KLBJ first signed on the air on July 2, 1939. The original call sign was KTBC, standing for Texas Broadcasting Company. It originally broadcast at 1150 kilocycles, powered at 1,000 watts as a daytimer. It was a CBS Radio Network affiliate, airing its schedule of dramas, comedies, news, sports, soap operas, game shows and big band broadcasts.
Johnson family ownership
KTBC was acquired by the family of future President Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1943, the future First Lady, known as Lady Bird Johnson, invested an inheritance of $17,500 to purchase KTBC. She improved the station by hiring new on-air talent, found commercial sponsors, kept all the financial accounts, and maintained the facility. Using her formal name, Mrs. Claudia T. Johnson served as manager, and then as chairman of what later came to be known as KLBJ for some four decades. Although Mrs. Johnson was the owner in papers filed with the Federal Communications Commission, then-Congressman Lyndon Johnson used his influence with the FCC to permit KTBC to relocate to AM 590, a better spot on the dial, increasing its coverage area and broadcasting around the clock with nighttime authorization. Because the station was owned by Mrs. Johnson, Lyndon Johnson did not have to consider divesting the media company, even when he was senator, vice-president or president. The Johnson Family put Austin's first TV station on the air in 1952, Channel 7 KTBC-TV. A co-owned FM station signed on the air in 1960, 93.7 KTBC-FM. In the 1950s, as network programming moved to television, 590 KTBC began playing middle of the road and easy listening music, while still airing CBS Newson the hour. In 1973, the call letters were changed to KLBJ and KLBJ-FM, to match the initials of former President Johnson, who had died earlier that year. The AM station continued its format of MOR music with news, talk and sports. The year before, the FM station had switched to a pioneering Progressive Rock sound.
In 1973, the Johnson Family sold Channel 7 to the Times Mirror Company, a newspaper and broadcasting company, that published the Los Angeles Times and the Dallas Times Herald. Channel 7 kept the KTBC call sign. Today KTBC is owned by Fox Television Stations. The Johnson Family divested its radio stations in 1997. It sold KLBJ-AM-FM to LBJS Corporation. The corporation was made up of KLBJ executives. 590 KLBJ had already shifted from MOR music to an all-talk format. 93.7 KLBJ-FM continued its album-oriented rock format. At the time, Sinclair Telecable Inc. was a minority stakeholder in the stations, with LBJ Holdings Co. as the 51% controlling stakeholder. In 2003, the Indianapolis-based Emmis Communications acquired the controlling stake in the stations. On October 30, 2009, 590 AM began simulcasting its programming on FM translator station K259AJ at 99.7 MHz. In June 2019, Emmis announced that it would sell its controlling stake in the Austin cluster back to Sinclair Telecable for $39.3 million; the stations will operate under the licensee Waterloo Media.
