MuySA: Remembering when the San Antonio Express-News owned KENS 5
Part of San Antonio’s culture and knowing how to spot a native is our obsession with local television personalities. From longtime anchors and up-and-coming reporters to personable meteorologists and sports legends, Alamo City locals just can’t get enough about the major life updates and everyday shenanigans of the TV news personalities we know and love.
So then, it may interest you to take a deep dive into one of the city’s long running TV news stations, specifically one that formerly had very close ties to the San Antonio Express-News.
First, some back story. The Express-News, as older generations may remember, is the product of the merger between the San Antonio Express and the San Antonio News, the latter of which was launched in 1918 as a means to combat circulation woes with the competing San Antonio Light. The Express and News were impacted by a number of business moves for decades, though the 1920s brought some major changes for the newspapers. With an emphasis on various forms of media, the newspapers’ parent company started one of the city’s first radio stations, WOAI, in 1922.
KENS-TV at its former location at Avenue E and 4th Street, next to the San Antonio Express-News (where the presses are now located). The photo is believed to have been taken in 1956. The company now known as Harte Hanks bought the newspaper and TV station in 1962.
Staff file photo
As the years went on, more radio stations were acquired as was a television station then called KGBS, and briefly KEYL. It was renamed KENS-TV, meant to stand for K-Express News Station, in 1954. The station’s studio formerly operated out of a building at Avenue E and Fourth Street, which now houses the Express-News’ presses.
Mind. Blown.
The collaboration between the news station and daily paper allowed the late local legend Dan Cook to serve as both sports anchor on TV and an executive sports editor for the newspaper.
Though the Express-News and KENS 5 have not been under the same ownership since the 1960s, the news station has kept its name. The “-TV” portion of the name was dropped in 2009 as the era of digital television began. Even so, the Express-News and KENS didn’t fully sever ties until 2008 since the TV station shared its website (yours truly) with the newspaper before launching its own.
