 | |
| |
|---|---|
| City | Ames, Iowa |
| Channels | |
| Branding | CW Iowa 23;Local 5 News |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| WOI-DT | |
| History | |
First air date | January 20, 2001 (24 years ago) (2001-01-20) |
Former call signs | KPWB-TV (2001–2006) |
Former channel number(s) |
|
Call sign meaning | The CW Iowa |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 51502 |
| ERP |
|
| HAAT | 610 m (2,001 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 41°49′48″N93°36′54.6″W / 41.83000°N 93.615167°W /41.83000; -93.615167 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | www |
KCWI-TV (channel 23) is atelevision station licensed toAmes, Iowa, United States, serving as theCW affiliate for theDes Moines area. It is owned byTegna Inc. alongsideABC affiliateWOI-DT (channel 5), also licensed to Ames. The two stations share studios on Westown Parkway inWest Des Moines; KCWI-TV's transmitter is located inAlleman, Iowa.
Channel 23 first signed on the air on January 20, 2001, under the callsign KPWB-TV. The station originally maintained a primary affiliation withThe WB and a secondary affiliation withUPN, and was owned byPappas Telecasting. (This was the second Pappas-owned WB affiliate to use the KPWB-TV call sign; the company previously owned what is nowKMAX-TV inSacramento, California, from 1995 to 1998.) KPWB dropped UPN programming in 2003. Prior to the station's launch, this area had been without programming from The WB; from 1995 to 1999, The WB programming was available on Des Moines–Ames cable systems via theformer superstation feed ofWGN-TV inChicago,[3][4][5][6]and from 1999 to 2001, viaIowa City affiliatedKWKB. During its time as KPWB, the station carriedSt. Louis Cardinals baseball games syndicated fromKPLR-TV. It also aired selectChicago Cubs baseball games which were carried byWGN beginning in the2016 season.
On January 24, 2006,Time Warner andCBS Corporation announced the shutdowns of The WB and UPN effective that September. In place of these networks, both companies decided to form The CW, a new service that combined the most popular programming from both UPN and The WB with new series produced specifically for the network.[7] Just over one month later on February 22, 2006,News Corporation announced that it would start upMyNetworkTV, a sister network toFox, which would be operated as ajoint venture betweenFox Television Stations andTwentieth Television. MyNetworkTV was created in order to give UPN and WB-affiliated stations that were not selected to join The CW another option besides becoming anindependent station.[8]
It seemed very likely that KPWB would become The CW's Des Moines affiliate, as NBC affiliateWHO-TV (channel 13) had a secondary affiliation with UPN. On March 16, 2006, Pappas Telecasting signed an affiliation agreement to make KPWB the market's CW affiliate. A few months later, MyNetworkTV announced that it would affiliate with a new station also owned by Pappas,KDMI (then on channel 56), which began broadcasting that network on September 5, 2006. On September 18, 2006, the date that The CW officially launched, KPWB changed its call letters to KCWI-TV to reflect its new affiliation.
After MyNetworkTV converted to a programming service in September 2009, KDMI dropped the affiliation in favor of joiningThis TV.WWE SmackDown, which aired on MyNetworkTV at the time, moved to KCWI airing in a Saturday prime time slot; the station stopped airing the show on September 11, 2010, three weeks beforeSmackDown itself moved from MyNetworkTV toSyfy that October. As a result of KDMI dropping the MyNetworkTV affiliation, Des Moines was the largestNielsenmedia market without an over-the-air affiliate of the service until KDMI rejoined MyNetworkTV on October 3, 2011, though that station began carrying the service's programming four hours later than most MyNetworkTV affiliates upon rejoining the service (Nexstar Broadcasting Group–ownedWLMT inMemphis also airedSmackDown in a manner very similar to KCWI after MyNetworkTV's original Memphis affiliateWPXX-TV dropped the programming service; WLMT's second digital subchannel eventually affiliated with the service afterSmackDown moved to Syfy).
On October 24, 2014, Pappas reached a deal to sell KCWI-TV to Nexstar Broadcasting Group for $3.5 million. The deal separated the station from KDMI, but created a new duopoly with ABC affiliate WOI-DT (channel 5), by coincidence also licensed to Ames.[9] Shortly after the sale was announced, Harry and Stella Pappas sued to block the deal, arguing that the price undervalued KCWI.[10] The deal was approved by the FCC on December 19, 2014, but the completion of the deal was placed on hold due to the lawsuit. The sale was formally completed on March 14, 2016,[11] with Nexstar announcing shortly after that KCWI would leave its downtown Des Moines studios and consolidate operations with WOI at that station's West Des Moines facilities as of April 1.[12]
Nexstar purchasedTribune Media, then the owner of WHO-DT, for $6.4 billion in cash and debt on December 3, 2018.[13][14] Prohibited from owning all three stations, Nexstar opted to retain WHO and sold KCWI and WOI toTegna Inc. as part of an 11-station, $740-million divestiture package.[15]
KCWI presently broadcasts a total of18+1⁄2 hours of local newscasts each week (a three-hour local weekdaymorning newscast from 7 to 10 a.m. and a nightly half hour newscast at 9 p.m.). KCWI did not broadcast any news programming until April 2012, when the station debuted a three-hour morning news and interview show calledGreat Day on KCWI, now airing four hours each weekday from 6 to 10 a.m. since September 2013. In addition to news, weather, sports andtraffic reports,Great Day features guest interviews, animal segments, comedians, music and various videos. The station did not previously offer a prime time newscast following CW network programming, with syndicated sitcomreruns airing instead during the 9 p.m. timeslot. When Nexstar completed its sale of the station, the show's name was changed toThe KCWI23-HD Morning Show.
On April 11, 2016, KCWI's morning show was changed once again, this time toCW Iowa Live airing from 7 to 10 a.m. with the 6 a.m. hour now being occupied byinfomercials to avoid competition with WOI-DT's morning show. The newly revamped show retained Michelle Brown and Lou Sipolt, but meteorologist Jason Parkin was let go as a result of the changes made; the show also retains the variety show feel ofGreat Day with some local segments by WOI's news team. The following week, on April 18, KCWI began airing a nightly half-hour 9 p.m. newscast also produced by WOI and also competes against the WHO-DT produced newscast on Fox affiliateKDSM-TV andKCCI's half-hour newscast that it airs on itsMeTV subchannel.
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23.1 | 720p | 16:9 | KCWI-HD | The CW |
| 23.2 | 480i | Quest | Quest | |
| 23.3 | OPEN | Blank | ||
| 23.4 | Quest | Quest | ||
| 23.5 | 4:3 | GetTV | Get | |
| 23.6 | 16:9 | ShopLC | Shop LC | |
| 5.5 | 720p | WOI-HD | ABC (WOI-DT) | |
| 5.10 | 480i | DABL | Dabl |
In February 2020, a fifth subchannel of KCWI-TV was launched as a UHF simulcast of WOI-DT in order to alleviate reception issues with WOI's channel 5VHF signal.
KCWI-TV shut down its analog signal, overUHF channel 23, on June 12, 2009, and "flash-cut" its digital signal into operation UHF channel 23.[17][18] Because it was granted an originalconstruction permit after theFederal Communications Commission finalized theDTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997, the station did not receive a companion channel for a digitaltelevision station. Due to this abnormality, the station's digital signal was carried as a subchannel of now former sister station KDMI.
Broadcast television stations by affiliation in the state ofIowa | ||
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| ABC | ||
| CBS | ||
| Fox | ||
| NBC | ||
| The CW | ||
| MyNetworkTV | ||
| Ion Television | ||
| Iowa PBS |
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| Other | ||
| Defunct |
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sorted by primary channel network affiliations | ||
| ABC |  | |
| CBS | ||
| The CW | ||
| Fox | ||
| MyNetworkTV | ||
| NBC | ||
| Other stations | ||
| Radio | ||
| TV networks | ||
| Defunct | ||
| Other asset |
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| Acquisitions | ||
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