KTBC (channel 7) is a television station in Austin, Texas, United States, serving as the market's Fox network outlet.

Originally housed in a small studio in the Driskill Hotel,[2] the station was originally owned by the Texas Broadcasting Company (from whom the call letters are taken), which was in turn owned by then-Senator and future U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife Lady Bird, alongside KTBC radio (590 AM and 93.7 FM).

Lady Bird Johnson used the money from her family inheritance to purchase KTBC-TV, she remained active with her radio station until she was in her eighties which led her to become the first president's wife to have become a millionaire on her own.

[5] In 1960, the staff of channel 7 produced a film for the Texas Department of Public Safety, entitled Target Austin.

The 20-minute film presents the scenario of a nuclear missile strike on the outskirts of Austin and follows the storylines of several characters from the CONELRAD broadcast to the announcement that it is safe to emerge from shelter.

The film takes place in Austin, highlighting several iconic locations in the city, and featured an Austin-based cast and crew: including director Gordon Wilkison (of KTBC), narrator Cactus Pryor (also of KTBC), actress Coleen Hardin, and El Rancho restaurant owner Matt Martinez.

Even though Austin was large enough on paper to support three full network affiliates as early as the 1950s, the technical limitations made several potential owners skittish about the prospects for UHF in a market that stretched from Mason in the west to La Grange in the east, and also included much of the Hill Country.

After Charles Whitman's sniper rampage had been stopped, the primary newsman on the scene, Neal Spelce, presented a wrap-up of the event that was carried on all three networks live later that evening.

In 1972, new FCC regulations forced the Johnsons to sell KTBC-TV to the Los Angeles-based Times Mirror Company, who had recently purchased KDFW-TV in Dallas.

The LMA allowed KTBC to cross-promote its programming with K13VC for the next nine years until March 29, 2003, when K13VC was shut down[11] due to the channel 13 allocation being utilized for the digital signal for Univision owned-and-operated station KAKW.

[13][14] In 1994, New World Communications signed a long-term affiliation deal with Fox, which was establishing itself as a major network and was looking for more VHF stations.

KTBC had carried most Cowboys games since the team's inception in 1960 by virtue of CBS winning television rights to the NFL in 1956.

In its early years as a Fox station, KTBC filled its daytime lineup with talk shows and the nighttime schedule with off-network sitcoms.

With the exclusion of semi-satellite outlets, KTBC has always been the smallest O&O under Fox's portfolio, as the fast-growing Austin region did not become a Top 50 market until the late 2000s.

In the spring of 1997, a rumor that KTBC and Phoenix's KSAZ-TV would be traded to the Belo Corporation in exchange for Seattle's KIRO-TV circulated,[18] but this deal never came to fruition.