Texas Country Reporter is a weekly syndicated television program hosted and produced by Bob Phillips. It airs in all twenty-two Texas media markets, generally on weekends, and reruns are broadcast nationally on the satellite/cable channel RFD-TV. As of April 2008, Phillips had already taped two thousand episodes of the program.
Texas Country Reporter showcases Texas people and places, with an emphasis on rural areas and in a style similar to that of Charles Kuralt's On the Road for CBS News. Originally called 4 Country Reporter, it debuted in 1972 on Dallas television station KDFW, Channel 4 and was first hosted by John Mclean, then Jeff Rosser, then Bob Philips. In 1986, Phillips left KDFW and began selling the show in syndication, adopting the Texas Country Reporter name. In the Dallas market, KDFW did not pick up the syndicated version but rival station WFAA did and named the show 8 Country Reporter. About this time Dairy Queen became the show's main sponsor, a move which allowed Phillips to be the spokesman for the chain in its advertising.
The show is independently syndicated, with Phillips retaining half of the ads for regional sponsors; he appears in many of the regional ads, and the sponsors' logos adorn the back of the famed SUV. The show headlines a "Texas Country Reporter Festival" in Waxahachie south of Dallas, with some of the people who have been highlighted on the show in attendance. Texas Country Reporter posts selected segments to its YouTube page, and some have been featured on local newscasts. A three-DVD highlights set, Go! Stay! Eat!, was released September 17, 2005.
A national version of the show, On the Road With Bob Phillips, was planned to debut in 2010; Phillips previously did 60 stories in 35 states as part of a "Texas Country Reporter Discovers America" series for the show's 25th anniversary in 1998.
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