 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
| KRIV | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Houston, Texas | |
| Branding | Fox 26 (general) Fox 26 News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Your Gulf Coast Weather Authority |
| Channels | |
| Affiliations | Fox |
| Owner | Fox Television Stations (Fox Television Stations, Inc.) |
| First air date | August 15, 1971 |
| Call letters’ meaning | Albert KRIVin (former top executive of Metromedia) |
| Sister station(s) | KTXH Fox Sports Houston |
| Former callsigns | KVRL (1971-1975) KDOG-TV (1975-1978) |
| Former channel number(s) | Analog: 26 (1971-2009) Digital: 27 |
| Former affiliations | Independent (1971-1986) |
| Transmitter Power | 1000 kW (digital) |
| Height | 598 m (digital) |
| Facility ID | 22204 |
| Transmitter Coordinates | 29°34′28″N 95°29′37″W / 29.57444°N 95.49361°W |
| Website | www.myfoxhouston.com |
KRIV, channel 26, is an owned-and-operated television station of the News Corporation-owned Fox, located in Houston, Texas. KRIV is co-owned with MyNetworkTV affiliate KTXH (channel 20). Both stations share a studio complex on Southwest Freeway in Houston, and KRIV transmits from a tower located in Missouri City, Texas.
Contents |
History
|
|
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
Channel 26 signed on for the first time on August 15, 1971 as KVRL. It was the second UHF station in Houston after KHTV (channel 39, later KHWB, then KHCW, now KIAH) to sign on the air. Four years after signing on, the call letters were changed to KDOG. The former GM of the station, Leroy Gloger, chose the letters. Another former general manager, Jerry Marcus commented (upon his retirement) that he saw them appropriate during the station's formative years as, in his words, they were a "dogged station" ratings-wise. The station's motto was "Where Every Dog Has His Day." During this period, the station aired a wide variety of programs. During the day they ran English general entertainment programming such as old cartoons, sitcoms, and old movies. At night the station ran Spanish programming such as Spanish-language telenovelas, Spanish language movies, and Spanish serials.
As a Metromedia station
|
|
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
In May 1978, Metromedia purchased the station and changed the station's call letters to KRIV-TV. The new call letters were in honor of Albert Krivin, then a top Metromedia executive. Jerry Marcus, general sales manager of Metromedia's WTTG in Washington, D.C., was brought to Houston to manage the station, where he remained until his retirement in December 1999. This influx of dollars caused the station to begin taking more risks by picking up higher profile syndicated programming and forming a news department (this happened in 1983), featuring the first major primetime newscast in the market. The station was running a general entertainment format complete with cartoons, sitcoms, movies, first run syndicated shows, locally produced talk shows, and the one of the few Spanish language forums on television at the time. Overall, the station ranked near KHTV, a more well-established outlet, over the years.
As a Fox O&O
|
|
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
Six years later in 1986, Australian newspaper tycoon Rupert Murdoch purchased Metromedia television stations, including KRIV, which became one of six founding owned-and-operated stations of his new Fox television network. The acquisition caused the station, along with a number of other former Metromedia outlets, to suddenly adopt a more sophisticated look for a network that at the time, didn't actually exist. A unified music and graphics packaged was featured on this station, as well as the original Fox-owned stations, which is consistently noted for featuring graphics that were among the first of their kind for local television. Since 1986 KRIV has been known as "Fox 26".
As a Fox-owned station, KRIV added more first-run syndicated programming. In 1993, KRIV joined several other Fox-owned stations in launching a weekday morning newscast. The morning cartoons were dropped but they continued their afternoon kids block from Fox Kids until the end of 2001 when Fox ended the weekday kids' block nationwide.
A new era
|
|
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
In 1997, KRIV moved from its original studios on Westheimer Road in the Greenway Plaza area of Houston to a state-of-the-art digital facility and upgraded the look of its newscasts, debuting a brand new set, new graphics, and a new logo similar to other Fox O&O station logos implemented following the 1994 New World affiliation deal, in which Fox gained several VHF stations nationally, many of them former CBS affiliates in cities that are home to teams in the National Football Conference of the National Football League, after Fox gained broadcast rights to that conference from CBS.
With this upgraded presence in the Houston television market, Fox 26 went from outperforming former independents KTXH and KHWB (the former KHTV, now KIAH) to regularly challenging Houston's major-network stations, KPRC, KHOU, and KTRK-TV, in the ratings. During this time, KRIV's studios also became a studio site for various syndicated Fox programs, including the courtroom shows Texas Justice, Cristina's Court and Judge Alex.
On July 262006, days after competitor KHOU-TV launched a new graphics package, KRIV also launched a new graphics and music package, which is being gradually rolled out to each of Fox's owned and operated stations as a part of a new, unified look that is similar to the graphics used on Fox News Channel. In mid-August 2006, the station launched their version of Fox's MyFox O&O website initiative with MyFoxHouston.com, which technically marks the station's first venture onto the Internet in a number of years, as the station's previous 2001-era website was somewhat of a placeholder and contained little information. On October 302006, KRIV debuted a new set for newscasts. The old set was donated to the communications school at Texas Southern University.
Logo history
The original logo of KVRL 26 was the letters "TV-26" in a stylized font.[1] After Metromedia purchased the station in 1978, the logo was changed to a more bold number which was diagonally oriented.[2]
The KDOG logo featured the station's call letters, with the "g" resembling the profile of a dog's head. This coordinated with the motto, "Where Every Dog Has His Day."
In 1986, after becoming a Fox affiliate, the logo was changed to a new serif font similar to the other O&O affiliates. One example of the logo just shows a bold "26" with the "KRIV" and "Houston" underneath[3], another shows the a horizontally oriented logo with a diagonal Fox logo on the left and the "KRIV 26" on the right[4]
In 1989, the logo was changed again, this time to a vertically oriented rectangle with the Fox searchlight above the number 26, with the call letters in a slightly diagonal line in the middle, and the word Houston in the border underneath. [5]
In 1994, the logo was changed to a bold "Fox 26" in a sans-serif font, with "KRIV" and "Houston" underneath in the old serif font.[6]
In 1997, after the station moved studios, the logo was changed again, along with most other Fox affiliates. This logo was a multi-paned rectangle with the word "Fox" in white letters on a blue background, a blue "26" on a white background, and the words "KRIV - HOUSTON" underneath on a black background with a red line underneath.[7] This logo was used until 2006, when the current logo was adopted.
Also in 2006, the KRIV website launched, and began using the "MyFox Houston" logo, a rounded rectangle consisting of a white lowercase "my" similar to the font used for MySpace (also owned by Fox), on a blue background, a white capital "Fox" on a red background, and the word "Houston" underneath.[8]
High Definition
|
|
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009) |
On Saturday, January 31, 2009, KRIV became the fourth station in Houston behind KHOU-TV, KTRK-TV and KPRC-TV to launch local news in high definition. With the change to HD came new Fox O&O HD graphics currently used on sister stations WNYW, KTTV, KDFW and WTTG.
Digital television
The station's digital signal, UHF 26, is not multiplexed:
| Subchannel | Programming |
|---|---|
| 26.1 | main KRIV/Fox programming |
Analog-to-digital conversion
After the analog television shutdown scheduled for June 2009 [1], KRIV will return to channel 26. [2]
Programming
In addition to Fox primetime and sports programming (as well as Fox News Sunday), KRIV also broadcasts off-network sitcoms, syndicated talk and courtroom shows, and reality shows, as well as religious programming on weekends.
News Operation
KRIV broadcasts a total of 35 hours of local news a week (6½ hours on weekdays, one hour on Saturdays and an hour-and-a-half on Sundays), more than any other station in the Houston market.
In 1987, the station formed an investigative unit, and a program called "City Under Siege" which aired after the evening news. Originally hosted by anchors Jim Marsh and Fran Fawcett, the show was actually a predecessor to one of the Fox network's later standouts: COPS.
KRIV has touted its newscasts as the fastest growing in the Houston area, and has outperformed KPRC's newscasts as of the February 2007 sweeps period. During morning anchor Jan Jeffcoat's November 2004 to June 2007 tenure, Fox 26 saw a major jump in ratings, passing KPRC in the mornings, still far away from KTRK and KHOU. The station's 9 PM newscast trails behind in ratings. The station still trails behind newscasts on CBS affiliate KHOU and ABC owned-and-operated KTRK, both of which battle for first place in Houston TV ratings books, with KTRK's dominance dating back to the 1970s.
KRIV airs over 30 hours a week of local news, 20 hours of which are dedicated to the station's weekday morning newscasts, and launched an hour-long 5:00 p.m. newscast on August 18, 2008. Newscasts began airing in High-Definition on January 31, 2009. In 2009, KRIV will add a Sunday morning newscast from 7:00-8:00 am. Recently, KRIV has added a half-hour Noon newscast, anchored by José Griñan
FOX 26 Notable Personalities
Current On-Air Talent
(as of December 22, 2008)
Current Anchors
- Ford Atkinson - weekends at 9 PM
- Mike Barajas - weeknights at 5 and 9 PM
- José Griñan - weekday mornings "FOX 26 Morning News" and at Noon
- Damali Keith- Weekends at 9 PM (also reporter)
- Melinda Spaulding - weekdays at 5 PM
- Sibila Vargas - weekday mornings "FOX 26 Morning News"
- Melissa Wilson - weeknights at 9 PM
- Tom Zizka - weekday mornings "FOX 26 Morning News"
Reporters
- Emily Akin - "Take it to Akin" consumer reporter
- Erin Anthony - Traffic Reporter; weekday mornings "FOX 26 Morning News"
- Don Armstrong - Traffic Reporter; SkyFox weekday mornings "FOX 26 Morning News"
- Isiah Carey - general assignment reporter
- Doug Delony - "My Tech Guy" technology reporter
- Ruben Dominguez - Traffic Reporter; weekday afternoons
- John Donnelly - general assignment reporter
- Kristine Galvan - general assignment reporter
- Duarte Geraldino - general assignment reporter
- Lanny Griffith - Feature Reporter; seen weekday mornings
- Greg Groogan - special assignment reporter
- Ned Hibberd - general assignment reporter
- Sally MacDonald - general assignment reporter
- Pattie Shieh - general assignment reporter
- Andrea Watkins - general assignment reporter
FOX 26 Investigates
- Carolyn Canville - investigative reporter
- Randy Wallace - investigative reporter
FOX 26 Weather Team
- Dr. Jim Siebert - Chief Meteorologist; weeknights at 5 and 9 PM
- John Dawson - Meteorologist; weekends at 9 PM
- Mike Iscovitz - Meteorologist; 12-12:30 PM, and fill-in
- Kristi Powers - Meteorologist; weekdays 5-9 AM
FOX 26 Sports
- Mark Berman - Sports Director; weeknights at 9 PM
- Keith Calkins - Sports Anchor; weekends at 9 PM (also "FOX 26 Sports Xtra" host)
Former on-air talent
- Taslin Alfonzo: Morning Anchor
- Ginger Casey: Anchor
- Anna Davlantes: Anchor
- Dave Dickson: Weatherman
- Todd Duplantis: Reporter
- Olga Campos: Reporter
- Fran Fawcett: Anchor
- Tanja Greene: Reporter
- Linda Cheek-Heinrich: Morning Anchor
- Jan Jeffcoat: Morning Anchor, now at WFLD (2004-2007)
- Matt Lavine: Meteorologist 1990-2006, later filled in at KIAH (2008)and KHOU (2009) before moving to seattle
- Mike Lyons: Meteorologist
- Steve Mark: Sports Anchor/Reporter
- Monique Nation: Reporter (deceased)
- Shaun Rabb: Weatherman
- Matt Sampsell: Sports Anchor/Reporter
- Cecilia Sinclair: Chief Meteorologist (2000-2007)
- Robert Smith: Chief Meteorologist (1989-2000) (deceased)
- ReShonda Tate: Reporter
- Darian Ward: Anchor
- Craig Weber: Meteorologist
- Sherry Williams Anchor/Reporter
Helicopter information
- SkyFox (Bell 407)[9]
News/station presentation
Newscast titles
- TV-26 News (August 15, 1971-1975)
- KDOG News (1975-1978)
- Channel 26 Metromedia News (1978-1986)
- Fox 26 News (1986-present)
Station slogans
- News That Works For You (2001-2006)
- Your Gulf Coast Weather Authority (2006-present)
External links
- MyFoxHouston.com (KRIV's official website)
- History of KRIV
- Query the FCC's TV station database for KRIV
- BIAfn's Media Web Database -- Information on KRIV-TV
References
|
||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
