740 KTRH Houston turns 95 years old today on March 25, 2025.
Believe it or not, KTRH originally began as KUT Austin, affiliated with the University of Texas at Austin. However, unlike the 90.5 KUT-FM Austin of today, this version was sold to Houston Chronicle owner Jesse H. Jones, who sought to compete with the Houston Post's KPRC-AM, which signed on in 1925. UT Austin wanted to exit the radio business at the time due to the Great Depression.
In a 1994 KTRH anniversary special on "Houston Hotline" with Lana Hughes and J.P. Pritchard, former owner John T. Jones says all of the station's equipment was sent to Houston via two trips in the back of a red Model A Ford pickup truck.
KTRH was initially housed in a single room at the Rice Hotel in downtown Houston, which was also owned by Jesse Jones. The luxury hotel charged the Chronicle no rent for the room but requested hourly announcements about it on air. To illustrate the connection between the two entities, the call letters stand for 'Kome to the Rice Hotel.'
I feature KTRH's early days through an interview with Jay Jones in my 101 KLOL documentary, "Runaway Radio," now streaming on Tubi, VOD, and available on DVD.
John T. Jones said KTRH was one of only three or four stations on the air in Houston at the time of its sign-on. KPRC is the only other station that has operated alongside KTRH from that time to the present day, with both now owned by iHeartMedia.
Programming was largely local until the emergence of broadcast networks.
That 1994 anniversary special features an interview with Dan Rather, a young man who grew up in The Heights with limited broadcasting experience. Obviously, Rather went on to KHOU 11 and become the main evening anchor for CBS Evening News.
"This news makes me feel incredibly old," former KTRH host Wayne Dolcefino told mikemcguff.com. "When you worked there in the late 70s, it was a great investigative news team. I learned from the late Garvin Berry. One of the best. Great memories. I did the morning talk show, too. I owe that radio station a lot."
After his years at KTRH, Dolcefino became a legendary investigative reporter for ABC13 KTRK Houston, which, upon its 1954 sign-on date, was a sister property to KTRH and the Houston Chronicle. Dolcefino now runs the investigative firm Dolcefino Media.
