KGLK-FM, Lake Jackson, on 107.5.
Billboard Magazine reported on December 25, 1965, that KHUL-FM, 95.7 MHz, had switched to a country format. Jack Hayes was Program Director. Eight months later, on August 12, 1966, Industrial Broadcasting acquired the station. Industrial was also the owner and operator of KIKK, 650 kHz which it had acquired on October 1, 1958. The two stations maintained separate facilities and staffs. Charles Temple was General Manager of KHUL and Mike McCann was Program Director; Leroy Gloger was General Manager of Industrial. A Market Profile of Houston published in Billboard Magazine, March 5, 1966, indicated KHUL-FM was already broadcasting 100% country music by that time, well before being taken over by KIKK.
A story in Broadcasting in May, 1967, said Industrial was also managing WENK in Union City, TN, doing business as KIKK, and was also going to manage stations in Paducah, KY.
On November 11, 1966, Industrial applied for permission to change the call letters of KHUL-FM to KIKK-FM. The date of the call letter flip is not known but the station was operating with the new calls by by March, 1967, when Billboard published a Houston market profile. KIKK-FM had 15.5 kilowatts of power from atop a 235 foot antenna at the site of the former KHUL studios at 1700 Holcombe Blvd. Leroy Gloger was listed as President and Art Posner was in charge of Operations. On August 10, 1968, Nortemp Broadcasting acquired KIKK-FM.
The station maintained a Country Music format until November 7, 2002, when it flipped to The Wave, KHJZ-FM, a smooth jazz format. Currently the station is known as Hot 95.7. It is owned by CBS and the calls are KKHH which were adopted on April 1, 2008.
On February 11, 1968, Harbor Broadcasting, licensee of KGBC, Galveston, signed on their new FM station on 106.1 MHz, with the call letters KGBC-FM. Harbor had acquired the AM station on December 20, 1964.
The FM station was sold to Beacon Broadcasting in 1974, moved to 106.5 MHz and re-branded as KUFO-FM. Before the sale to Beacon the calls had been flipped to KESY which frequently appeared in print as K-ESY. Subsequent calls on the station were KXKX and KQQK but the station ceased broadcasting and had it’s license cancelled by the FCC. (See also the comments below).
On August 4, 1968, a license was issued for KFRD-FM, Rosenberg, to operate on 104.9 MHz. The station does not appear to have gotten on the air immediately, however. An FCC notice in late November appears to authorize programming operations and in Billboard Magazine for November 30, General Manager Bill Sloan indicated the station would broadcast daily from 3:30 pm to 11 pm, duplicating the programming of the AM station until 5:30 pm and then airing a program to be known as the Town and Country Time Program. The music would include both pop and country. Subsequent call letters used on the station have included KMIA-FM, KMPQ-FM, KLTO-FM, KOVA-FM, and KPTY-FM. Currently the station is licensed to Missouri City, Texas, and operates as KAMA-FM, Tu Musica. It is owned by Univision.
After the close of World War II, broadcasters expected a lot of interest in FM radio, which had been used by the armed forces during the war and was unavailable for private use, and Congress had taken steps during the war to set up the FM band between 42 and 50 megacycles, then moved it to 88 to 108 megacycles. Instead there was a flood of applications for new AM stations, manufacturers put a lot of inexpensive new AM radios on the market and the development of FM was delayed for many more years. Part of the reason for the cheap AM sets was the shortage of wood brought on by the war; radio manufacturers stopped building big console sets and turned instead to table top models using plastic and metal cabinets due to the shortage of wood. (The chronology of FM in Houston, at least in the early years, is being discussed in a separate series of articles on the sidebar).
Around the Houston-Galveston area, several smaller communities got AM radio stations by the late 1940s. On the 9th of April, 1946, the Chronicle reported that three officials of the Goose Creek Daily Sun had chartered Tri-Cities Broadcasting Co. And applied for a permit for a 250 watt station; no hearing had been set. The principals were Robert Matherne, Publisher, Fred Hartman, Managing Editor, and Sidney S. Gould, Advertising and Business Manager. Fred Hartman later served as Texas Highway Commissioner and the big suspension bridge on Highway 146 is named for him. This application was apparently later withdrawn or amended.
On August 31, 1946, a story in the Houston Post was headlined ‘Tri Cities Radio to take to the air within 3 months.’ A construction permit had been granted by the FCC on Friday, August 30, to Bay Broadcasting Co. for station KRCT, to operate on 650 kc with 250w. C.Q. Alexander, the 6 foot 9 and a half inch mayor of Goose Creek was one of the principals. According to the Post a site had not even been selected yet but the Chronicle story said all the equipment had been acquired and the station expected to be on the air by Thanksgiving. The Chronicle reported the calls were to be either KBAY or KOCT, the latter apparently a typo.
Galveston, came on the air at 1540 kc in May, 1947, but the actual first air date was Saturday, February 1. A CP had been granted in August, 1946. James W. Bradner, Jr., was president of Galveston Broadcasting Co.; he had been an engineer with the TVA, with the national war housing administration during the war and City Manager of Waco. The station was only a daytimer at first and was promoted as Galveston’s only 1000 watt clear channel station. It is still on the air on the original frequency with the original calls.
