KWWL (TV)

KWWL

Waterloo–Cedar Rapids– Dubuque–Iowa City, Iowa United States
City	Waterloo, Iowa
Channels	Digital: 7 (VHF) Virtual: 7
Branding	KWWL News 7 KWWL; KWWL News MeTV KWWL 7.3 (DT3)
Programming
Affiliations	7.1: NBC for others, see § Subchannels
Ownership
Owner	Allen Media Broadcasting[1] (Cedar-Rapids TV License Company, LLC)
History
First air date	November 29, 1953 (70 years ago) (1953-11-29)
Former call signs	KWWL-TV (1953–1983)
Former channel number(s)	Analog: 7 (VHF, 1953–2009) Digital: 55 (UHF, 2003–2009)
Former affiliations	DuMont (secondary, 1953–1956) NTA (secondary, 1956–1961) The CW (DT2, 2016−2021)
Call sign meaning	"Keep Watching Waterloo" (common, but inaccurate belief) -or- "Waterloo Way Leads"
Technical information[2]
Licensing authority	FCC
Facility ID	593
ERP	49 kW
HAAT	601 m (1,972 ft)
Transmitter coordinates	42°24′2″N 91°50′37″W / 42.40056°N 91.84361°W / 42.40056; -91.84361
Links
Public license information	Public file LMS
Website	kwwl.com

KWWL (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Waterloo, Iowa, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for Eastern Iowa. Owned by Allen Media Broadcasting, KWWL maintains studios on East 5th Street in Waterloo, with news bureaus and advertising sales offices in Cedar Rapids, Dubuque and Iowa City. The station's transmitter is located north of Rowley, Iowa, a city in Buchanan County.

When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened up bids for channel 7 in Waterloo, it was obvious that the license would either go to Sonderling Broadcasting, owner of KXEL (1540 AM), or R.J. McElroy and his Black Hawk Broadcasting Company, owner of KWWL (1330 AM, now KPTY). After a long legal battle, Black Hawk won the license, and KWWL-TV signed on for the first time on November 26, 1953.^[3]

The station was originally affiliated with NBC and the DuMont network.^[4] During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network.^[5]

In 1980, Black Hawk agreed in principle to merge with Forward Communications. However, the FCC told Black Hawk and Forward that the combined company would have to sell either KWWL-AM-FM or channel 7. The KWWL stations had been grandfathered under a 1970s FCC rule banning common ownership of radio and television stations. When Forward decided to keep the radio stations, Black Hawk sold channel 7, along with then-sister station KTIV in Sioux City, to AFLAC just before the merger closed.^[6] In 1997, AFLAC sold its entire broadcasting division, including KWWL, to Raycom Media.

In 2006, Raycom sold KWWL and a handful of other stations following its purchase of the Liberty Corporation in late 2005.^[7] Quincy Newspapers became owner of KWWL on July 1, 2006. The merger made QNI the owner of four of the NBC affiliates serving Iowa, along with flagship station WGEM-TV in Quincy, Illinois, KTTC in Rochester, Minnesota, and Black Hawk/AFLAC sibling KTIV, which had been sold to QNI in 1989.

KWWL shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, on February 17, 2009,^[8] the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 55, which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to VHF channel 7.^[9] The "KWWL" callsign was legally transferred from the now-defunct analog channel 7 to the new digital channel 7, with the "KWWL-DT" callsign being permanently discontinued.

On November 1, 2010, the FCC granted KWWL a construction permit for a 300-watt digital fill-in translator on channel 7 (the same frequency as their main channel).^[10] The translator would serve the immediate part and areas northwest of Dubuque. The permit was later canceled on June 6, 2013.^[11]

On January 7, 2021, Quincy Media announced that it had put itself up for sale.^[12] A few weeks later, Gray Television announced its intent to purchase Quincy for $925 million. As Gray already owns the market's KCRG-TV and both stations rank among the top four in ratings in the Cedar Rapids–Waterloo market, it intended to keep KCRG-TV and divest KWWL in order to satisfy FCC requirements.^[13] On April 29, 2021, it was announced that Allen Media Group would acquire KWWL and the remaining Quincy stations not being acquired by Gray Television for $380 million.^[1] The sale was completed on August 2 the same year, making KWWL a sister station to CBS affiliate KIMT in nearby Mason City. Gray's decision to sell KWWL came as an ironic twist, given that they had acquired the station's previous owner Raycom in 2019.

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

In late 2014, the KWWL building underwent a major renovation project, which involved extensive interior and exterior work. The neighboring American Legion building was demolished to make way for a new parking lot. This also led to the building's "front" changing from the 4th Street side to the 5th Street side. Further exterior work restored the 4th Street side to how it appeared when the building was first constructed in the early 1900s. This included restoring original trim and detail work, as well as the large windows which surrounded half the building. On the interior, the newsroom and studio were relocated to the newly renovated and updated second floor. The new KWWL set debuted on October 26, 2016. A week later, demolition and remodeling of the first floor began. In July 2017, the remainder of KWWL's departments (Marketing, Sales and Administration) moved to their new location on the first floor. The full renovation of the studio building was completed on September 20, 2017.

KWWL-DT2 is the Heroes & Icons-affiliated second digital subchannel of KWWL, broadcasting in 720p high definition on channel 7.2.

KWWL-DT2's previous logo as a This TV affiliate.

KWWL-DT2 began operations in November 2004 as an affiliate of NBC Weather Plus, airing national weather forecasts from the service as well as inserts of local weather forecasts from the KWWL weather center. However, on October 7, 2008, NBC Universal announced that they would shut down the NBC Weather Plus service by December 31, 2008, concurrently, in January 2009, that subchannel began airing This TV programming.^[14][15][16]

In April 2016, KWWL announced that they would add programming from The CW on KWWL-DT2 beginning on September 12, 2016.^[17][18] At the same time, KWWL-DT2 ended its seven-year affiliation with This TV. This resulted in an affiliation swap between KWWL-DT2 and Iowa City-based KWKB (channel 20), the Cedar Rapids market's former CW affiliate, which then became the This TV affiliate for the Cedar Rapids market.^[19]

On August 2, 2021, The CW moved to KCRG-DT3, replacing Antenna TV, and KWWL ended up replacing The CW with Heroes & Icons, which moved from KCRG-DT4.

This section needs expansion with: further information on the history of KWWL's news operation. You can help by adding to it. (October 2011)

On April 11, 2010, KWWL became the first station in eastern Iowa and the first QNI station to broadcast its newscasts in high definition.^[20] At this time, it updated its logo, removing the large blue circle that surrounded the 7.

• Ron Steele – 1974–present, anchor

• Paul Burmeister – sports anchor/reporter (later at NFL Network and now NBC Sports)
• Bob Hogue – 1979–1984, sports director, play-by-play announcer for Iowa Television Network. Now Commissioner of Pacific West Conference
• Liz Mathis – 1980–1996, anchor (later at KCRG-TV; currently employed by Four Oaks, a foster care agency in Cedar Rapids)
• Mark Steines – former host of The Home and Family Show on Hallmark Channel
• Irv Weinstein – 90 days in the early 1950s as a director; he was fired and eventually returned to his native Western New York as an anchor for WKBW-TV; now deceased

The station's signal is multiplexed:

1. Lipps, Rick and Weaver, Tim. KWWL Station History (https://web.archive.org/web/20050310021154/http://www.kwwl.com/Global/story.asp?S=277765) Date Accessed: July 30, 2005. Waterloo, Iowa: KWWL.

• Official website
• KWWL About Us Page