KVUE

KVUE (channel 24) is a television station in Austin, Texas, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on Steck Avenue just east of Loop 1 in northwest Austin, and its transmitter is located on the West Austin Antenna Farm northwest of downtown. KVUE was the third television station established in Austin, going on the air in 1971 as an affiliate of ABC. Originally owned by a consortium of Texas investors including former governor Allan Shivers, it was purchased by the Evening News Association in 1978. Under Evening News and Gannett, which first owned the station from 1986 to 1999, channel 24 became a force in the Austin news ratings, and in the 1990s its approach to crime coverage attracted national media attention. Gannett traded KVUE to the Belo Corporation in 1999 in exchange for KXTV in Sacramento, California, and $55 million; the deal gave the Dallas-based Belo a station in Austin and coverage of two-thirds of TV households in Texas. Gannett and Belo merged in 2013. History Pre-launch and construction In the fall of 1961, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began to receive applications for channel 24 in Austin. Applicants included Dalton Homer Cobb, a Midland oilman who owned that city's KDCD-TV (channel 18), and John R. Powley of Altoona, Pennsylvania (whose Texas Longhorn Broadcasting Company sought channel 67). They were soon followed by an Austin radio station in business for 15 years and also seeking channel 24: KVET (1300 AM), which filed on December 12, 1961, in anticipation of a future day when a UHF station could be viable. The Cobb and KVET bids were designated for hearing by the FCC in 1962, and KVET got the nod on March 13, 1963.