Appropriate for a station with roots in the "Houston Chronicle", KTRK has long been a very news-intensive station. However, in the first two decades KTRK traditionally placed a distant third in the Houston ratings behind rivals KPRC and KHOU, which at times, took turns at No. 1 during this period and benefited from stronger NBC and CBS programming, respectively. Meanwhile, KTRK's ABC offerings that traditionally placed third nationally during this time. However, following its acquisition of KTRK, Capital Cities began to invest heavily into the station's newscasts, which would take on the "Eyewitness News" name in the 1970s—albeit in name only as the newscasts themselves would bear a closer resemblance to those of the "Action News" format pioneered by longtime KTRK sister station WPVI-TV in Philadelphia versus the actual "Eyewitness News" format pioneered at ABC network flagship WABC-TV in New York. Since the 1970s, KTRK's newscasts have long led Houston's news ratings for most of the last 40 years, coinciding with the rise of ABC's prime time ratings during the 1970s, and are also among the highest-rated newscasts in the United States. KTRK ranks in first place among various demographics such as men and women 18 to 49 and 25 to 54 years old, African Americans and suburban audiences. In addition to KTRK's longtime ratings dominance in news, KTRK also ranks #1 sign-on to sign-off and often places first in prime time viewership, outperforming ABC's national prime time ratings.