Newscasts
KHOU has been widely regarded as a stepping stone for television news anchors reporters, as many of its reporters have gone on to assignments with national networks. The station's best known former staff are former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, NBC News Correspondent Dennis Murphy and newswomen Linda Ellerbee and Jessica Savitch. In sports, there was Jim Nantz, a sports anchor/reporter, now with CBS Sports and Ron Franklin, a sports anchor now with ESPN.
Beginning in the late 1980s, KHOU hired several high-profile people to its news team. The most notable was Neil Frank, the former director of the National Hurricane Center, who was tapped by the station to be the chief meteorologist starting in July 1987. In another key move, the station also hired former KTRK anchor Sylvan Rodriguez away from his job at the West Coast bureau of ABC News to anchor the station's early evening newscasts. KHOU also began to use the "Spirit of Texas" slogan and TM Productions' "Spirit" music package (also used at sister station WFAA in Dallas), and incorporated a redesigned logo.
In January 1989, KHOU revamped the look of its newscasts, with an image campaign that included full-page ads in the Houston Chronicle and Houston Post, as well as an on-air promotional campaign that focused more on ordinary citizens throughout Greater Houston than on its news team. With the lead news team of anchors Steve Smith and Marlene McClinton, chief meteorologist Dr. Neil Frank and sports director Giff Nielsen, along with a new set, graphics and theme music, KHOU began to mount a serious challenge to the other Houston newscasts, leading to a competitive ratings race during the 1990s.
If any year proved to be a breakout year for KHOU, it was 1999. During the May sweeps of that year, KHOU reached number one in several timeslots, unseating KTRK at midday, 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. The station's ratings boost also included an exclusive interview with Serbian and Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic during the Kosovo War just a month before Milosevic's indictment. This news came despite the retirement of longtime anchor Steve Smith, anchor Sylvan Rodriguez's eventually fatal bout with pancreatic cancer and the abrupt resignation of fellow anchor Marlene McClinton during one of the station's newscasts.
On February 4, 2007, following CBS' coverage of Super Bowl XLI, KHOU aired its first newscasts in high definition (HD), branding themselves as 11 News HD, and heavily promotiong the technology.
On September 7, 2009, KHOU-TV launched Houston's third morning newscast to begin at 4:30 a.m., "First Look." The newscast is anchored by former KIAH (channel 39) anchor Sherry Williams, with meteorologist David Paul. Despite being the last station in the Houston market to launch its early-morning newscast, KHOU was the first station in the market to send a news release announcing its intentions to do so. In a race to capture the lucrative insomniac/very early commuter market, all three major network affiliates in Houston launched 4:30 a.m. newscasts within three weeks of each other in the late summer of 2009.
In March 2011, KHOU started using a new set of on-air HD visual graphics, which also incorporated a new logo and new newscast title, "KHOU 11 News." This new graphics replaces their old yellow-red-white-and-blue HD graphics, which were also created by the Giant Octopus design group. On July 13, 2011 KHOU announced that it would debut a new half-hour 4 p.m. newscast on August 1, 2011; the newscast is the third newscast in the Houston market in that timeslot, as KPRC debuted their 4 p.m. newscast in 1996 and KTRK debuted a 4 p.m. newscast in 2001.
KHOU's is currently second place in the Houston market behind KTRK. However they rank well among middle aged (35-55) and suburban audiences. This is noted as currently as of 2011, KHOU is the only station that focuses traffic in the suburbs in addition to the Houston freeways.
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