5/22/2007
Jeff Braun invited back as anchor as part of station’s 50th Anniversary celebration

(Bryan-College Station, TX)—Jeff Braun, the founder of Crucial Communications Group, L.L.C., a Houston-based communications consulting firm, was back on the air anchoring the evening news in Central Texas today as part of CBS affiliate KBTX-TV’s 50th anniversary celebration.

Braun joined the station in 1980 and quickly distinguished himself as a reporter and photographer and rose through the ranks, ultimately serving as anchor and news director before leaving the station in 1996 to join a media coaching and crisis communications firm.

“I was incredibly fortunate to have been a part of such a progressive station during a time of such fast-paced change within the industry,” said Braun. “When I began, we typed the news on typewriters and ‘digital’ was nothing more than perhaps a reference to the type of readout on a clock. By the time I left the station was computerized and news could be broadcast live and on location.”

As part of the station’s news team, Braun guided and directed several key changes and “firsts” at the station including the station’s conversion from a dual CBS and ABC affiliation to an exclusive CBS affiliation in 1984; the purchase and use of live news trucks; creation of its first daytime magazine show; one of the first collaborations with the print media for joint coverage of hard news stories; and the purchase and use of the first Doppler weather radar system in the area.

KBTX-TV began broadcasting in the twin cities of Bryan and College Station on May 22, 1957.