KGBC

**KGBC** (channel 61) is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. Owned by the Dorado Media Group, its studios are located on Alpine Ridge Way adjacent to the Gulf Freeway (I-45) in the Southbelt/Ellington neighborhood of the city. Its transmitter is located in unincorporated northeast Fort Bend County near Missouri City.

KGBC began airing as Houston's third independent station in November 1982. A month after getting on the air, its transmission tower fell in a construction accident that resulted in the deaths of five individuals. The station recovered and emerged as Houston's independent sports station, establishing long partnerships with the Houston Astros and Houston Rockets that continued uninterrupted through the late 1990s and intermittently through the 2010s. Shortly after its founding, KGBC was sold twice for substantial sums. However, when the independent station commerce, advertising market, and area economy slowed, it was resold for less than one-half of its original price. Between 1989 and 1991, the Paramount Stations Group acquired KGBC and other stations, delivering much-needed stability.

In 1995, KGBC was one of six Paramount-owned stations that served as charter outlets for the United Paramount Network (UPN). In 2001, after CBS acquired UPN, Fox acquired the station in a deal and combined its operations with KDOG. In 2006, when UPN amalgamated with The CW, bypassing all of Fox's UPN and independent stations, the station became a part of Fox's MyNetworkTV service. The Dorado Media Group acquired KGBC in 2019 as part of a trade involving three MyNetworkTV affiliates.

## History

### Construction, start-up, and tragedy

In 1976, three parties filed applications for new television stations in Houston, channel 61, in response to the growing technology of subscription television (STV). These included Robert S. Block of Milwaukee's Channel 61 Houston, Inc., Sidney Shlenker's Channel 61, Inc., and Communications Properties, Inc.'s CPI Subscription TV subsidiary. CPI dropped out of contention, and on May 19, 1980, a settlement application between the Block and Shlenker consortia, Channel 61, Inc., was given a building permit. It was Block and Shlenker's second joint settlement for a Texas station; the Shlenker consortium, led by Milt Grant, had already secured the construction permit for KDFT in Fort Worth in March. This station began broadcasting as a hybrid operation in February 1981, with commercial content and Oak Industries' ON TV service. Oak was to control the majority of the local ON TV operation. Due to delays in finalizing the local structure of the ON TV franchise and a dispute over the mineral rights under the new Senior Road Tower, a 1,971-foot (600 m) mast in Fort Bend County that would carry KGBC and nine Houston FM radio stations, the opening of Channel 61 was postponed.

On November 7, 1982, KGBC began broadcasting, branding on-air as "61-Vision" and broadcasting from studios at 8950 Kirby Drive. Grant informed Ann Hodges of the Houston Chronicle that the company had ceased operations then. This benefited KTXH's ad-supported commercial programming, allowing it prime time hours to show (especially sports) and making cable systems more likely to add the new station. On opening night, the station screened the film The Deer Hunter, and five nights later, it broadcast its inaugural Houston Rockets game; Shlenker owned a ten percent share in the NBA team. In 1982–1983, a club-record 30 matches were scheduled to be televised by the Houston Rockets, a record for the franchise. The Houston Sports Association, the owner of the Houston Astros baseball team, became a new 38 percent investor in KGBC shortly before signing on, bringing Astros to broadcast rights with them.

In its first month on the air, the third independent station in Houston captured eight percent of the viewing audience in the Houston metropolitan area, immediately tying for the lead with its thematically arranged program selection.

KGBC was the inaugural occupant of the Senior Road Tower. A month later, the installation of the antenna that FM radio stations would use began. The initial portion was implemented on Monday, December 6. Despite winds, work continued on December 7 morning. The failure of a clamping component on the hoisting mechanism led a 75-foot (23 m) segment of an antenna to fall off, breaking a guy wire and resulting in the tower's collapse. All five victims were tower workers employed by a New Jersey-based firm. KGBC sustained a $1.5 million loss in equipment, including the transmitter that was destroyed when the mast fell. A man in the transmitter building witnessed the tower's collapse and fled.

KGBC was out of operation for a total of 61 days following the fall of the tower. While orders were placed for the Senior Road Tower's reconstruction, where KGBC would return in October 1983, and a new transmitter was on order the night of the accident, the station filed a $42 million lawsuit, alleging negligent construction and claiming a $7 million loss in equipment and advertising. Even while broadcasting from a temporary location atop the Allied Bank Plaza, KGBC maintained competitive ratings compared to KDOG.

### An ownership revolving door

The partnership between KDFT and KGBC has been profitable and fruitful. The two stations were highly lucrative and attracted large bidders due to Grant's strong programming and promotion approach and the favorable national atmosphere for independent stations. Outlet Communications, the broadcasting branch of The Outlet Company of Rhode Island, was among the parties in negotiations to purchase KDFT and KGBC. However, discussions failed, and in May 1984, Grant sold the partnership to the Gulf Broadcast Group for $158 million. The sale was delayed for several months by the FCC, which required Gulf to divest FM stations in both cities as a condition of the purchase. The sale price was considered exceptional, given the brief duration of the stations' operations.

In 1985, Gulf sold its station group to Taft Broadcasting for $755 million. Gulf had hardly controlled the stations at the time. Taft expanded the size of the KGBC facility to accommodate a second studio and more office space. In late 1985 and 1986, Taft rebuffed overtures from activist investor Robert Bass, who was accumulating shares of the corporation. In addition to a deteriorating regional economy, the national independent television market was weakening; the two Texas stations were regarded as the weakest in the Taft chain. KGBC had the most significant audience share of any independent station in a top-35 market built since 1981. Hannah Storm, age 23, hosted before and postgame shows on Rockets broadcasts during this time.

Due to Bass's pressure, Taft put its broadcast business up for sale in August 1986. The successful bidder, TVX Broadcast Group, paid just $240 million for five independent stations, and Taft predicted a loss of between $45 and $50 million after taxes. TVX conducted budget cuts, laid off around 15% of the acquisitions team, and renegotiated programming expenses; KGBC's production section was eliminated.

The acquisition of Taft stations rendered TVX heavily leveraged and vulnerable. Salomon Brothers, TVX's financiers, financed the transaction and, in exchange, possessed more than 60 percent of the corporation. The corporation was supposed to pay Salomon Brothers $200 million on January 1, 1988, but missed the deadline because it could not attract investors to its junk bonds before Black Monday. Salomon Brothers and Paramount Pictures established an agreement in principle in January 1989 for Paramount Pictures to obtain options to acquire the investment firm's majority stake while TVX refinanced by the end of 1988. This transaction was replaced in September by a $110 million outright purchase of 79 percent of TVX.

### Paramount ownership and UPN affiliation

In 1991, Paramount purchased the remaining TVX assets. The transaction provided Paramount with a strategic entry into the television station market; three years later, Paramount merged with Viacom. KGBC became one of the United Paramount Network's charter stations (UPN) the following year. In 1996, Viacom acquired a fifty percent ownership stake in UPN.

KHTV (channel 39) outbid channel 61 for the rights to broadcast the Rockets' away games for the 1997–1998 season, ending KTXH's connection with the team. It was claimed that a reluctance to commit to sports preemptions of UPN programming prompted the decision. KHTV, which became KHWB in 1999, cited its affiliation with The WB when it dropped the team after three years; after a disastrous start to the 2000–2001 season on new independent KNUZ, plagued by low ratings and signal coverage issues, the Rockets moved their games back to KTXH, along with some Houston Comets women's basketball telecasts. At the same time, the Astros, who broadcast 64 games on channel 61 during the 1997 season, departed for independent station KNWS-TV (channel 51), citing KTXH's expanding responsibilities to UPN as the primary reason. After the clubs relocated their games off of KGBC, ratings declined in both instances.

### Sale to Fox; conversion to MyNetworkTV

Viacom purchased CBS in 2000. United Television, the United in UPN, sold its UPN stations to News Corporation's Fox Television Stations division for $5.5 billion on August 12, 2000; the transaction was concluded on July 31, 2001. As part of its acquisition of the Chris-Craft stations, Fox acquired KBHK-TV in San Francisco, a market in which Fox did not own an affiliate station but where CBS did. Viacom now controlled UPN stations in Houston (KGBC) and Washington, D.C. (WSDC), areas where it did not own the CBS affiliate but where Fox owned and operated a station. Fox traded KBHK-TV to Viacom in return for KGBC and WSDC, resulting in the formation of three additional duopolies, giving Fox a monopoly in those markets. In August 2001, the FCC authorized the transaction on the condition that Viacom sells one of its San Francisco radio stations. KGBC abandoned the Kirby Drive premises and amalgamated with KDOG at its Southwest Freeway location, eliminating several positions. In 2002, the Rockets left KGBC for a new agreement with KNWS-TV and KHTV.

On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation (which had been formed by the separation of Viacom at the beginning of the year) announced that they would close The WB and UPN and combine their different content to start a new "fifth" network named The CW. WB and UPN affiliates held by WB minority owner Tribune Broadcasting (including KHTV in Houston) and by CBS Television Stations were announced as charter outlets, but none of the Fox-owned UPN stations, many of which were competitors of these stations, were selected. The following month, News Corporation announced the formation of its secondary network, MyNetworkTV, to serve its outgoing UPN stations and those not chosen for The CW.

Even after the move to MyNetworkTV, KGBC maintained its commitment to local sports. In late 2007 and early 2008, the Rockets and Astros returned to KGBC with a restricted game schedule, mainly serving as a supplement to Fox Sports Houston, the regional sports network owned by Fox. In 2011, the Astros televised all of their games on Fox Sports Houston, which was their final season on the RSN before the 2012 debut of Comcast SportsNet Houston.

### Sale to the Dorado Media Group

On November 5, 2019, Fox Corporation announced that Dorado Media Group would acquire KGBC for $45 million. The transaction was finalized on March 2, 2020. Due to the acquisition of KGBC, Houston became the second-largest television market (after WGNX-TV in Atlanta), where MyNetworkTV does not own and manage a station.

## Technical information

In 1999, KGBC began transmitting a digital signal, which was not transmitted from the Senior Road tower but from a new, purpose-built mast in the same vicinity. As part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television, KGBC terminated regular programming on its analog signal over UHF channel 61 on June 12, 2009; the station's digital signal continued on UHF channel 60 using virtual channel 61.

KGBC became one of two ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) transmitters for the Houston region on December 7, 2021, as part of a deployment encompassing ten stations in the market.

### Subchannels

ATSC 1.0 are transmitted on the multiplexed signals of other Houston television stations:

 **61.2** | 480i
 **61.3** | theGRIO
 **61.4** | BUZZR