Houston

HOUSTON'S METAMORPHOSIS FROM COW TOWN TO INTERNATIONAL CITY HAS TURNED the sprawling South Texas market into a global player, and while the local economy has diversified, energy remains a key to Houston's health. High prices at the gas pump may be bad news elsewhere, but not necessarily on the Gulf Coast.

"While the higher energy prices don't help consumers, they do help business interests in this market," says Steve Wasserman, vp/general manager of Post-Newsweek's NBC affiliate KPRC-TV, who was just named to the same post at WDIV in Detroit (see Movers, page 24).

Economic news has been upbeat in Houston this year, with positive trends in energy, retail, auto sales, single-family housing, and the job market, which continues to grow at 1.5 percent, with greater growth in oil extraction and oil service jobs.

"Local businesses seem to be relatively healthy," Wasserman notes. "The housing market, while not on fire like it is on the coasts, seems to be growing at a steady pace, and local advertising is good."

The market-home to nearly two dozen Fortune 500 companies and the nation's space program-has eased its reliance on the energy industry through growth in high technology, medical research and health care, and professional services. Another area of growth is the Hispanic community, one of the largest in the country, and the local media increasingly are looking for ways to cash in.

The Houston-Galveston TV market, No. 11 overall with 1,902,810 households, is the fourth-largest Hispanic market in the country, behind Los Angeles, New York and Miami. Hispanic-American households represent nearly 24 percent of the homes in the TV market, according to Nielsen Media Research. Twenty-six percent, or 1,416,220, of the 5,447,000 people in the DMA are Hispanic, according to Scarborough Research.

There are six Spanish-language stations in the market, including a low-powered Independent, Lotus TV of Houston Ltd.'s KHLM, which went on the air in April.

Univision owned-and-operated KXLN is the top Hispanic TV station in the market in ratings and revenue. KXLN, which consistently has total-day shares of 5 and 6, had an estimated $37.8 million in revenue last year, sixth best in the market among all stations and roughly four times the billings of its closest Spanish-language competitors, NECowned Telemundo outlet KTMD ($9.8 million) and...