 | |
| |
|---|---|
| City | Hannibal, Missouri |
| Channels | |
| Branding |
|
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
|
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
|
| KTVO (joint news operation) | |
| History | |
First air date | September 23, 1953 (71 years ago) (1953-09-23) |
Former call signs | KHMO-TV (CP, 2/18/1953–4/23/1953)[4] |
Former channel number(s) |
|
Call sign meaning | Keokuk Hannibal Quincy Area |
| Technical information[5] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 4690 |
| ERP | 750 kW[1] |
| HAAT | 271 m (889 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 39°58′22″N91°19′55″W / 39.97278°N 91.33194°W /39.97278; -91.33194 |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | khqa |
KHQA-TV (channel 7) is atelevision station licensed toHannibal, Missouri, United States, serving theQuincy, Illinois–Hannibal, Missouri–Keokuk, Iowamarket as an affiliate ofCBS andABC. The station is owned by theSinclair Broadcast Group, and maintains studios on South 36th Street in Quincy; its transmitter is located northeast of the city on Cannonball Road nearI-172.
KHQA went on-the-air September 23, 1953. The station was originally owned byLee Enterprises ofDavenport, Iowa, along with theHannibal Courier-Post and WTAD radio (930 AM and 99.5 FM, nowWCOY). Despite the common ownership, Lee was unable to use the WTAD-TV calls becauseFederal Communications Commission (FCC) rules of the time did not allow stations to share common base callsigns if they were licensed in different cities. While licensed to Hannibal (hence accounting for the "H" in its callsign, as well as its callsign beginning with a "K"), its studios have long been located across theMississippi River in Quincy; the station signed on after the FCC allowed a station to base its main studio outside its city of license.
Channel 7 received itsDuMont transmitters on July 27, 1953. They arrived on the same truck as the transmitters for future rivalWGEM-TV (channel 10). The two stations' crews raced to be the first television station in the Tri-State.[6] Ultimately, WGEM-TV won the race, signing on September 4, more than two weeks before channel 7.
KHQA has always been a primary CBS affiliate, although it had a secondary affiliation withDuMont between 1953 and 1956. The station shared a secondary ABC affiliation with WGEM-TV in the 1960s. KHQA also aired a number ofUPN programs during late-night hours between 1995 and 2006.[7] Lee sold theCourier-Post in 1969, but held onto its Quincy broadcasting cluster until December 1986 when the company sold KHQA to A. Richard Benedek, whose television holdings eventually becameBenedek Broadcasting. The radio stations were sold to Eastern Broadcasting. Lee earned a handsome return on its purchase of WTAD radio in 1944. At the time of the sale, KHQA was the smallest station in Lee's TV portfolio.
Benedek declared bankruptcy and sold most of its stations toGray Television in 2002, but KHQA was sold to Chelsey Broadcasting; Gray would ultimately acquireQuincy Media, parent company ofWGEM AM–FM–TV, in 2021. KHQA,WHOI inPeoria, andWEYI-TV inSaginaw, Michigan, became the first three stations owned by the newly formedBarrington Broadcasting in April 2004. In early 1998, KHQA left its longtime home in the WesternCatholic Union building in downtown Quincy. The station moved into a new state-of-the-art facility located on South 36th Street. On August 28, 2007, KHQA announced that a new second digital subchannel would begin carrying ABC for the Tri-States, replacing sister stationKTVO (which had been ABC's affiliate of record in the Quincy market). This was launched on September 30.
On February 28, 2013, Barrington announced that it would exit from broadcasting and sell off its entire group, including KHQA-TV, toSinclair Broadcast Group.[8] The sale was completed on November 25.[9]
On February 26, 2020, it was revealed that KHQA would undergo the same transition as Sinclair sister stationsWNWO-TV inToledo, Ohio, andWOLF-TV inScranton, Pennsylvania, having their newscasts hubbed by another station. News management, production, and anchors would be moved toWICD inChampaign, Illinois. Weather and some reporters would be allowed to stay local, with an unspecified number of other employees allowed to move to Champaign. These changes went into effect later in the year.[10]
On November 7, 2024, it was announced that KTVO and KHQA would merge their news departments into a new operation calledTri-State Trusted, which would cover both theOttumwa–Kirksville and Quincy–Hannibal–Keokuk markets. Newscasts would originate from the KTVO studios but also feature local content produced by KHQA.[11] The new operation launched with the morning newscast on December 9.
On March 11, 2025, it was reported that Sinclair would sell five TV stations, including KHQA and KTVO, to Rincon Broadcasting, led by Todd Parkin.[3]
The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7.1 | 1080i | 16:9 | CBS | CBS |
| 7.2 | 720p | ABC | ABC | |
| 7.3 | 480i | Comet | Comet | |
| 7.4 | TBD | TBD |
Before KHQA-DT2 started, sister station KTVO in Kirksville, Missouri, had served as the default analog ABC affiliate for the area. KTVO launched a CBS-affiliated second digital subchannel on May 15, 2010, effectively marking the network's return to that station after a 36-year absence. KHQA-DT1 was eventually upgraded from720p into1080i.
KHQA-TV shut down its analog signal, overVHF channel 7, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United Statestransitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transitionUHF channel 29 to VHF channel 7.[13]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)| Broadcast TV stations |
|  | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Channels |
| |||||||||||||||||||||
| Programming | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Acquisitions | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||