The post I made a month ago about Gov. Branstad buying ads for the Keokuk-Hannibal-Quincy market served as an impetus/inspiration to update my Iowa TV station county-by-county list and station-by-station maps, which hadn’t had a good hard look for a few years. I got the maps for the vast majority of stations, so it’s a pretty good update.
There were a couple of surprises, most notably in southeastern Iowa. With KHQA and KTVO mirroring each other on ABC/CBS broadcasts, KCCI has retreated some and now that is the only way some counties get those networks. In point of fact, Jefferson County is only in two stations’ coverage area: KCRG and KTVO, both ABC stations. (I’ve left the county as “3 stations” on the frequency map because I wasn’t totally prepared for this contingency, and it can get CBS on KTVO 3.2.)
Tama County continues to be off and on for the central Iowa stations, but KCCI kept going for Traer when the tornado struck June 30, and for that I am grateful.
Speaking of that severe weather coverage, KCCI and WOI have made a small design change that reverberates: Their warning maps in the upper left corner are only visible if you have a widescreen TV. (WHO has moved some news graphics far enough to the sides they can be cut off, too.)