KGCW (channel 26) is a
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth ...
licensed to
Burlington, Iowa
Burlington is a city in, and the county seat of, Des Moines County, Iowa, United States. The population was 23,982 in the 2020 census, a decline from the 26,839 population in 2000. Burlington is the center of a micropolitan area, which includes ...
, United States, serving the
Quad Cities
The Quad Cities is a region of cities (originally four, see History) in the U.S. states of Iowa and Illinois: Davenport and Bettendorf in southeastern Iowa, and Rock Island, Moline and East Moline in northwestern Illinois. These cities are t ...
area with programming from
The CW
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
. It is
owned and operated
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
by network majority owner
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
alongside
Rock Island, Illinois
Rock Island is a city in and the county seat of Rock Island County, Illinois, Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. The original Rock Island, from which the city name is derived, is now called Rock Island Arsenal, Arsenal Island. The popul ...
–licensed
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
affiliate
WHBF-TV
WHBF-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to Rock Island, Illinois, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Quad Cities area. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Burlington, Iowa–licensed The CW, CW owned-and-op ...
(channel 4); Nexstar also provides certain services to
Davenport, Iowa
Davenport is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Iowa, United States. Located along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state, it is the largest of the Quad Cities, a metropolitan area with a population of 384,324 and a ...
–licensed
Fox
Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush'').
Twelve sp ...
affiliate
KLJB
KLJB (channel 18) is a television station licensed to Davenport, Iowa, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Quad Cities area. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Nexstar Medi ...
(channel 18) under a
shared services
Shared services is the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group, where that service had previously been found, in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and th ...
agreement (SSA) with
Mission Broadcasting
Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 20 television stations in 17 markets in the United States. The group's Chair is Nancie Smith, the widow of David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1996 and died in 2011. All but ...
. The stations share studios in the Telco Building on 18th Street in downtown Rock Island, while KGCW's transmitter is located near
Orion, Illinois
Orion ( ) is a village in Henry County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,861 at the 2010 census. It is the site for transmitters for many of the Quad Cities' radio and television stations, including KLJB, KWQC-TV, WMWC-TV, WQAD-TV, W ...
.
History
Early history
The station signed on January 6, 1988 as KJMH. It aired an analog signal on UHF channel 26 with an
effective radiated power
Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would hav ...
of 200
kilowatt
The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...
s (at a height of ) from a tower on Winegard Drive in Burlington. KJMH quickly became a Fox affiliate, primarily serving the southern portion of the Quad Cities
market
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
*Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
*Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
Geography
*Märket, an ...
. However, the station suffered interference and duplication from the area's other Fox affiliate, KLJB in Davenport, serving the northern portions of the area. Finally in 1996, this station became a full-time
satellite
A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...
of KLJB. In 2001, KJMH broke off and became a
WB affiliate for the Quad Cities and adopted the KGWB-TV call sign.
In September 2006 as a result of The WB and
UPN
The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which prod ...
merging to form The CW, the station was picked as the new network affiliate for the Quad Cities. To reflect the change, KGWB adopted the KGCW-TV call letters on June 30, 2006. Meanwhile, the area's
low-power UPN affiliate
WBQD-LP
WBQD-LP (channel 26) is a defunct low-power analog television station licensed to Davenport, Iowa, United States, which operated from 2002 to 2011. Last owned by Four Seasons Broadcasting (a partnership between Cleveland-based Malibu Broadcast ...
joined the other new service,
News Corporation
News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Ne ...
's
MyNetworkTV
MyNetworkTV (unofficially abbreviated MyTV, MyNet, MNT or MNTV, and sometimes referred to as My Network) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its ...
. While broadcasting in
analog
Analog or analogue may refer to:
Computing and electronics
* Analog signal, in which information is encoded in a continuous variable
** Analog device, an apparatus that operates on analog signals
*** Analog electronics, circuits which use analog ...
, KGCW's signal failed to cover the Quad Cities adequately because WBQD also transmitted on channel 26. In addition, its coverage area was less than most full-powered UHF outlets in the United States due to its lower effective radiated power and shorter antenna height. However, from 2001 to 2015, this shortfall had been made up by it being available on
cable
Cable may refer to:
Mechanical
* Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof
* Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
systems in the area through a
fiber optic
An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...
link and a
simulcast
Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...
on KLJB-DT2. During spring 2015, however, the KGCW subchannel simulcast would migrate to WHBF-DT2.
Virtual triopoly with WHBF and KLJB
On November 6, 2013,
Irving, Texas
Irving is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. Located in Dallas County, it is also an inner ring suburb of Dallas. The city of Irving is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. According to a 2019 estimate from the United States Census Bureau, ...
–based
Nexstar Broadcasting Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
announced that it would purchase the
Grant Broadcasting
Grant Broadcasting System II (also referred to as Grant Communications and Grant Company) was an owner of various television stations in the United States, Based in Roanoke, Virginia.
Grant Broadcasting was founded in 1990 by Milton Grant (May 1 ...
stations—including KGCW and KLJB—for $87.5 million. Just six weeks prior on September 16, Nexstar had announced it was acquiring
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
affiliate
WHBF-TV
WHBF-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to Rock Island, Illinois, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Quad Cities area. It is owned by Nexstar Media Group alongside Burlington, Iowa–licensed The CW, CW owned-and-op ...
(channel 4) from
Bronxville, New York
Bronxville is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States, located approximately north of Midtown Manhattan. It is part of the town of Eastchester. The village comprises one square mile (2.5 km2) of land in its entirety, a ...
-based
Citadel Communications
Citadel Communications Ltd. is an American private broadcasting company. It is based in Bronxville, New York and owns 1 Low-power broadcasting#Television, low-power television station on which it operates a regional 24-hour news cycle, 24-hour Un ...
in an $88-million deal, in which Nexstar also assumed that station's operations through a
time brokerage agreement.
This precluded Nexstar from acquiring KLJB directly as
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
(FCC) ownership regulations prohibited common ownership of two of the four highest-rated television stations in the same media market; Nexstar originally intended to address the conflict by spinning off KLJB to
Westlake, Ohio
Westlake is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. It is a suburb of Cleveland located 12 miles west of downtown Cleveland. The population was 34,228 at the 2020 census.
Geography
Westlake is located at (41.454439, −81.928657).
Acco ...
-based partner company
Mission Broadcasting
Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 20 television stations in 17 markets in the United States. The group's Chair is Nancie Smith, the widow of David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1996 and died in 2011. All but ...
, with the intent of taking over that station's operations through a
shared services
Shared services is the provision of a service by one part of an organization or group, where that service had previously been found, in more than one part of the organization or group. Thus the funding and resourcing of the service is shared and th ...
agreement.
However, on June 6, 2014, Nexstar announced that it would instead sell KLJB to
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
-based
Marshall Broadcasting Group
Marshall Broadcasting Group, Inc. was an American television broadcasting company that owned three full power television stations in Iowa, Louisiana and Texas. The company was founded on December 1, 2014 by Pluria Marshall, Jr. All three of its tel ...
—a newly formed, minority-controlled company headed by Pluria Marshall Jr.—for $58.5 million. While Marshall acquired much of channel 18's assets, Nexstar entered into a shared services agreement to provide non-programming resources (such as master control) and advertising sales for KLJB and Marshall's two other stations (Fox affiliate
KMSS-TV
KMSS-TV (channel 33) is a television station in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States, affiliated with the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox network. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Nexstar M ...
in
Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is t ...
and
KPEJ-TV
KPEJ-TV (channel 24) is a television station licensed to Odessa, Texas, United States, serving as the Fox affiliate for the Permian Basin area. It is owned by Mission Broadcasting, which maintains a shared services agreement (SSA) with Nexstar Me ...
in
Midland, Texas
Midland is a city in and the county seat of Midland County, Texas, United States. A small part of Midland is in Martin County.
At the 2020 census, Midland's population was 132,524. It is the principal city of the Midland, Texas metropolitan ...
, both of which were acquired by Marshall through Nexstar's concurring acquisition of the
Communications Corporation of America
Communications Corporation of America (also known as ComCorp) was a broadcasting company in the United States that owned television stations in smaller markets. The company was headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana. It owned and/or operated 20 s ...
stations).
The sale was completed on December 1, 2014.
In November 2014, while Nexstar was still waiting for the completion of its sale of KLJB to Marshall Broadcasting, there was speculation by other local media that KGCW might move to a
digital subchannel
In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...
of WHBF-TV. On May 14, 2015, Nexstar relaunched WHBF's 4.2 subchannel with a standard definition simulcast of KGCW. The simulcast had previously aired on KLJB's 18.2 subchannel, but was moved to the WHBF subchannel due to the sale of KLJB to Marshall Broadcasting.
On January 27, 2016, Nexstar announced that it would acquire
Media General
Media General was an American media company based in Richmond, Virginia. The company's origins can be traced back to 1887 when Richmond attorney Joseph Bryan acquired ''The Richmond Daily Times'', which later became ''The Richmond Times-Dispatch' ...
, who owns rival
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
station
KWQC
KWQC-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Davenport, Iowa, United States, serving the Quad Cities area as an affiliate of NBC. Owned by Gray Television, the station maintains studios on Brady Street in downtown Davenport, and its ...
with the combined company was to be named by "Nexstar Media Group". As such, in order to comply with FCC ownership rules as well as planned changes to rules regarding same-market television stations which would prohibit future joint sales agreements, Nexstar was required to sell either KWQC or both WHBF and KLJB (separately as it would break the grandfathered LMA) to separate, unrelated companies to address the ownership conflict. Likewise, to address the ownership conflict, KGCW could either be retained by Nexstar (tied with either KWQC or WHBF) or sold to the new buyer if WHBF is sold, as KGCW does not rank among the four highest-rated stations in the Quad Cities market.
On June 3, 2016, it was announced that Nexstar would keep WHBF-TV, KGCW and the SSA for KLJB and sell KWQC to
Gray Television
Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...
, in a group deal that saw Gray acquiring the
Green Bay ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
station
WBAY-TV
WBAY-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Gray Television. The station's studios are located on South Jefferson Street in downtown Green Bay (across from the historic B ...
for $270 million.
The sale was completed on January 17, 2017.
On December 3, 2018, Nexstar announced it would acquire the assets of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
-based
Tribune Media
Tribune Media Company, also known as Tribune Company, was an American multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Through Tribune Broadcasting, Tribune Media was one of the largest television broadcasting companies, owning 39 ...
—which has owned ABC affiliate
WQAD-TV
WQAD-TV (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Moline, Illinois, United States, serving the Quad Cities area as an affiliate of ABC and MyNetworkTV. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station maintains studios on Park 16th Street in Moline, and i ...
(channel 8) since December 2013—for $6.4 billion in cash and debt. Nexstar was precluded from acquiring WQAD directly or indirectly, as FCC regulations prohibit common ownership of more than two stations in the same media market, or two or more of the four highest-rated stations in the market. (Furthermore, any attempt by Nexstar to assume the operations of WQAD through local marketing or shared services agreements would have been subject to regulatory hurdles that could have delayed completion of the FCC and Justice Department's review and approval process for the acquisition.) As such, Nexstar was required to sell either WQAD or both WHBF and KLJB (separately as it would break the grandfathered LMA) to separate, unrelated companies to address the ownership conflict. KGCW could either be retained by Nexstar (tied with either WQAD or WHBF) or sold to the new buyer if WHBF is sold, as KGCW does not rank among the four highest-rated stations in the Quad Cities market.
On March 20, 2019, it was announced that Nexstar would keep WHBF-TV, KGCW and the SSA for KLJB and sell WQAD to
McLean, Virginia
McLean ( ) is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia. McLean is home to many diplomats, military, members of Congress, and high-ranking government officials partially due to its proxim ...
–based
Tegna Inc.
Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons Corner, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into tw ...
, as part of the company's sale of nineteen Nexstar- and Tribune-operated stations to Tegna and the
E. W. Scripps Company
The E. W. Scripps Company is an American broadcasting company founded in 1878 as a chain of daily newspapers by Edward Willis "E. W." Scripps and his sister, Ellen Browning Scripps. It was also formerly a media conglomerate. The company is he ...
in separate deals worth $1.32 billion; this would make WQAD the first television property in Iowa for Tegna and its first television property in Illinois since the group (under its pre-2016-split structure as the broadcasting arm of the
Gannett Company
Gannett Co., Inc. () is an American mass media holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.[WREX
Urdnot Wrex is a fictional character in BioWare's ''Mass Effect'' franchise, who serves as a party member (or "squadmate") in the first game of the ''Mass Effect'' trilogy. He is a krogan, an alien race near-sterilised by other galactic races f ...]
in
Rockford, Illinois
Rockford is a city in Winnebago County, Illinois, located in the far northern part of the state. Situated on the banks of the Rock River, Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County (a small portion of the city is located in Ogle County). ...
to the Gilmore Broadcasting Corporation in 1969.
Programming
Sports programming
On March 25, 2015, it was announced that KGCW would broadcast 24
Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...
baseball games to Quad Cities area baseball fans during the
2015
File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
season. This was due to the baseball games no longer being available on a national basis to cable and satellite viewers via
WGN America
WGN America was an American subscription television network that was owned by the Nexstar Media Group, and was the company's only wholly owned, national cable-originated television channel. The channel in its final form under the WGN branding ran ...
. The origination of the baseball broadcasts was split between Chicago's CW affiliate (now
independent station
An independent station is an independent radio or terrestrial television station which is independent in some way from broadcast networks. The definition of "independence" varies from country to country, reflecting governmental regulations, market ...
)
WGN-TV
WGN-TV (channel 9) is an Independent station (North America), independent television station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister station, sister to the company's sole radio property, talk ra ...
and ABC
O&O WLS-TV
WLS-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on North State S ...
, with KGCW carrying the games broadcast by WLS, and the Quad Cities' MyNetworkTV affiliate
WQAD-DT3 airing the games broadcast by WGN. In the past, KGCW had aired
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals hav ...
baseball games when that team's flagship station was fellow WB/CW affiliate
KPLR-TV
KPLR-TV (channel 11) is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, airing programming from The CW. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside Fox affiliate KTVI (channel 2). Both stations sh ...
. On April 5, 2016, it was revealed that during the
2016 season, KGCW would carry Cubs telecasts originating from WLS-TV for a second consecutive year.
Newscasts
Until 2010, KGCW aired a rebroadcast of KLJB's thirty-minute prime time newscast produced by the
Independent News Network
News HUB (formerly known as Independent News Network) is a production company based in Little Rock, Arkansas, which syndicates "localized" news programs for broadcast television stations in the United States, that have budgets limiting their ...
(INN) on Tuesday through Saturday mornings at 5. On August 6, 2010, it was made public KLJB terminated its long standing partnership with INN and entered into a news share agreement with ABC affiliate WQAD-TV (owned by
Local TV). On September 6, that station began producing a nightly half-hour prime time show on KLJB still known by the same name. KGCW then began repeating the previous night's newscast Monday through Friday mornings at 5. Production of ''Fox 18 Nine O'Clock News'' changed once more on
December 31
It is known by a collection of names including: Saint Sylvester's Day, New Year's Eve or Old Years Day/Night, as the following day is New Year's Day. It is the last day of the year; the following day is January 1, the first day of the followin ...
, 2012, when it was taken over through a new outsourcing arrangement by NBC affiliate KWQC-TV (owned by
Young Broadcasting
Young Broadcasting, LLC was an American media company that owned or operated 12 television stations in 10 markets with a total U.S. television household coverage of 5.9%. The company was formerly known as Young Broadcasting Inc. and was the outgro ...
). KGCW moved the repeat of KLJB's show to the next morning at 1. In the fall of 2015, the KLJB newscast repeat was dropped in favor of an overnight rebroadcast of WHBF-TV's late newscast.
Technical information
Subchannels
The station's digital signal is
multiplexed
In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...
:
On December 10, 2009, KGCW added a new second subchannel of its own carrying
This TV
This TV (also known as This TV Network and alternately stylized as thisTV) is an American free-to-air television network owned by Allen Media
Broadcast Networks, LLC, part of the Allen Media Group division of Entertainment Studios. Originally fo ...
. It also added
MeTV
MeTV, an acronym for Memorable Entertainment Television, is an American broadcast television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. Marketed as "The Definitive Destination for Classic TV", the network airs a variety of classic television program ...
to a new subchannel on April 10, 2012.
Analog-to-digital conversion
In December 2009, it finally changed the PSIP identifier for the main channel on 26.1 from its pre-transition labeling of "KGCW-DT" to its current legal call sign "KGCW" without the "-DT" suffix in it. KGCW shut down its analog signal, over
UHF
Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter (on ...
channel 26, at noon on February 17, 2009, the original date in which full-power television stations in the United States were to
transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 41.
Through the use of
PSIP
The Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) is the MPEG (a video and audio industry group) and privately defined program-specific information originally defined by General Instrument for the DigiCipher 2 system and later extended for the A ...
, digital television receivers display the station's
virtual channel
In most telecommunications organizations, a virtual channel is a method of remapping the ''program number'' as used in H.222 Program Association Tables and Program Mapping Tables to a channel number that can be entered via digits on a receiver's ...
as its former UHF analog channel 26. It transferred the "KGCW-TV" calls from its now-defunct analog signal channel 26 to its digital signal on channel 41 and the "KGCW-DT" call sign was discontinued.
However, it changed the legal FCC call sign again to KGCW around the revised digital transition date in June 2009 while continuing to use "KGCW-DT" through PSIP to identify channel 26.1 all the way up until December 2009. The current digital signal had been on-the-air from a new transmitter site near north of Seaton since November 2008 and from the station's original Burlington site on Winegard Drive prior to that. The remainder of the television stations in the Quad Cities terminated analog signals on the new analog shutoff date, June 12.
References
External links
*
KGCW-DT2 website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kgcw (Tv)
Television channels and stations established in 1988
The CW affiliates
This TV affiliates
Laff (TV network) affiliates
Television stations in the Quad Cities
Burlington, Iowa
Nexstar Media Group