KPRC-TV

While KPRC-TV generally airs NBC's programming lineup in pattern, this has not always been the case. Despite NBC historically being less tolerant of preemptions than other networks, KPRC-TV has at times preempted programming particularly in late night and daytime hours. While NBC has become more tolerant of preemptions than in previous years, it prefers that its affiliates clear the entire schedule whenever possible.

Following its acquisition by Post-Newsweek, various programs have been preempted by KPRC-TV over the years in a pattern similar to that of its Detroit sister station, WDIV-TV. Most notorious of all, the station dropped Late Night with Conan O'Brien from 1994 to 1996, leaving Houston as the largest market in the country to not air the program, with reruns of various tabloid talk shows including the aforementioned Ricki Lake and Jenny Jones, tabloid news programs such as Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood, and even a repeat of KPRC-TV's 10 p.m. newscast often filling the void. While Late Night did return to KPRC-TV in 1996, the station continued to delay its broadcast as far back as 2:40 a.m. (even truncating the broadcast of its overnight news program, NBC Nightside, in the process).

This fact was not lost on O'Brien, who visited Houston (making impromptu stops at Houston's central bus terminal and the Astrodome) to watch an episode of his own show with Houstonians in a classic remote piece. KPRC-TV's mail servers were flooded with emails from O'Brien's fans in response. KPRC-TV responded by moving the show to 12:35 a.m. in 1998, and finally to its network-recommended (for the Central Time Zone) 11:35 p.m. slot in 2005, where Late Night, now hosted by Seth Meyers, continues to air. Channel 2 also delayed A Little Late with Lilly Singh (and its predecessor, Last Call with Carson Daly) in late nights (recently at 1:35 a.m.) until August 13, 2021, when NBC gave that timeslot back to its affiliates; the station now airs a rebroadcast of the 10 p.m. news at 12:37 a.m.

When Passions debuted on NBC in 1999, KPRC-TV (along with Detroit sister station WDIV-TV) were the only NBC affiliates that preempted the soap opera until 2002, even though Passions' predecessor Another World was cleared by KPRC for most if not all of its entire run.[12] Around this time, KPRC, WDIV and Bonneville International–owned NBC affiliate KSL-TV in Salt Lake City declined to air Sunset Beach; respectively, Sunset Beach aired on KTXH (channel 20), WKBD and KOOG (the former two were UPN affiliates and the latter was a WB affiliate). KNWS-TV (channel 51, now KYAZ), which had also picked up another preempted NBC daytime program, the talk show Leeza during the late 1990s, would pick up Passions in 2001 before the program moved to KPRC-TV in 2002 at 3:05 a.m. Following the expansion of Today to three hours in 1999, Maury (which previously filled the 9 a.m. hour) aired in place of Passions until KPRC-TV placed the latter program in its network-recommended 2 p.m. timeslot in August 2004 (with Maury moving to KHWB [channel 39, now KIAH] at the same time), but the issue became moot when the program was canceled in September 2007.

During the 2000s, KPRC-TV was also among a handful of NBC affiliates that did not air Poker After Dark during its entire run, and likewise did not carry the short-lived Face the Ace in August 2009 (along with WDIV and Milwaukee's WTMJ-TV), preempting both prime time airings with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital programs. As is the case with Detroit's WDIV, NBC's current overnight lineup (a rebroadcast of the fourth hour of Today on weekdays; LXTV 1st Look and Open House NYC on weekends) also does not air in Houston.

Beginning in 1965, the American Football League signed a broadcast deal with NBC. As a result, KPRC-TV became the primary station for regular season games of the Houston Oilers, one of the league's eight founding teams; this continued after the AFL became the American Football Conference of the National Football League in 1970. Local Oilers broadcasts ended after the 1996 NFL season, when the team relocated to Nashville and eventually became the Tennessee Titans, though Oilers games would continue to be prioritized for broadcast during the 1997 season, which also turned out to be the last for NBC as the primary broadcaster of Sunday afternoon AFC games. During the team's final years in Houston, the Oilers failed to sell out many home games, subjecting them to in-market television blackouts under league rules at the time in addition to preemption from radio broadcasts locally.

Since 2006, the station is also involved with Houston's current NFL team, the Texans (who began play in 2002), in that the station airs games when they are featured on NBC's Sunday Night Football, as well as broadcasting a Sunday morning pregame show during the season on Sunday afternoon game days.

In addition to Oilers/Texans games, KPRC-TV has aired Houston Astros games via NBC's broadcast contract with Major League Baseball from 1962 to 1989. KPRC-TV also served as the team's over-the-air flagship station from 1973 to 1978. Channel 2 also aired Houston Rockets games via NBC's broadcast contract with the NBA from 1990 to 2002, including the team's championship victories in 1994 and 1995.

However, KPRC-TV has been known for motorsports preemptions. In 2001, a contract with the Miss Texas Scholarship Pageant (which predated NBC's acquisition of partial NASCAR broadcast rights) did not allow for the program to be rescheduled, resulting in the preemption of the Firecracker 400, then televised on NBC under an alternating basis with Fox (which in return carried the Daytona 500 held at the same track). In 2013, KPRC also preempted coverage of NBC's inaugural Formula 1 telecast of the 2013 Monaco Grand Prix (which aired locally at 6:30 a.m. due to time differences between the U.S. and Monaco) with infomercials and local news. That incident led to Fox owned-and-operated station KRIV posting on social media that they would air that year's Coca-Cola 600 live with the tag, "We've been promoting the race as live, and we'll show it live."

In September 2007, the first half-hour of the NFL Kickoff game between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts was shown on KPRC-TV with default audio in Spanish rather than English.[13] KPRC inadvertently aired the secondary audio program feed provided by Telemundo (owned by NBC parent company NBCUniversal).

Chopper 2 departing George Bush Intercontinental Airport

KPRC-TV presently broadcasts 39½ hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 6½ hours each weekday, three hours on Saturdays and four hours on Sundays). The station also carries Sports Sunday, which has been a staple of the station since its days as a locally owned station in the 1980s, at 10:20 p.m. following its late Sunday newscast, as well as Houston Newsmakers (a local Sunday morning talk show similar in format to NBC's Meet the Press) at 10:30 a.m.

Appropriate for a station with roots in a newspaper, KPRC-TV has long been a very news-intensive station, and in particular one with a history of innovation in television journalism. In its early years under the stewardship of news director Ray Miller, KPRC-TV often led the local news ratings with such notable personalities as Miller and fellow anchors Steve Smith and Larry Rasco. KPRC-TV was the first station in Houston to use weather radar for its weather reports, to use videotape for field reporting, to have a fully staffed news bureau in Austin, to hire female and African American reporters, and to hire a Hispanic news anchor for an English-language newscast. The station's first female anchor was Sara Lowrey, who had co-anchored the 6 p.m. news with Rasco.[14]

KPRC STL tower off Interstate 69/U.S. Route 59 in the Greater Sharpstown area of Houston

In 1973, after Smith departed for KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh (at the time, a larger market than Houston), the station hired former KHOU anchor Ron Stone and paired him with weatherman Doug Johnson and sportscaster Bill Worrell (who had formerly co-anchored the news with Rasco) for its evening newscasts, then known as Big 2 News (Smith would eventually return to Houston as the lead anchor at KHOU in 1975). In addition to Stone, other news anchors for Big 2 News included Cindy Martin, former ABC News correspondent George Caldwell (later George Sells) and New York anchorwoman Anna Bond.[15][16][17] Three KHOU personalities, news anchor Bob Nicholas (in 1979), along with sportscaster Ron Franklin and news anchor Bill Balleza (both in 1980) would follow Stone to KPRC-TV. Also in 1980, KPRC-TV rebranded their newscasts from Big 2 News (which was used since 1969) to Channel 2 News (presented on air as 2News). During this time, KTRK overtook KPRC-TV and became the dominant news station in Houston, even though KPRC-TV would continue to fare a strong second from the late 1970s well into the early 1990s as KHOU began to struggle with management and ownership issues during this period. From 1985 to 1992, the station's newscasts were branded as ChannelTwoNews, broadcasting round-the-clock news updates throughout the day, including during NBC prime time shows. For several years during the early 1990s, updates also aired during the overnight hours with producers and other newsroom personnel serving as anchors. During this time, national voiceover announcer Charlie Van Dyke served as the station's image announcer, with KPRC-TV personality Don Armstrong serving as the local promo announcer.

With anchors such as Stone, Balleza, Nicholas, Jan Carson, Linda Lorelle, and Dan O'Rourke, weathermen Johnson and Ted Shaw, and sports anchors Ron Franklin, Craig Roberts and Lisa Malosky, the station's newscasts often competed for and even placed first at times. In the fall of 1994, shortly after Post-Newsweek Stations bought KPRC-TV, its newscasts were retitled as News 2 Houston with a somewhat more tabloid presentational style (in contrast to its more traditional format under local ownership) similar to that of its Detroit sister station, WDIV-TV. Two years later, KPRC-TV constructed a new newsroom within one of its three studios, utilizing the newsroom as a backdrop that was similar to the "newsplex" set used by Miami Fox affiliate WSVN, itself a former NBC affiliate which became a ratings leader in that market after losing its NBC affiliation and switching to a similar tabloid-style format. This set was referred to as the "News Center" and was used on-air until 2006, even though the physical newsroom continued to exist until the move to its current facilities in 2017. In addition, KPRC also added longtime WSVN voiceover Scott Chapin as promotional announcer during the late 1990s.

In 1996, KPRC-TV debuted a half-hour 4 p.m. newscast. During this time, KPRC-TV won more awards and continued to avidly compete in the ratings with KTRK as well as a resurgent KHOU, even occasionally beating KTRK at 10 p.m. on the strength of NBC's "Must See TV" programming of the 1990s. Notable personalities who rose to prominence in the News 2 Houston era included Dominique Sachse (who started as a traffic reporter before moving to an anchor role on the morning news), chief meteorologist Frank Billingsley (who left his position as KTRK's weekend meteorologist to succeed Doug Johnson as evening weather anchor), and investigative reporter Tony Kovaleski (whose reports resulted in numerous awards for the station). News anchors for KPRC in the 1990's included Brett Lea (who had anchored at KPRC-TV's former sister station under H&C Communications ownership, WTVF in Nashville), future Chicago news anchor Rob Johnson and Khambrel Marshall, a former sportscaster for KPRC's then-sister station WPLG-TV and news anchor at WCIX/WFOR-TV in Miami.[18]

In 2004, KPRC-TV retitled its newscasts as Local 2 News, putting the station in line with its fellow Post-Newsweek stations which adopted similar branding and perhaps to avoid confusion with News 24 Houston, a 24-hour local cable news channel owned by Time Warner Cable and Belo (then-owner of KHOU) which shut down just weeks before KPRC-TV's transition was complete. However, by this time the station had gone into a period a decline both in terms of quality and ratings. At one point, KPRC-TV's 5 p.m. newscast even reportedly finished in fifth place, behind English-language newscasts on KHOU and KTRK-TV, a Spanish-language newscast on Univision station KXLN (channel 45), and even syndicated reruns of The Simpsons on Fox station KRIV (channel 26) which at one point even led all Houston newscasts airing in that timeslot. Despite a strong lead-in from Dr. Phil, KPRC-TV also continued to decline at 4 p.m. and in both the morning and evening hours as NBC's ratings began to enter a steep decline following the ending of several of its 1990s-era staples such as Friends and Frasier, with the station even dropping Dr. Phil at one point and not even clearing the show for another Houston station to pick up. KPRC-TV was also hit with a 2006 boycott by civil rights activist Quanell X and other African American leaders following the demotion of African American anchors Linda Lorelle and Khambrel Marshall from its evening broadcasts. In response to the controversy, KPRC-TV hired longtime KHOU anchor Jerome Gray, who is African American, to anchor its early evening newscasts as well as serve as a managing editor, and moved former anchor Khambrel Marshall to executive producer, with Marshall eventually moving back on-air as a weekend meteorologist and host of Houston Newsmakers.

Overall, by early 2007, KPRC-TV was in third place behind KHOU and KTRK. However, since Nielsen Media Research began using Local People Meters in the Houston market in October 2007, KPRC-TV began to see gains in most timeslots, while its competition saw declines.[19] KPRC-TV's morning and late-evening newscasts made the most gains in 2007, competing for second place with KHOU. On July 19, 2008, during its 6 p.m. newscasts, KPRC-TV began broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition in the run up to NBC's coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics. On August 24, 2009, KPRC-TV expanded its morning newscast to an additional half-hour at 4:30 a.m. By 2012, the station's 6 p.m. newscast had ratings gains, boasting its highest viewership in November and December, as well as significant increases in all other time periods; the 10 p.m. broadcast also grew, besting KTRK for first in the timeslot for several consecutive months that year. KPRC-TV retitled its newscasts back to Channel 2 News in 2015.

In January 2020, Bill Balleza retired from KPRC-TV.[20] Two months later, Kris Gutierrez, who was previously with KPRC-TV from 2003 to 2007, rejoined KPRC-TV as Balleza's replacement. Gutierrez, in between his stints for KPRC-TV, was a Fox News Channel correspondent and an anchor for WBBM-TV in Chicago, as well as for NBC owned-and-operated station KXAS-TV in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex.[21] In January 2021, KPRC-TV's newscasts were retitled as KPRC 2 News. Dominique Sachse departed from KPRC-TV on October 29, 2021. Three days later, the station announced that former KPRC reporter and weekend anchor Daniella Guzman (who had anchored at NBC owned-and-operated stations WMAQ-TV in Chicago and KNBC in Los Angeles) will succeed Sachse; Guzman returned to KPRC-TV on January 12, 2022.[22] Gutierrez departed from KPRC-TV in February 2022 and was later succeeded (officially on June 20) by Keith Garvin, a former ABC News correspondent who had joined KPRC-TV in August 2012 as news anchor and reporter.[23][24]

• Melanie Camp – correspondent for Houston Life (2022–present)
• Daniella Guzman – weekday anchor (was previously with KPRC-TV as a reporter and weekend anchor from 2006–2012)[22]

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

KPRC-TV had carried This TV from the start of 2009 until May 28, 2018, on its second subchannel, being one of the network's longest-tenured affiliates before leaving This TV on that day. KPRC 2.2 then became the new home of MeTV in the Houston market, taking over that role from KUBE-TV 57.4. (This TV moved to the newly created 57.7 and Cozi TV swapped to 57.4). On March 29, 2021, MeTV moved to KYAZ channel 51.1. KYAZ was acquired by Weigel Broadcasting in December 2020 and became a MeTV owned-and-operated station. Start TV moved from KPRC 2.4 to 2.2 on the day of the switch.[32]

KPRC-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over VHF channel 2, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television.[33] The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 35, using PSIP to display KPRC-TV's virtual channel as 2 on digital television receivers. On that date, tropospheric ducting resulted in KPRC-TV's digital signal being receivable as far away as Alexandria, Louisiana, where KPRC-TV virtual channel 2.1 was seen in place of KALB-TV's virtual channel 5.1 on digital receivers (both channels transmit their digital signals on UHF channel 35).

As part of the SAFER Act,[34][35] KPRC kept its analog signal on the air until July 12 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.

Prior to the digital transition, KPRC-TV was the only Houston station on the VHF dial whose cable channel position did not match its over-the-air analog channel. Due to interference from the low-band VHF terrestrial signal, Comcast Xfinity carried KPRC-TV in analog SD on channel 12. It is carried on digital HD on channels 612 and 1002. Other cable systems on the outer edges of the Houston media market carry KPRC-TV on cable channel 2. It is also available on cable in Lufkin–Nacogdoches and Bryan–College Station.