KANG-TV

The arrival of a second new VHF station on channel 10 presented an immediate obstacle to KANG-TV's survival. As with other UHF stations in similarly disadvantaged markets, it petitioned the FCC to force its competitor to move from channel 10 to UHF channel 66; it claimed that it could not compete as the only UHF station in a market with effectively two VHF outlets (including Temple's KCEN-TV).^[12] The FCC rejected this proposal in October 1954 and awarded channel 10 to KWTX over WACO.^[13][14] In building the station, Weatherby later told Donald S. Thomas, a friend, that he believed there would be a longer fight between KWTX and WACO for channel 10—the comparative hearing phase took two weeks, a record for the time^[15]—and that he had overestimated the demand for a UHF television station that required converters or special all-channel sets to be viewed.^[16]

Faced with a bleak economic picture, in November, Central Texas Television Company filed to sell KANG-TV to the Texas Broadcasting Company, which owned KTBC radio and television in Austin, for $115,000 plus the assumption of $19,000 in debt. The sellers told the FCC that they had failed to secure sufficient advertising to prevent losses^[17] and that their deficit surpassed $145,000. The sale received swift FCC approval in early December; it brought KANG-TV under the ownership of Lady Bird Johnson, wife of then-senator Lyndon B. Johnson.^[18] Weatherby had been one of Lady Bird Johnson's classmates in college.^[16]

On April 3, 1955, KWTX-TV began telecasting.^[19] However, the new station had no network affiliation. KWTX officials attributed this to monopolistic behavior by Texas Broadcasting, whose KANG-TV continued to be the affiliate of CBS, ABC, and DuMont, and challenged a power increase proposed by KTBC-TV.^[20]

On December 24, 1955, KANG-TV general manager J. C. Kellen and KWTX-TV general manager Buddy Bostick jointly announced that the stations would merge. The merged station would operate under KWTX's call letters and channel location. The KWTX Broadcasting Company acquired all of KANG's assets save the license and sold a minority stake to KANG's owners.^[21] At midnight on December 31, 1955, KANG-TV ceased broadcasting. KWTX-TV then inherited KANG's CBS affiliation, while KANG-TV's owners acquired a 30 percent stake in KWTX-TV. In a prepared statement, Kellam declared that the station had operated at a loss for its entire history and that the only way to prevent additional losses was to take it off the air. He and Lady Bird Johnson joined the KWTX board.^[22]

The KANG-TV studios were put up for lease and were used by two tenants after the television station closed. The first was a new church, the Western Heights Baptist Church.^[23] From 1961 to 1963, Success Motivation Institute (SMI), a Waco-based producer of motivational speech recordings and executive training courses, occupied the building, but this was temporary, and plans were in motion to construct a new facility for the company.^[24][25] The building was demolished in 1963 to make way for a new motel.^[26]

The association between KWTX's ownership and Johnson interests continued for more than 40 years after the merger of KANG-TV into KWTX-TV. The LBJ Holding Company continued to partly own the station into the 1990s.^[27]