Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

Nebraska went 60 years with two area codes, but years after an assignment frenzy in other states, three new digits are coming to the eastern part of the state: 531. That includes the entire part of the state bordering Iowa.

Unlike the splits in Iowa, 531 is an overlay of 402, meaning that no current phone numbers will change, and the entire area has to do 10-digit dialing for everything. I think splits are the better way to go, but I can imagine the overlay was preferable to a Lincoln-Omaha fight over who got to keep the old digits.

After I wrote last week about KWWL eliminating some counties on its weather map, Austin Draude e-mailed to say that KIMT has done the same thing. The reduction in the Mason City CBS affiliate’s area sometime late last year*, though, is more drastic.

KIMT previously covered a 23-county area (and for a time, 24) in Iowa and Minnesota, as still seen on this image, from Algona to Decorah. But if you watch an online weather-cast today**, it’s down to the 12 counties of the official Mason City-Rochester Nielsen DMA, which is just outside the national top 150 markets. The only difference between it and KAAL now is the latter keeps Steele County MN (Owatonna), although I bet both signals are still accessible over the air there.

At last check, KTTC, the area’s NBC station, has more of Iowa covered despite being farther north and east (and based in Minnesota). But the periphery of the former area, including Franklin and Kossuth counties, loses the double (or triple) coverage it once had from some stations.

*Looks like sometime between Oct. 22 and Nov. 11; pay attention to the shaded counties in the latter although an outline has the old map.

**The weblink is dated to May 12, 2014, but apparently is updated every day. This tweet (with a dead link) indicates the station did a graphics update in July 2009.

In the first week of February, maps shown on KWWL during the weather portion of the newscast looked different. The map, which is still squashed vertically*, now only displays 21 counties.

Howard, Floyd, Franklin, Jackson, and Mitchell counties are gone, in addition to Crawford and Grant in Wisconsin and Jo Daviess in Illinois. However, Charles City and Prairie du Chien are still included in the map for forecast highs/lows.

Also during the first week of February, a tweet from Weather Services International said, “We are pleased to announce @KWWL in Waterloo, IA debuted #Max this week!” Compare the map in that tweet with Mark Schnackenberg’s Jan. 31 blog post. WSI is a subsidiary of the Weather Channel. Perhaps the two events are connected.

If this is a permanent change, KWWL has now shrunk to the bare minimum of the Eastern Iowa DMA, and Franklin County loses its place as a hub of Iowa television stations. As you can see on my Iowa TV maps and table (shameless plugs!), all of the counties dropped from the KWWL map are on at least one other TV station’s map (but does Charles City really prefer KTTC?).

So far, this is just for the daily newscasts; whether this also applies to severe weather coverage has yet to be seen. Schools in those counties still probably will send information in to the station. (For the record, the Super Bowl was unobstructed by a closings/cancellations scroll.)

*The map makes Tama County a square. Tama County is not a square. It’s not like there isn’t room for correct proportions!