KRIV

Infobox_Broadcast
call_letters = KRIV
city =
station_
station_slogan = Your Gulf Coast Weather Authority
station_branding = Fox 26 (general)
Fox 26 News (newscasts)
analog = 26 (UHF)
digital = 27 (UHF)
other_chs =
affiliations = Fox
network =
founded =
airdate = August 15, 1971
location = Houston, Texas
callsign_meaning = Albert KRIVin
(former top executive of Metromedia)
former_callsigns = KVRL (1971-1975?)
KDOG-TV (1975?-1978)
former_channel_numbers =
owner = Fox Television Stations
licensee = Fox Television Stations, Inc.
sister_stations = KTXH
former_affiliations = Independent (1971-1986)
effective_radiated_power = 5000 kW (analog)
500 kW (digital)
HAAT = 594 m (analog)
534 m (digital)
class =
facility_id = 22204
coordinates = coord|29|34|28.5|N|95|29|37.5|W|type:landmark_scale:2000
homepage = [http://www.myfoxhouston.com/ 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.

History

Channel 26 signed on for the first time on August 151971 as KVRL. It was the second UHF station in Houston after KHTV (channel 39, now KIAH) to sign on the air. Several 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 they ran Spanish programming such as Spanish-language telenovelas, Spanish language movies, Spanish serials.

As a Metromedia station

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

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".

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. 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

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.

Future plans

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 runs 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. In 2009 KRIV will add a Sunday morning newscast from 7:00-8:00 am 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.

Logo history

The original logo of KVRL 26 was the letters "TV-26" in a stylized font. [http://www.myfoxhouston.com/myfox/photo_servlet?contentId=459562&version=1&locale=EN-US&subtype=MIMG&siteId=1013] After Metromedia purchased the station in 1978, the logo was changed to a more bold number which was diagonally oriented. [http://oldtvguides.com/all_thumbs/medium_26-kriv%20%20houston,%20tx%20%20800%20mi.jpg]

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 [http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/1/13/Kriv86.jpg] , another shows the a horizontally oriented logo with a diagonal Fox logo on the left and the "KRIV 26" on the right [http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/a/af/E51c.jpg]

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. [http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/7/76/Kriv2688.jpg]

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. [http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/b/b9/E94e.jpg]

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. [http://web.petabox.bibalex.org/web/20020626220948/http://jonesgsm.rice.edu/images/jonesgsm/Logos/kriv_logo.jpg] 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. [http://www.myfoxhouston.com/myfox/photo_servlet?contentId=676337&version=1&locale=EN-US&subtype=MIMG]

Digital television

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

After the analog television shutdown and digital conversion, which is tentatively scheduled to take place on February 17, 2009 http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-06-1082A2.pdf] , KRIV will move its digital broadcasts back to its present analog channel number, 26. [http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/cdbsmenu.hts?context=25&appn=101238126&formid=387&fac_num=22204 CDBS Print ] ]

Personalities

Current on-air talent

FOX 26 ANCHORS
*Ford Atkinson: Weekend Anchor
*Mike Barajas: Weekday Evening Anchor
*José Griñan: Weekday Morning Anchor
*Damali Keith: Weekend Anchor, also reports during weekends)
*Melinda Spaulding: Weekday Midday Anchor
*Sibila Vargas: Weekday Morning Anchor
*Melissa Wilson: Weekday Evening Anchor
*Tom Zizka: Weekday Morning Anchor

FOX 26 REPORTERS
*Emily Akin: "Take it to Akin" Consumer Reporter
*Erin Anthony: Traffic Reporter, weekday mornings
*Don Armstrong: Traffic Reporter, SkyFox weekday mornings
*Isiah Carey: General Assignment Reporter
*Doug Delony: "My Tech Guy" 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 METEOROLOGISTS
*Dr. Jim Siebert: Weekday Chief Meteorologst
*Mike Iscovitz: Morning Meteorologist
*Kristi Powers: Morning Meteorologist
*John Dawson: Weekend Meteorologist

SPORTS ANCHORS/REPORTERS
*Mark Berman: Sports Director/Weeknight Sports Anchor
*Keith Calkins: Weekend Sports Anchor/Host of "Fox 26 Sports Xtra"

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
*Matt Lavine: Meteorologist
*Mike Lyons: Meteorologist
*Steve Mark: Sports Anchor/Reporter
*Monique Nation: Reporter (deceased)
*Shaun Rabb: Weatherman
*Matt Sampsell: Sports Anchor/Reporter
*Cecilia Sinclair: Chief Meteorologist
*Robert Smith: Chief Meteorologist (deceased)
*ReShonda Tate: Reporter
*Darian Ward: Anchor
*Craig Weber: Meteorologist
*Sherry Williams Anchor/Reporter

Helicopter information

*SkyFox (Bell 407) ^{[http://media.myfoxhouston.com/special/skyfox/]}

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)

tation slogans

*"News That Works For You" (2001-2006)
*"Your Gulf Coast Weather Authority" (2006-present)

External links

* [http://www.myfoxhouston.com/ MyFoxHouston.com (KRIV's official website)]
* [http://www.myfoxhouston.com/myfox/pages/InsideFox/Detail?contentId=459289&version=8&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=5.1.1 History of KRIV]
*TVQ|KRIV
*BIA|KRIV|TV|TV

References