KHOU

KHOU, virtual channel and VHF digital channel 11, is a CBS-affiliated television station located in Houston, Texas, United States. The station is owned by Tegna. KHOU maintains studio facilities located along Allen Parkway in the Neartown neighborhood (near Downtown Houston), and its transmitter is located in unincorporated northeastern Fort Bend County (near Missouri City).

History

The station first signed on the air on March 23, 1953 as KGUL-TV (as in gulf or as in "seagull" ); it was founded by Paul Taft of the Taft Broadcasting Co. (no relation to the Cincinnati, Ohio-based Taft Broadcasting Company). Originally licensed to Galveston, it was the second television station to debut in the Houston market (after KPRC-TV, channel 2). One of the original investors in the station was actor James Stewart, along with a small group of other Galveston investors.

In 1956, the original owners sold the station to the Indianapolis-based Whitney Corporation (later Corinthian Broadcasting), which became a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet in 1971. In June 1959, the station changed its callsign to KHOU-TV (the "-TV" suffix was dropped from the call letters the week following the June 12, 2009 digital transition, as most Belo stations did at the time) and had its city of license relocated to Houston. The FCC license listed both the Houston and Galveston service areas for a time. On April 24, 1960, the station moved to its present studio facilities on Allen Parkway just outside downtown. To this day, KHOU is the only local television station in Houston to have its primary studios located close to downtown