KMEG, Sioux City’s CBS affiliate, is by a good margin the youngest of the “Big Three” network stations serving Iowa. It is more than a decade younger than any except WQAD, which preceded it by four years. Its youth is also signaled in being Channel 14, the only one on the UHF dial, back when that mattered.
On Feb. 4, KMEG’s programming was moved from Channel 14, or more specifically Channel 14.1 in the digital era, to Channel 44.3. Both KSCJ radio and North Pine Broadcasting covered the switch. However, this only matters if you get TV the old-fashioned way, or the slightly newer old-fashioned way, via a digital antenna. On cable and satellite, it’s still reached by pressing “1-4” on the descendant of your Zenith Space Command.
A similar switch happened at about the same time in eastern Iowa. On New Year’s Day, Fox station KFXA became Channel 2.2 over the air while remaining Channel 28 by other means.
Both cases are connected to Sinclair Broadcasting. Sinclair owns KPTH, Sioux City’s Fox station, but only operates KMEG, the latter’s ownership being Waitt Broadcasting. Sinclair owns KGAN, eastern Iowa’s CBS station, but only operates KFXA, the latter’s ownership being Second Generation of Iowa. (The distinction matters not a whit in retransmission disputes.)
For both KMEG and KFXA, if you try to go to Channel 14 and Channel 28 through over-the-air means, you get Dabl, one of the many networks available on subchannels elsewhere. This probably means, under strict definitions, that neither station’s call letters should be attached to their networks anymore. Hence, “CBS 14” and “Fox 28”, branding that isn’t necessarily wrong but doesn’t quite tell the story.