The Des Moines Register has found out a curious political-television item (bottom item) in the 2014 Iowa governor’s race: Gov. Terry Branstad’s campaign bought ad time in the Quincy-Hannibal-Keokuk market. Technically, Lee County is the only Iowa county in this viewing area, the 170th-largest in the country. The apparent political motive behind this is that in five elections, Branstad has never won Lee County.* He came up fewer than 1000 votes short three times, including a 181-vote-margin vs. Chet Culver in 2010.
But — and this is a nuanced yet important but — TV audiences do not stop at the county and DMA line, either in broadcast or cable.
WGEM, one of the stations this ad buy covers, is included in the Burlington cable lineup. Branstad lost Des Moines County by 57 votes in 2010, and also lost it in 1982 and 1986. WGEM is also available in Fairfield, and Branstad lost Jefferson County in 2010 by 463 votes. In addition, both WGEM and KHQA, the other station involved, consider Van Buren County to be part of their viewing areas.
Far southeastern Iowa and northeastern Missouri as a whole is an in-betweenie TV area, too far south for Iowa’s main markets and too far north for Missouri’s. Just to the west of Quincy-Hannibal-Keokuk is Ottumwa-Kirksville (PDF), technically its own market — 200th out of 210. Combined, though, the two have nearly as many TV homes as Sioux City, another Iowa market with substantial spillover into other states. It must be noted, though, that these two have a lower percentage of Iowa TV homes than Sioux City.
In the area, KHQA (CBS) and KTVO (ABC) now run digital subchannels to mirror the other network. (As of 2013, they’re both owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, which means they’ll be pulled into the next retransmission dispute with Mediacom.) Branstad has won Wapello County, where Ottumwa is, only once, in 2010.
With that information in mind, the ad buy makes a lot more sense, as does Branstad agreeing to a debate in Burlington hosted by Quad Cities station KWQC but, again, reaching into a pocket of the state that has proven less receptive to him in the past.
If you’ve read down this far about TV station coverage in Iowa, you may like my county-by-county affiliate listing and maps. I do need to refresh them, but most of the information is still good.
*Branstad has never won the People’s Republic of Johnson County either — 509 votes short in a 96-county landslide in 1990 — but he has as much chance there as Iowa State does making the College Football Playoff.