Pre-launch and construction
In the fall of 1961, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began to receive applications for channel 24 in Austin. Applicants included Dalton Homer Cobb, a Midland oilman who owned that city's KDCD-TV (channel 18), and John R. Powley of Altoona, Pennsylvania (whose Texas Longhorn Broadcasting Company sought channel 67).[1] They were soon followed by an Austin radio station in business for 15 years and also seeking channel 24: KVET (1300 AM), which filed on December 12, 1961,[2] in anticipation of a future day when a UHF station could be viable.[3] The Cobb and KVET bids were designated for hearing by the FCC in 1962, and KVET got the nod on March 13, 1963.
While KVET manager Willard Deason announced the station would be built at "deliberate speed" and be on the air by early 1965,[4] Austinites would have to wait some time to see it. In 1965, KVET was sold to Butler Broadcasting, channel 24 construction permit included.[5] Butler announced a start date in February or March 1966,[6] then a fall 1967 launch was floated.[7]
KVET filed to sell the construction permit in 1968 to McAlister Television Enterprises, owner of KSEL-TV in Lubbock, for $44,000.[8] McAlister sold a majority stake to several other investors which included former governor Allan Shivers, resulting in the creation of the Channel Twenty-Four Corporation as the assignee. The FCC approved in June 1970;[9] the KVET-TV call letters were changed to KVUE, and a site in what was then far north Austin along Shoal Creek was selected for the studios.[10]
The station signed on the air on September 12, 1971, after winds from Hurricane Fern delayed the intended start-up.[11] KVUE was the market's first full-time ABC affiliate and finally gave the capital city the full program lineups from all three networks; prior to KVUE's sign-on, the network's programming had previously been limited to off-hours clearances on KTBC-TV and KHFI-TV.[12]
Growth and ownership changes
In 1978, the Evening News Association, publisher of The Detroit News and owner of several television stations, purchased KVUE; it was the last locally owned TV station in the market to be sold.[13] Under Evening News, the station added 13000 ft2 to its studio facility, doubling its size, in an expansion begun in 1985.[14] The station also successfully repelled a 1984 attack by a gunman who wished to broadcast a political manifesto; employees tricked him into thinking his statement was broadcast on the air, and he was arrested after reading his statement.[15]
After a hostile takeover bid by Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio was rebuffed, ENA put itself up and sale and was purchased by the Gannett Company in 1985,[16] a transaction that closed in February 1986.[17] A second expansion of the studios was conducted in 1991, this time adding another 9400 ft2 to house the newsroom.
