Television was an exciting new entertainment option that required two things to really take off: content providers to broadcast programing, and affordable consumer televisions. New homeowners loved filling their houses with the latest goods, but a television was worthless until there was something to watch. It was newspapers that first answered that need.

In 1948 the Dallas Times Herald received the first television permit for Dallas. Its KRLD-TV debuted on December 3, 1949, with a broadcast of the SMU-Notre Dame football game. They filmed their own local shows, like this one in 1962.