KTBU

Lakewood Church and Humanity Interested Media's "The Tube" (1998–2006)

The station first signed on the air on July 15, 1998, from facilities located on Old Katy Road near Memorial Park in northwest Houston. It was established as a for-profit corporation jointly owned by Charles Dowen Johnson's Humanity Interested Media, Inc. (later Shepherds for the Savior) and John Osteen's Lakewood Church.^[3][4] Lakewood Church bought a 49% share in the station for $2 million. Joel Osteen ran the station until his father's death in 1999, when Joel began preaching at their church.^[5]

KTBU launched as an independent station with a general entertainment format including classic and syndicated television series, movies and sports, plus a slate of locally produced shows focusing on sports, history and other topics of interest to Houstonians.^[6] However, Shepherds for the Savior later stated,^[7]

The idea behind the acquisition of the TV license was to have a local Christian-based TV station that would generate enough income to support his ministry of spreading the message of Jesus by supporting ministries worldwide.

The station started its first broadcast with a religious devotional. Lakewood Church, which previously broadcast their church services on the local CBS affiliate KHOU, began broadcasting them on KTBU, and KTBU added religious programming from 6 a.m. to noon and 10 p.m. to midnight on Sundays, and from 6 to 7 a.m. every weekday from Joyce Meyer and Walter Hallam's megachurch in Texas.^[8]

When interviewed in 1998, the Vice President of Marketing (and Joel Osteen's brother-in-law) Don Iloff said they would "reluctantly" broadcast sports shows with beer ads.^[8] In 1999, they added a local news program with The News of Texas^[9] and began broadcasting live telecasts of University of Houston football, basketball, and baseball games and weekly shows featuring University of Houston coaches.^[10]

In 2000, KTBU added more local programming and briefly broadcast Houston Rockets and Houston Comets games.^[11][12] The station was not able to successfully broadcast the Houston Rockets and Comets games, and the sports teams ended their contracts early. The same year, KTBU also decided to end most local programming and layoff between 12 and 16 people. At that time, the General Manager was (later Texas Lt. Governor) Dan Patrick, who was simultaneously the General Manager at KSEV AM radio station; he stepped down from the KTBU in 2001 after the programming problems and scaling back.^[13][14]

In 2004, Lakewood Church bought the remaining stake in the station for $6 million.

In 2006, they sold KTBU to USFR Media Group for $30.5 million to pay down debts associated with their purchase of the former Compaq Center sports arena (now the Lakewood Church Central Campus).^[5]

USFR Media Group's "Houston's 55" (2006–2011)

Under the new ownership with USFR Media Group, the station moved from its original studios on Old Katy Road to a purpose-built facility on Equity Drive in northwest Houston previously built for the ill-fated News 24 Houston cable news channel, and changed its on-air moniker to "Houston's 55".

Spanish Broadcasting System's "Mega TV" (2011–2020)

In May 2011, the station was sold to the Spanish Broadcasting System for $16 million. Upon the completion of the sale, KTBU dropped all local and national syndicated programs and joined SBS' Mega TV network.^[15][16]

Tegna's "Quest" (2020–present)

On January 21, 2020, Tegna Inc. agreed to acquire KTBU for $15 million.^[17] The sale was completed on March 24, 2020, making KTBU a sister station to Tegna's CBS affiliate KHOU.^[18] Three days later, KTBU's main channel flipped to the Tegna-owned Quest multicast network,^[2] and eventually KTBU's operations were moved into KHOU's studios near Uptown Houston.

Upon becoming a Tegna property, it was announced that KTBU would take over as the official local television partner of Major League Soccer's Houston Dynamo.^[19] KTBU may air CBS network programming should it be preempted by KHOU for long-form breaking news or severe weather coverage or other special programming. Its main role however, is serving as a UHF rebroadcaster for KHOU via its DT11 subchannel, allowing full-market access to the station for viewers who only have a UHF antenna.

On February 22, 2022, Tegna announced that it would be acquired by Standard General and Apollo Global Management for $5.4 billion. As a part of the deal, KTBU and KHOU, along with their Austin sister station KVUE and Dallas sister stations WFAA and KMPX, would be resold to Cox Media Group.^[20][21] The sale was canceled on May 22, 2023.^[22]

Subchannels

The station's signal is multiplexed:

Analog-to-digital conversion

KTBU ended regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 55, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.^[24] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 42,^[25][26] using virtual channel 55.