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KTRK-TV, virtual channel and VHF digital channel 13, is an ABC owned-and-operated television station located in Houston, Texas, United States. The station is owned by the ABC Owned Television Stations subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company (through its Disney-ABC Television Group division). KTRK maintains studio facilities located on Bissonnet Street in Houston's Upper Kirby district,〔"(Harris County Improvement District #3 )." ''Upper Kirby''. Retrieved on December 10, 2008.〕 and its transmitter is located in unincorporated northeastern Fort Bend County (near Missouri City). ==History== The station grew out of the Federal Communications Commission-imposed VHF "freeze", when three entities vying for the channel 13 assignment, including the ''Houston Chronicle'', decided to merge as Houston Consolidated Television.〔"Grant proposed for Houston TV Co." ''Broadcasting - Telecasting'', January 18, 1954, pg. 56. ()〕 The group also bought the studio facilities of KNUZ-TV (channel 39), a DuMont affiliate which had gone dark. The station first signed on the air on November 20, 1954 as KTRK-TV; as the ''Chronicle'' was the largest shareholder in the company, the callsign was derived from the ''Chronicle's'' radio station, KTRH. The station has been aligned with ABC since its debut; during the late 1950s, the station also had a brief affiliation with the NTA Film Network. The station's original studio facilities were located at 4513 Cullen Boulevard (at the defunct Texas Television Center district on the University of Houston campus); this studio later housed KHTV (now KIAH, the present channel 39) and PBS member station KUHT (channel 8). In 1955, the ''Chronicle'' bought out its partners. Although this theoretically left the paper free to change its callsign to "KTRH-TV" to match its radio sister, it opted not to. However, for years it called itself "The ''Houston Chronicle'' Station." Soon afterward, the station moved to its current Bissonnet Street facility. The studio was the first domed structure in town, predating the better-known Astrodome by ten years. Both projects were built by the same architect, Hermon Lloyd. Like many stations located on "unlucky" channel 13, it used a black cat as its mascot Early programs involved a heavy emphasis on local flavor and reflected themes of the day. Some of the more popular local shows included: * ''Kitirik'': a children's program, hosted by an actress in a cat costume. * ''Cadet Don'': A space-themed children's adventure program that focused on the exploits of an interstellar adventurer and the locations he visited. His alien puppet friend Seymour was from the planet Katark. * ''Dialing for Dollars'': A game show of sorts where a viewer would be phoned by the host and would win a cash prize by answering questions. * ''Good Morning Houston'': The successor to ''Dialing for Dollars'', which debuted in the late 1970s and expanded to include discussions on local events and topics important to viewer's lifestyles. In 1967, the ''Chronicle'' sold KTRK to Capital Cities Broadcasting (later to become Capital Cities Communications).〔"Capital Cities buys KTRK-TV in Houston." ''Broadcasting'', November 21, 1966, pg. 9. ()〕 KTRK's introduced its "Circle 13" logo – which is loosely patterned after the Circle 7 logo long used by ABC stations and affiliates broadcasting on channel 7 – in 1971; the original version, used until 1995, was a crooked "Circle 13" that recalled livestock branding of the Old West and was set in a Helvetica typeface, with the bottom of the "3" trailing off outside the circle (similar also to the way the stem of the number 7 terminates at the bottom of the Circle 7 logo). Under Capital Cities ownership, KTRK pre-empted some ABC programs, though not nearly as much as some of the network's other affiliates, such as Philadelphia sister station WPVI-TV. The programs that channel 13 declined to air were not widely run in many markets, though KTRK did pre-empt the first half-hour of ''Good Morning America'' in favor of a local newscast, continuing into the early 1990s when the newscast was moved to a pre-7 a.m. start time. After 1991, the station's only regular preemption was the first half-hour of ''The Home Show'', an arrangement which continued when the show morphed into ''Mike and Maty''. Despite these pre-emptions, ABC was more than satisfied with KTRK, which was one of its strongest affiliates. Capital Cities bought ABC in 1986, making KTRK an ABC owned-and-operated station〔"Capcities + ABC" and "FCC approval of CapCities/ABC deal likely." ''Broadcasting'', March 25, 1985, pp. 31-34. ()()()()〕 and the first network-owned television station in the state of Texas. That year, the trailing portion of the station's logo was "trimmed" and was turned slightly horizontal in a similar fashion to the present-day version (the logo began to be superimposed over a stylized version of the Texas state flag on July 3, 1992). Capital Cities/ABC was sold to The Walt Disney Company in early 1996.〔(The Media Business: The Merger; Walt Disney to Acquire ABC in $19 Billion Deal to Build a Giant for Entertainment ), ''The New York Times'', August 1, 1995.〕 Not long after, the new Disney-led ownership directed KTRK-TV to clear the entire ABC schedule, though there have been instances where local special events have aired in place of network programming (the annual running of the Chevron Houston Marathon is one notable example of this as live race coverage, anchored by the station's news team, pre-empted the Sunday edition of ''Good Morning America''). On April 30, 2000, a dispute between Disney and Time Warner Cable resulted in KTRK being pulled from TWC's Houston service area for over 24 hours. Other ABC stations in markets served by Time Warner Cable, such as New York City, Los Angeles and Raleigh-Durham, were also affected by the outage before the FCC forced the provider to restore the affected ABC stations to those areas on May 2〔(MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER )〕 (Time Warner traded the Houston franchise to Comcast in exchange for the latter's Dallas-Fort Worth system in 2007). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「KTRK-TV」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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