KHOU Announces Their New Studio Location

From Mike McGuff - near the intersection of Westheimer and Chimney Rock, in the Galleria area.

KHOU to Pull up Anchor on Allen Parkway - UPDATED

According to Swamplot, the decision has been made not to rebuild the station's facilities on Allen Parkway, which took on 5 feet of water during Hurricane Harvey.

KHOU has been broadcasting from the studios at 1945 Allen Parkway since April, 1960, after spending the first 7 years of its existence as a Galveston station.

Update 12/23/2017 - The station continues to operate out of the facilities of Houston Public Media on the University of Houston campus while it searches for a new permanent location.  A satellite studio will be opened on Avenida Houston which will originate live programming throughout the week.

Houston Crime Stoppers Building will Honor KTRK-TV Anchor Dave Ward - UPDATED

As reported today by the Chronicle, the long time anchor will be memorialized in brick and mortar.

Congratulations to Dave and thanks for your decades of service to the Houston community.

Mike McGuff's coverage.

Rice University FM Returns to the Air

After a four and a half year hiatus, the station returns to it's humble beginnings in the 1960s as an on-campus, low power FM signal.  The new station's launch is ironic given the University of Houston's announced plans for the transmitter and tower it purchased from Rice and turned into KUHA-FM.

The official calls are KBLT-LP but the station will be referred to as KTRU except in the legally mandated hourly ID.

Culture Map article

Radio Discussions board thread

Bill Young - RIP

As posted on Bill Young Productions -

a dominant force on the Houston radio scene for decades as talent, program director, production specialist and voice, passed early Sunday, June 1.

No obituary posted yet nor arrangements for a service.

I am in shock.

For those who do not know of Bill, I highly recommend his book.

UPDATE, ONE YEAR LATER:  BILL'S SON, SCOTT, HAS POSTED A TRIBUTE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE.  WELL WORTH WATCHING.

Also, see Scott's comment (# 14) here about his mom. 

Radio Discussions boards re-activated

Radio Discussions, which abruptly ceased operations a couple of months ago, has come back to life.  It appears all the old links will still work.

This is very good news because of the huge archive of useful information included in past posts over the years which will now be available again.

Here's the home page of the new site, in case you had deleted all your previous bookmarks.

Dick John, RIP

The former KHOU-TV News Director and anchor has passed at the age of 84, reported by Mike McGuff with a video and the Chronicle.

Houston Radio Discussions - UPDATED

AS OF 2/10/14, THE OLD SITE HAS BEEN REACTIVATED.

Radio Discussions

Readers of this blog are probably aware that the Radio Discussions message boards have ceased operations abruptly.

Houston community forum HAIF has made available forums devoted to Houston Radio and Houston Television. There are already several threads in existence and the owner/manager of HAIF, who is himself a former broadcaster, is initiating discussions with RD to see if he can acquire their archived discussions.

You will be able to read the threads at the links above but to contribute to discussions you will have to become a member of HAIF.  This will almost certainly be easier that trying to activate an account on RD.

In addition to other amenities, the software HAIF runs on will allow for the insertion of pictures in posts which could be a nice enhancement to some discussions.

UPDATE:  A link to a further explanation of the history and demise and another (sparsely populated BUT RAPIDLY GROWING) alternative discussion site, an old competitor of RI/RD which does have local and regional boards.

Houston PBS - KUHT - Celebrates 60 Years

I didn't see any advance publicity and missed the first broadcast but will catch the re-broadcast tonight. 

TV Guide Listings

The Sammy

The Texas Radio Hall of Fame has created the first named award, The Sammy, dedicated to pioneering women in Texas broadcasting.   J.C. Webster of KLUV, KNUS, KLIF and KMGC is the first recipient.

Mary Nash 'Sammy' Stoddard herself sent me notice of this, enclosing a short bit from the Tom Taylor Now newsletter:

"Mary Nash “Sam” Stoddard was a pioneering woman in Texas radio, and now the Texas Radio Hall of Fame establishes an award to honor women in the business – naming it “The Sammy.” Stoddard herself continues to broadcast on a regular basis, and she tells this NOW Newsletter she’s got a new Power Point presentation about her career, starting with her as a 15-year-old on KULP, El Campo in 1954 and going on to Waco and then Dallas at KVIL. There she was the “Girl named Sam,” a very early example of a fulltime female jock in a major market. She later married KVIL morning man Mike Stoddard, and she worked at four other stations and networks after leaving KVIL"

Thanks, Mary, and congratulations on your long career.

Texas Radio Hall of Fame

Mary Stoddard

Tom Taylor Now

Update on KCOH - Movin' on Up UPDATED

It was announced this morning on the air, KCOH will be moving to the 1230 spot on the dial, where the call letters KQUE have been in use.  The current programming will continue, operating out of the KCOH picture window studios on Almeda.

The Chronicle story has more details.

UPDATE:  WHILE I DON'T USUALLY COVER BREAKING NEWS IN THE BROADCAST INDUSTRY ON THIS BLOG, KCOH IS ONE OF OUR FEW REMAINING HERITAGE RADIO STATIONS; NOT ONLY THAT, IT IS STILL LOCALLY OWNED AND PROGRAMMED IN A DAY OF CORPORATE RADIO, AND THAT'S NOT TO MENTION IT'S SIGNIFICANCE IN THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY.  SO, HERE'S MORE ON THE PENDING SALE AND MOVE, IN DEPTH, FROM THE FORWARD TIMES.

KCOH Sold

The radio community has been buzzing this week over the announced sale of KCOH.  The station has been on the market for a couple of years and it looks like the sale will mean the demise of the programming.

J.R. Gonzales of the Chronicle's Bayou City History Blog has dug out a couple dozen pictures from the newspaper files for an article and a great pictorial of the station's history since it became Black-owned and programmed.

(I wish I had access to those archives!).

The Success Story of KSBJ-FM

The Chronicle's Four DVRs, No Waiting radio and TV blog by David Barron has posted the complete text of an article about the success of Contemporary Christian Music station KSBJ-FM.

Only an abbreviated version of the article had previously been published.

Classic TV discussion - 11/18/11

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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.

AirChexx.com - Houston

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

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.

New Galleries

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.

Don Robey and Peacock Records

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.

Marty Ambrose - Rest in Peace

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

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.