News operation
On April 10, 2011, KCBD began broadcasting their newscasts in high definition.
KCBD's stability, especially in terms of its anchor staff, has contributed to its relative standing in the Lubbock media market. Since 1984, when it switched from the Eyewitness News branding to News 11 (one it would keep through about 1993 or 1994) KCBD's newscasts have routinely ranked #1 in the Lubbock market. Abner Euresti has been at the station since the mid-1970s when he anchored with Jane Prince. Euresti was paired with Karin McCay in 1980 under news director Carl Skip Watson (guiding light of the Lubbock food bank initiative) and have worked together since. Not far behind is chief meteorologist John Robison, who came to the station in 1983. Sharon Hibner Maines was the main anchor at cross town KLBK-TV from 1975-82 until she left for KAMC, where she would co-anchor the evening newscasts there until 1989. Between her departure from KAMC and her arrival at KCBD in 1996, she worked in public relations for Furr's Supermarkets. She resurfaced at KAMC and later came to KCBD. Maines, the wife of noted local musician Kenny Maines, is only one of a handful of media personalities (along with Texas Tech football color commentator John Harris, who served as KCBD's sports director from 1989 to 1995; and current KAMC evening anchor Bryan Mudd, who served as a KCBD sports anchor in the late 1990s) to have anchored either news, sports, or weather at all of Lubbock's Big Three affiliates.[17][18][19][20][21]
One-time weather anchor Clyde Robert "Bob" Stephens was founder of 99.5 FM KWGN in Abernathy, Texas. It was later called KWGO and is nowadays Lubbock's KQBR. Former sports anchor Bob Howell was a co-founder of a Texas oriented sports channel for cable that is now at the heart of the present day Fox Sports Southwest network.
KCBD broadcast Dr. Red Duke's syndicated medical reports to viewers on the South Plains for much of the 1980s and 1990s.
Starting with the 1990–91 season, KCBD-TV, in conjunction with Methodist Hospital, produced a weekly program titled Health Matters. Hosted by evening co-anchor and health reporter Karin McCay, the program focused on a single health-related topic and featured interviews with medical practitioners from a wide array of specialties. Airing Saturdays at 5 p.m., the program was telecast for the first half of the decade. The program can effectively be viewed as a long-form version of McCay's "Healthwise" segments that have appeared during the station's evening newscasts since the early 1980s.[22]
