Iowa TV Affiliate Guide
(or, "Who Cares About Keosauqua?")
(click to skip text and go to table)
Living on a hill in Tama County is a nice thing when you don't have cable. (At least, it used to be - see September 2010 note on this page.) With a rooftop antenna, signals from both the eastern Iowa and Des Moines TV stations come in. When one area goes wall-to-wall weather, or KCRG gets stuck with a bad Big Ten game, the other area is available. One day, just flipping around, I came across a fuzzy transmission of KIMT - the CBS affiliate in Mason City. Now, according to the weather map of the era, that signal was supposed to stop around New Hartford, but it made it into Tama County.
And it made me wonder: Where do Iowans get their television? What counties does each network affiliate encompass in its area? The same area won't necessarily have the same boundaries. This question isn't just for border towns like Lansing and Larchwood; this question also applies to places like Humboldt, Carroll, and What Cheer. Does Tipton prefer news from Cedar Rapids or Davenport? Just where do people in Van Buren County - left out of the Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Davenport viewing areas - get their news? I may not be able to find out which station people in a town prefer, but I can learn what is available.
The best way to find out is by looking at their weather maps. Often the counties will be shown during a rundown of the day's temperatures; KCRG is was a great example. Other times you may have to wait for severe weather, when a corner of the screen shows you the counties. Sometimes the station's website will show a similar map. As you can see, much of this required first-hand experience of the station until the early 2010s, when websites' weather sections got more expansive and then more livestreams were offered. Throughout the 2000s, KGAN showed a county outline precisely once, but a 2008 severe weather map showed a much-smaller area. (By 2019, this had been reversed; the county outline during the newscast is smaller than the severe weather version.)
These lines aren't set in stone. Since 2000 counties have been added or deleted all over, sometimes multiple times. In October 2004, KWWL appeared to have done a massive truncation - for a while the lines were still on the map, but now they're universally gone. (Or were, until the summer of 2008, when the old map came back to take up an eighth of the screen during severe weather.) It might be a bow to logic, since I can't really envision some in southeast Iowa using a Waterloo station as the primary NBC affiliate. Such additions and deletions are marked with numerical footnotes. Cable providers' choices as to which stations to carry may also factor into changes - although the reverse may also be true, that carried stations don't include that area. (Buffalo Center, in Winnebago County 55 miles northwest of Mason City, offers both KELO and WHO!)
I tried to list the stations in order based on inference of what each
county might consider its "primary" station, by educated guess, area
websites, or even a town's cable listings. Usually when the border
overlaps I give the county to the nearer area; thus all those shared by
Des Moines and Omaha I consider in Omaha's sphere. Grant and Crawford
counties in southwest Wisconsin and Jo Daviess County, Illinois, are
had been universally covered by the eastern Iowa affiliates, hence their
inclusion on the maps. Eastern Iowa's numbers of 2, 7, and 9 are identical
to the batch used by three of Chicago's four main TV stations (WBBM, WLS,
and WGN) and the fourth (5, WMAQ) is used in central Iowa.
"Bonus" stations: KEYC, a CBS affiliate in Mankato, Minnesota, includes counties in Iowa, overlapping with other stations. While most of the stations come in threes, there is not an NBC or CBS station in the Mankato area to do the same. I didn't even know about this station until I came across it in Spencer during my March 2003 road trip. There are also two TV stations based in La Crosse, Wisconsin: WXOW (ABC) and WKBT (CBS). Compared to the other stations around Iowa, its coverage area is rather small; I suspect that both La Crosse stations serve as stronger signals for those points where other stations (e.g. Minneapolis, Cedar Rapids, Madison) run low. Elkader cable offers WKBT, but Clayton County isn't officially included there.
Different stations owned by the same company will use identical branding, and by the mid-2010s, identical websites. For example, the "Eyewitness News/I See" lines and logo design were identical for KCAU (Sioux City), WOI (Des Moines), and WHBF (Quad Cities) in the mid-2000s. (For whatever reason, their owner/former owner, Nexstar, is allergic to call letters in websites.) But only one station per area gets to use "Your 24 Hour News and Weather Source" (e.g. KCRG and WHO). (Weather is big in Iowa. Stations joust over the capacity of their radars. The classic "What's Bugging Andy: Doppler Wars" from WHO took this head-on. As the 2000s went on, though, this emphasis diminished.)
For up-to-date lists of digital subchannels carried by each station (as of this writing KCRG has five!), see the North Pine Broadcasting page. According to Wikipedia, of Iowa's six main markets (and thus 18 stations), 10 affiliates carried DuMont programming at some point in the 1950s. But everything old is new again: KHQA and KTVO are essentially picking up the other's slack for coverage in southeast Iowa. The former is CBS 7.1 and ABC 7.2, while the latter is ABC 3.1 and CBS 3.2. (However, each is only one station, so no double-counting.)
Despite all my research, some boundaries are still indeterminate. Although news from a nearby county may sometimes be included in newscasts, tables and maps are limited to official areas. Good reception may not be available in the entire county.
Bonus note: The antenna towers for KCAU, KCCI, WOI/WHO, KWWL, and KDLT, all at 2000 feet, are tied for fourth fifth place in the list of the world's tallest land-based structures. KDLT's tower, half a mile north of the Iowa line, is the tallest structure in South Dakota; the rest are in Iowa.
Double bonus note: The switch to digital television ended the era of "Channel 6 on the radio." Because 87.7 FM is also within the range of VHF Channel 6, a "simulcast" enabled you to hear the station in your car with the volume turned up. This blog entry from WJBF, a Channel 6 station in Augusta GA, made it pretty clear that my days of hearing the news on WOWT, KAAL, and KWQC when I'm on a road trip in those areas was over. (WOWT and KWQC also have "Jeopardy". Another bummer.) It's really for historical reasons, then, that I listened to 87.7 on Labor Day weekend 2008, seeing how far some signals carried. WOWT's signal stayed available all the way to Pocahontas, where the weakening sounds of "NBC Nightly News" began to duel with KAAL's transmission of Alliant Energy's "PowerHouse" - and neither station officially includes Pocahontas County. KWQC was easy to about Iowa City, and then died in good conditions around the Iowa County line.
Update, August 2006: Due to extremely high humidity on July 17, 2006, I was able to watch KIMT and KTTC from Tama County, though KTTC's signal degraded before the noon weather. But that's not all; the night before, a fuzzy signal came in on Channel 6, but it wasn't KAAL - it was WITI, the Fox affiliate in Milwaukee. That's got to be some sort of record.
Update, September 2010: Who would have thought that the simple lead-in at the top of this page would be rendered inaccurate and irrelevant as a victim of the times? The first factor, of course, is digital television, which is an unmitigated disaster for rural Americans using antennas. Forget KIMT; now it's impossible to get KGAN. The rest are marginally better, if you don't count the facts that one TV can't go an hour without getting digital artifacts and the other only can get two stations, three on a good day.
The second factor is the worst thing to happen to college football since the corporate takeover of bowl names: The Big Ten Network. With - or more precisely, without - the BTN, this is what the noon hour on a Saturday in late September looks like across six stations: Infomercial, infomercial, golf, infomercial, infomercial, golf. ABC lost its 11 AM game for a little while, although after further expansion of TV contracts it's back to being a staple. CBS programming on Saturday mornings/early afternoons is still pretty dire, though. But then, 10 years after this paragraph was originally written, what isn't?
The third factor is not unrelated to the second: Nebraska abandoning century-long rivals and jumping ship to the Big Ten - um, Big Eleven - um, Big Twelve, no wait, that's taken - um, Big Television. On many Saturday afternoons in the late 1990s and 2000s, the Cedar Rapids/Des Moines markets marked the dividing line between Big Ten and Big 12 games. See, for example, here and especially here. It is quite possible that in the new conference landscape, aside from marquee matchups, it will be next to impossible to catch a Big 12 game on ABC anywhere in Iowa. "But Iowa State's still in the Big 12," you say. Well, among the many things Iowa State learned in the Big 12 Missile Crisis, one is that playing second fiddle in your own media market makes you about as popular and desirable as a telethon.
In addition to the table below, I have also created outline maps and one shaded map marking the number of stations per county. They have been placed on this page. Also on that page is a listing of dates each station began broadcasting.
Update, September 2019: All stations' maps were re-evaluated via their websites, with the exceptions of WHO and WOI, whose weathercasts currently encompass the entire state and whose active maps are not possible to decipher without severe weather coverage, and KSFY in Sioux Falls. Also, a reconfiguration of TV contracts after the Big 12 Missile Crisis has resulted in more football games on Fox, although since none of Iowa's Fox stations have independent news desks the table/maps don't bother with that network. Iowa was unaffected by the NFL-related affiliate shift of 1994.
Update, June 2020: KYOU, an Ottumwa station I ignored because it was a Fox affiliate, added NBC as a subchannel in 2018. This technically means the Ottumwa-Kirksville market (201st out of 210 in size) and Quincy-Hannibal-Keokuk (174th) each have their own full complement of the three broadcast networks in two stations apiece. Because KTVO is two channels but not two stations, its subchannel is not included in the below list, and the same goes for KHQA. KYOU is in italics in the below chart.
Update, November 2020: I rebuilt every network map from the ground up, prompting a re-re-check of every county. Aside from the previous addition of KYOU on the NBC maps and chart spaces, KDLT and KSFY in Sioux Falls have been consolidated into one studio, whose newscasts are viewable throughout South Dakota and far northwest Iowa. (Once you get west of US 75, TV maps can be described as "And now it gets weird.") I watched coverage of the "Beef Bowl" (the annual West Lyon vs. Central Lyon/George-Little Rock football game) a state and a time zone away via KELO translators in Rapid City.
Data compiled in the early years as follows (with some duplication for confirmation): Personal experience: All Eastern Iowa and Des Moines-various 2000-2008, KIMT-2000 and 2006, Quad Cities-January 2000, KEYC and KSFY-March 2003; Neil Bratney: Omaha-2003; Kurt Berge: KELO, KSFY, Sioux City; Station websites: KDLT, KWQC, KELO, KMEG, KTTC, WXOW, KEYC, KTVO, WGEM, WQAD, KAAL, KTTC; Upper Midwest Broadcasting website: KHQA, WHBF, KTVO (only 100% definitive on first two); Owen McCormick: WKBT, KTVO, WGEM; Jason Hancock: Quad Cities; Rich Piehl: KHQA and WGEM
Area network numbers (ABC-CBS-NBC): Sioux Falls 13-11-5; Omaha 7-3-6; Sioux City 9-14-4; Des Moines 5-8-13; Mason City/Rochester 6-3-10; Eastern Iowa 9-7-2; Quad Cities 8-4-6; Southeast Iowa 3-15 and 7-10; and oddballs 8, 12, and 19.
Colors correspond to the outline maps. For purposes of this table and maps, Kirksville/Ottumwa and Keokuk/Hannibal/Quincy colors are combined. Listings are as of December 2008 August 2014 November 2020, but the switch to digital meant no more distant fuzzy signals. In the words of then-Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico, "The government can do a lot of things, but you mess up people's televisions, and they're going to be very upset."
| County (footnote) | ABC | CBS | NBC |
| Adair | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Adams (5) | KETV, WOI | KMTV, KCCI | WHO, WOWT |
| Allamakee | KCRG, WXOW | KGAN, WKBT | KTTC, KWWL |
| Appanoose (7) | KTVO, WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Audubon (5) | KETV, WOI | KMTV, KCCI | WHO, WOWT |
| Benton | KCRG | KGAN | KWWL |
| Black Hawk | KCRG | KGAN | KWWL |
| Boone | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Bremer (4) | KCRG | KGAN | KWWL |
| Buchanan | KCRG | KGAN | KWWL |
| Buena Vista (1) | KCAU, KSFY | KMEG, KELO | KTIV, KDLT |
| Butler (4) | KCRG | KGAN | KWWL |
| Calhoun (4) | KCAU, WOI | KCCI, KMEG | KTIV, WHO |
| Carroll (5) | KETV, KCAU, WOI | KMTV, KCCI, KMEG | KTIV, WHO, WOWT |
| Cass (1) | KETV, WOI | KMTV | WOWT |
| Cedar | KCRG, WQAD | KGAN, WHBF | KWWL, KWQC |
| Cerro Gordo | KAAL | KIMT | KTTC |
| Cherokee (1) | KCAU, KSFY | KMEG, KELO | KTIV, KDLT |
| Chickasaw | KCRG | KGAN | KWWL, KTTC |
| Clarke | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Clay | KCAU, KSFY | KMEG, KELO, KEYC | KTIV, KDLT |
| Clayton | KCRG | KGAN | KWWL |
| Clinton (3) (4) | WQAD, KCRG | WHBF, KGAN* | KWQC |
| Crawford (1) | KETV, KCAU | KMTV, KMEG, KCCI | WOWT, KTIV |
| Dallas | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Davis (1) (7) | KTVO, WOI, KCRG | KCCI | KYOU |
| Decatur | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Delaware | KCRG | KGAN | KWWL |
| Des Moines (7) | WQAD | WHBF | KWQC |
| Dickinson | KCAU, KSFY | KMEG, KELO, KEYC | KTIV, KDLT |
| Dubuque (6) | KCRG | KGAN | KWWL, KWQC |
| Emmet | KCAU | KMEG, KEYC | KTIV |
| Fayette (4) | KCRG | KGAN | KWWL |
| Floyd (6) | KAAL, KCRG | KIMT, KGAN | KTTC |
| Franklin (3) (4) | WOI, KCRG | KCCI, KGAN* | WHO |
| Fremont | KETV | KMTV | WOWT |
| Greene | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Grundy (1) (2) | KCRG | KGAN, KCCI | KWWL |
| Guthrie | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Hamilton | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Hancock | KAAL | KIMT, KEYC | KTTC |
| Hardin (3) | WOI, KCRG | KCCI, KGAN* | WHO |
| Harrison | KETV, KCAU | KMTV, KMEG | WOWT, KTIV |
| Henry (3) | WQAD, KCRG, KTVO | WHBF | KWQC, KYOU* |
| Howard (6) | KAAL, KCRG | KIMT, KGAN | KTTC |
| Humboldt (4) | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Ida (1) | KCAU | KMEG | KTIV |
| Iowa | KCRG | KGAN | KWWL |
| Jackson (6) | WQAD, KCRG | WHBF, KGAN | KWQC |
| Jasper (3) | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Jefferson (3) (6) (7) | KTVO, KCRG | WHBF, KGAN* | KYOU |
| Johnson (6) | KCRG | KGAN, WHBF | KWWL, KWQC |
| Jones | KCRG, WQAD | KGAN | KWWL, KWQC |
| Keokuk | KCRG, WOI, KTVO | KGAN | KWWL, KYOU |
| Kossuth (1) (8) | KEYC, KCCI | WHO | |
| Lee (6) (7) | KTVO, WQAD | KHQA | KWQC, WGEM |
| Linn | KCRG | KGAN | KWWL |
| Louisa (3) | WQAD, KCRG | WHBF, KGAN* | KWQC |
| Lucas | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Lyon | KSFY, KCAU | KELO, KMEG | KDLT, KTIV |
| Madison | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Mahaska | WOI, KCRG, KTVO | KCCI, KGAN* | WHO, KYOU* |
| Marion | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Marshall (3) | WOI, KCRG | KCCI, KGAN* | WHO |
| Mills | KETV | KMTV | WOWT |
| Mitchell | KAAL | KIMT, KGAN* | KTTC |
| Monona | KETV, KCAU | KMTV, KMEG | WOWT, KTIV |
| Monroe (7) | WOI, KTVO | KCCI | WHO |
| Montgomery (1) | KETV | KMTV | WOWT |
| Muscatine (3) | WQAD, KCRG | WHBF, KGAN* | KWQC |
| O'Brien | KCAU, KSFY | KMEG, KELO | KTIV, KDLT |
| Osceola | KCAU, KSFY | KMEG, KELO | KTIV, KDLT |
| Page (1) | KETV | KMTV | WOWT |
| Palo Alto (1) | KCAU | KMEG, KEYC | KTIV |
| Plymouth | KCAU, KSFY | KMEG, KELO | KTIV, KDLT |
| Pocahontas (4) | WOI | KCCI, KMEG | KTIV, WHO |
| Polk | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Pottawattamie | KETV | KMTV | WOWT |
| Poweshiek (3) | KCRG, WOI | KCCI, KGAN* | WHO |
| Ringgold | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Sac | KCAU, WOI | KMEG, KCCI | KTIV |
| Scott (4) | WQAD, KCRG | WHBF, KGAN* | KWQC |
| Shelby (1) | KETV | KMTV | WOWT, KTIV |
| Sioux | KCAU, KSFY | KMEG, KELO | KTIV, KDLT |
| Story | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Tama (1) (2) | KCRG, WOI | KGAN, KCCI | KWWL |
| Taylor (5) | KETV, WOI | KMTV, KCCI | WHO, WOWT |
| Union | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Van Buren (7) | KTVO | KHQA | KYOU |
| Wapello (1) (2) (7) | KTVO, WOI, KCRG | KCCI | KYOU |
| Warren | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Washington (6) | KCRG | KGAN, WHBF | KWWL, KWQC, KYOU* |
| Wayne | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Webster | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
| Winnebago (2) | KAAL | KIMT, KEYC | KTTC |
| Winneshiek (4) | KCRG, WXOW | KGAN, WKBT | KTTC, KWWL |
| Woodbury | KCAU | KMEG | KTIV |
| Worth (4) | KAAL | KIMT | KTTC |
| Wright (4) | WOI | KCCI | WHO |
Link to TV map page (same as above)
* Station is currently being inconsistent or otherwise unclear in its inclusion of the county. As of 2020, this is mostly about KGAN, which has 11 fringe counties on its weather-warning map that it doesn't show during the weather-cast, and KYOU, a new addition to the list (see note 7).
(1) KCCI dropped Buena Vista, Ida, Crawford, Shelby, Cass, Montgomery, and Page from the west side of the map, and Butler, Grundy, and Tama from the east side, between 2000 and 2002. Interestingly enough, Cass, Grundy, and Tama had been on the map in 1990; the station added a tier in three directions (above, below, and west) in the next decade and then slightly truncated the map again. For some reason, the station even added Kossuth and Palo Alto counties in 2004, and retains the former to this day. By the end of 2005 KCCI had brought back Buena Vista, Cass, Montgomery, Page, Grundy, and Tama plus Wapello and Davis. In the years since, nearly all the counties on the east and west edges have been off and on, not on most of its maps but paid attention to during severe weather. The inset map in the tornado outbreaks of late June-early July 2014 omitted Davis, Jefferson, and Wapello, technically leaving those three without a CBS affiliate at all except for the new subchannel at KTVO (which may be precisely why they have been omitted). Davis and Wapello were back by 2019.
(2) WHO dropped Mercer County, MO (!) and added Grundy and Tama between 2000 and 2002; in 2004 it added Wapello and Kossuth; in 2005 it added Cass, Davis, Taylor, and even Crawford, making a total of 41 counties, but has since dropped Crawford, Grundy and Tama, nearly retreating to its 2000 status. WOI added Buena Vista, Grundy, and Tama between 1999 and 2002. As of 2014 Sac and Tama are in but BV and Grundy are out.
(3) KWWL expunged Marshall, Jasper, Poweshiek, Jefferson, Henry,
Louisa, Muscatine, and Clinton simultaneously (!) in October 2004. During
Oct. 22-25, they were removed from all the maps, at the same time an
oblique sky view of the area replaced the final forecast graphic. In 2015,
KWWL's
map
was reduced to the exact counties in the eastern Iowa viewing market
and the map hasn't been scaled correctly on the forecast portion since.
At one time, Henry County may have been included on nine stations. Jason Hancock points out that if that were the case, Henry County would be served by TWO affiliates on Channel 7 - KHQA and KWWL. "There'd be a lot of interference in Mount Pleasant if that was the case.") In 1991, residents in Hardin and Franklin counties raised a stink when Heritage Cablevision tried to drop KWWL and KCRG and make them watch Des Moines stations - and/but in the mid-2000s, KWWL eliminated Hardin County from its maps. Hampton (Franklin County) cable offerings once includes eight stations from three markets (channels 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 13) but based on a 2019 Mediacom check is down to five stations. Still, it wouldn't be a good site for "change of venue" in a trial to avoid media coverage.
(4) KEYC dropped Humboldt, Pocahontas, and Worth in 2005. KMEG dropped Calhoun and three counties in southern Minnesota in 2005, picked Calhoun up later, and then dropped it again. KCRG dropped Clinton and Scott when it adopted new weather graphics in November 2006, but they have returned. Aside from that, its map has been remarkably consistent and expansive. KIMT dropped Fayette in early 2008 (ruining the nearly symmetrical "county box" it had in Iowa), but KTTC picked it up, along with Butler, Franklin, and Wright (yet didn't add Bremer - weird). Those extra counties, along with Bremer, were gone by 2019, although its "alerts and warnings" icon still had the larger map in late 2020.
(5) WOWT pulled back on its easternmost Iowa counties (Adams, Audubon, Carroll, and Taylor) between 2007 and 2014, but they were back by 2019. This, specifically, is how Carroll County assumed its place on top of the station-count heap (channels 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, and 14) as of late 2020.
(6) WQAD's maps were inconsistent on Dubuque, Lee, and Washington counties in the 2000s, but currently are no-yes-no on coverage there. In 2007, WHBF added Johnson, Washington and Jefferson, possibly a side effect of a dispute between Mediacom and Sinclair Broadcasting, owners of KGAN, and all three remained in 2019. Meanwhile, KGAN's maps during the news are inconsistent on Floyd, Howard, and Jackson.
(7) Ironically, KWWL's elimination of Jefferson County left it without an official NBC affiliate from an Iowa station, and later the same thing happened when WHO dropped/sporadically included Wapello and Davis counties. For CBS in Jefferson County, WHBF has been off and on (currently on), and it has a KTVO subchannel. Cable offerings in Fairfield include WHO and WGEM, though neither put it on weather maps, and also KGAN/WHBF and KCRG/KTVO - meaning at least one station from four different markets. Bloomfield (Davis County) cable includes all three Des Moines stations and KTVO. Van Buren was off WGEM's 2019 map.
In 2018 KYOU in Ottumwa, which had spent most of its life as a Fox affiliate, added NBC programming for the Ottumwa-Kirksville market. This filled the donut hole of counties encircled by larger markets and rendered part of the above paragraph moot. Around the beginning of 2020, after Gray TV bought Raycom, KCRG started doing KYOU's weather. The maps waffle between the strict-market view and part of the more expansive one used before; the difference is Henry, Keokuk, Mahaska, and Washington counties on the Iowa side, but they're on more often than not. Appanoose, Des Moines, Lee, and Monroe counties were also included before KCRG took over the weather duties.
(8) KAAL's strict adherence to the Rochester market, at least on its website, leaves Kossuth County without an official ABC station. Amusingly, the inclusion of Kossuth County in the Des Moines market, as well as the Nielsen DMA, makes breakout maps look like they are giving the viewer the finger.
Also, here's what's in southern Minnesota - if they aren't watching stations out of the Twin Cities:
| Bottom tier (west-east) | ABC | CBS | NBC |
| Rock | KSFY | KELO | KDLT |
| Nobles | KSFY | KEYC, KELO | KDLT |
| Jackson | KSFY | KEYC, KELO | KDLT |
| Martin | |
KEYC | KTTC |
| Faribault | |
KIMT, KEYC | KTTC |
| Freeborn | KAAL | KIMT, KEYC | KTTC |
| Mower | KAAL | KIMT | KTTC |
| Fillmore | KAAL, WXOW | KIMT, WKBT | KTTC |
| Houston | WXOW | WKBT | KTTC, WEAU |
Page last updated 11/28/20
