KTXH (channel 20), branded My20 Vision, is a television station in Houston, Texas, United States. It is programmed primarily as an independent station, but maintains a secondary affiliation with MyNetworkTV. KTXH is owned by Fox Television Stations alongside KRIV (channel 26) and the two stations share studios on Southwest Freeway (I-69/US 59) in Houston; KTXH's transmitter is located near Missouri City, Texas. KTXH began broadcasting in November 1982 as Houston's third independent station. A month after going on air, its broadcast tower collapsed in a construction accident that killed five people. The station recovered and emerged as Houston's sports independent, beginning long associations with the Houston Astros and Houston Rockets that continued uninterrupted through the late 1990s and sporadically until the early 2010s. Not long after starting up, KTXH was sold twice in rapid succession for large amounts. However, when the independent station trade, advertising market, and regional economy cooled, it was sold again for less than half of its previous value. The Paramount Stations Group acquired KTXH and other stations in two parts between 1989 and 1991, bringing much-needed stability. KTXH was one of several Paramount-owned stations to be charter outlets for the United Paramount Network (UPN) in 1995; in 2001, after UPN was acquired by CBS, Fox took possession of the station in a trade and merged its operations with KRIV. When UPN merged into The CW in 2006, bypassing all of Fox's UPN and independent stations in the process, the station became part of Fox's MyNetworkTV service. In 2021, the station became one of two ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) transmitters for the Houston area; its subchannels are now transmitted by other local stations on its behalf.
History
Construction, start-up, and tragedy Interest in channel 20 in Houston began to emerge in 1976, as three groups filed applications for new television stations in light of the emerging technology of subscription television (STV). These were Channel 20 Houston, Inc., a group led by Robert S. Block of Milwaukee; Channel 20, Inc., headed by Sidney Shlenker; and CPI Subscription TV, subsidiary of cable television company Communications Properties, Inc. CPI withdrew, and a settlement application between the Block and Shlenker consortia—Channel 20, Inc.—was granted the construction permit by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on May 19, 1980. It was the second joint settlement between Block and Shlenker for a Texas station; the Shlenker consortium, with Milton Grant as head of operations, had previously received the construction permit for KTXA in Fort Worth in March. That station began broadcasting in February 1981 as a hybrid operation, with commercial programming and ON TV, the STV service owned by Oak Industries. Oak was to own a majority stake in the local ON TV operation. Channel 20's launch was delayed due to holdups in determining the local structure of the ON TV franchise and a dispute involving the mineral rights under the new Senior Road Tower, a 1,971-foot (601 m) mast in Fort Bend County that would be used to transmit KTXH and nine Houston FM radio stations. KTXH began broadcasting on November 7, 1982, branding on-air as "20-Vision" and broadcasting from studios at 8950 Kirby Drive in Houston. By that time, though, Oak had frozen its plans into eventual cancellation, with Grant telling Ann Hodges of the Houston Chronicle that their operation had shut down completely. This was to the benefit of KTXH's ad-supported commercial offerings, giving it prime time hours to program (particularly with sports) and making reticent cable systems more willing to put the new station on their lineups. On opening night, the station showed the film The Deer Hunter, and five nights later, the station aired its first Houston Rockets basketball game; Shlenker was a 10 percent stakeholder in the NBA team. The 30 games the Rockets were slated to telecast in 1982–83 marked a record for the club. Shortly before signing on, the Houston Sports Association, owner of the Houston Astros baseball club, became a new 38 percent stockholder in KTXH, bringing with them television rights to the Astros. In the first month on air, Houston's third independent station claimed eight percent of the viewing audience in the Houston metropolitan area, immediately moving into a tie for the lead, with its program lineup organized into thematic blocks. KTXH was the first tenant to use the Senior Road Tower. A month later, work began to install the antenna that the FM radio stations would use on the mast. The first part was put into place on December 6. Despite winds, work proceeded the next morning, December 7. A failure in a clamping device on the hoisting mechanism caused a 75-foot (23 m) section of antenna to fall off, severing a guy wire and leading to the tower's collapse. Five people, all tower workers employed by a New Jersey company, died. KTXH suffered a $1.5 million loss in equipment, including the transmitter, on which the falling mast collapsed. A man in the transmitter building saw the tower collapse and fled. In the wake of the tower collapse, KTXH was out of service for a total of 61 days. The station filed a $42 million lawsuit, alleging negligent construction and claiming a $7 million loss in equipment and advertising. It also immediately ordered a new transmitter as the Senior Road Tower consortium moved ahead with reconstruction of the mast, where KTXH would return upon its completion in October 1983. Even while broadcasting from a temporary facility atop the Allied Bank Plaza, KTXH continued to post competitive numbers against KRIV.
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