''The News of Texas'' is a statewide newscast in Texas that was syndicated to 27 affiliate stations in the state by the San Antonio-based

Texas Network ''The News of Texas'' is a statewide newscast in Texas that was syndicated to 27 affiliate stations in the state by the San Antonio-based Texas Network (TXN) between 1999 and 2000. History In July 1998, TXN started up, just as Belo Corporation ...

(TXN) between 1999 and 2000.

History

In July 1998, TXN started up, just as Belo Corporation (owners of a chain of Texas television stations— KENS,

WFAA WFAA (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Dallas, Texas, United States, serving the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex as an affiliate of ABC. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Decatur-licensed Estrella TV affiliate KMPX (channel 29), ...

, KHOU, and later

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 ...

) founded

Texas Cable News Texas Cable News (TXCN) was an American regional cable news television channel that was owned by the Gannett Company. The channel operated out of offices in Dallas, Texas, located on Young Street in the city's downtown district. Background Be ...

(TXCN). TXCN launched easily in early 1999, gaining carriage in San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston, but Time Warner Cable

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

refused to carry TXCN due to starting up News 8 Austin (now YNN Austin), one in a long list of Time Warner Cable

24-hour The modern 24-hour clock, popularly referred to in the United States as military time, is the convention of timekeeping in which the day runs from midnight to midnight and is divided into 24 hours. This is indicated by the hours (and minutes) pas ...

cable news television channels. (Belo did not own a station in Austin at the time.) TXCN was billed as a regional CNN, with news and weather for the entire state of Texas. In the summer of 1998, KVUE, the ABC affiliate in Austin, was acquired by Belo, adding a fourth Texas ABC station to the Belo mix as News 8 Austin started broadcasting. Meanwhile, TXN was mainly signing up WB, UPN, and independent stations, which was a major concern. Fox affiliates were skeptical, and Big Three network affiliates were not considering ''The News of Texas'' at all.

KNVA KNVA (channel 54) is a television station in Austin, Texas, United States, serving as a ''de facto'' owned-and-operated station of The CW. It is owned by Vaughan Media and operated under a local marketing agreement (LMA) by The CW's majority ow ...

, one of the major hopes, pulled out of ''The News of Texas'' due to the startup of a KXAN-TV newscast. But KNVA would end up airing the program once the newscast was dropped. ''The News of Texas'' finally hit the air in January 1999. ''The News of Texas'' was not a technical masterpiece, either. A "cannon-boom" music theme and amateurish graphics, along with internal splits over what was considered aggressive

drug testing A drug test is a technical analysis of a biological specimen, for example urine, hair, blood, breath, sweat, or oral fluid/saliva—to determine the presence or absence of specified parent drugs or their metabolites. Major applications of dr ...

by executives were problematic for TXN's news department. In 2000, TXCN expanded its carriage immensely with a 10-year deal on most of Texas' Time Warner Cable systems. A 2000 refresh gave it a new news theme (its own Texas Highway by

Stephen Arnold Music Founded in 1993 by Stephen Arnold, Stephen Arnold Music is a Dallas-sonic branding agency and full-service music production company, with additional studios in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Often referred to as the most-heard, least-known composers in ...

) - but affiliates were dropping the program quickly. Meanwhile, TXN's news product eventually moved slowly to PBS stations such as Austin's

KLRU KLRU (channel 18), branded on-air as Austin PBS, is a PBS member television station in Austin, Texas, United States, owned by the Capital of Texas Public Telecommunications Council. In 2022, KLRU moved into its "Austin Media Center" studios loc ...

, giving it reliable carriage but not advertising, along with the requirement to fill more time in place of those breaks. On July 31, 2000, after losing $45 million in news and even after an eleventh-hour restructuring which saw the layoffs of 40 of 120 staffers, ''The News of Texas'' signed off the air and TXN folded, leaving 13 affiliates to replace the programs it offered and 80 people out of work.http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/137258-TXN_folds.php

References

External links

''The News of Texas'' open, 1999
(with first theme and graphics)
''The News of Texas'' open, 2000
(with updated presentation) {{DEFAULTSORT:News of Texas, The 1999 American television series debuts 2000 American television series endings Mass media in San Antonio Local news programming in the United States