April 2001

MINNESOTA:
Many Duluth stations were off the air Sunday night and Monday (4/22-4/23) due to power outages resulting from an ice storm. KDAL/610 and KUWS/91.3 were the only stations on the air for most of the day Monday. KUWS has a backup generator and is the only station in the market with studios in Superior. The storm is being compared to the 1991 ice storm that took down WDIO/10's tower. Another ice storm in 1999 did enough damage to KBJR/6's tower to have it condemned. There are no reports of any tower damage this time. More information is available from the Duluth News-Tribune. (4/24/01)

NATIONAL:
Viacom will be able to keep both CBS and UPN under a change in FCC rules announced Thursday (4/19). Viacom, which owns UPN, merged with the CBS Group. Because regulations previously did not allow one company to fully own two networks, the FCC had ordered Viacom to either sell UPN or take it off the air by next month. The FCC eliminated part of the dual network rule that prohibits mergers between a major network and an "emerging" networks (UPN and WB). Specifically, the change allows the owner of ABC, CBS, FOX, or NBC to own, operate, maintain, or control UPN or WB. (4/20/01)

IOWA:
KEMB/100.1 (Emmetsburg) has changed to KDWD. No word on whether the format (Contemporary Hits) has changed. (4/17/01)

MINNESOTA:
FOX29 has pushed back the scheduled start of FOX29 News @ Nine from April 16 to April 23. Back-to-back episodes of NewsRadio will air instead at 9 this week. One has to wonder if viewers who see "News" listed in the local TV Guide but find NewsRadio on TV will think they've been tricked by FOX29 again: in 1998, the station teased the addition of NewsRadio to the schedule by saying that a full hour of "news" was coming. (4/17/01)

MINNESOTA:
ESI Broadcasting, which had been managing UPN affiliate KDUL-LP/12 (Duluth), is no longer associated with the station. That means plans to rebroadcast KDUL on W25CA (Ashland) are scrapped, since ESI owns the Ashland station and Duluth TV Partners own KDUL. (4/17/01)

MINNESOTA:
The three Twin Cities-area stations making up V105 have changed call letters to reflect their change from Zone 105. KZNR/105.1 (Lakeville) is now WGVX, KZNT/105.3 (Cambridge) is now WGVY, and KZNZ/105.7 (Eden Prairie) is now WGVZ. However, I have not heard any call letters mentioned on the air despite frequent monitoring. (4/17/01)

SOUTH DAKOTA:
KGGK/98.3 (Wessington Springs-Mitchell) is expected to change to KUQL, reflecting the station's name, "Kool 98." (4/17/01, corrected 4/18)

MINNESOTA:
Granite Broadcasting, the parent company of KRII/11 (International Falls), has asked the FCC to move the station's community of license to Chisholm. KRII is not yet on the air and has never been built. The station proposes a transmitter site 45 miles south of the current permit. The new site would be at Meadow Brook Ridge, about 25 miles north of Chisholm, providing a city-grade signal to most of the Iron Range. The change would increase the U.S. population of KRII's coverage area from about 20,000 to about 125,000. The change would also require concurrence by the Canadian government because the new facility would be short-spaced with an unused allocation for a station on channel 12 in Lac La Croix, Ontario. In support of its proposal, KRII states that the change would reach more previously unserved people than the International Falls facility would, that the new facility would be a better use of allotments because it would serve a smaller portion of Canada, and that the proposed new facility would provide the Iron Range with a second TV service. (The Range is also served by WDIO/13 (Hibbing), which rebroadcasts ABC affiliate WDIO.) Granite Broadcasting also owns the market's NBC affiliate, KBJR, and KRII will likely rebroadcast KBJR. The complete text of the proposal can be found here. (4/11/01)

MINNESOTA:
FOX29 is listing Monday, April 16, as the first day of FOX29 News @ Nine. Other changes will take effect that day as well: Frasier will have a back-to-back showing at 10 and 10:30, the second showing of Third Rock from the Sun will be pushed back from 10 to 11 p.m., and NewsRadio will be seen solely at 6 p.m. NewsRadio recently replaced Seinfeld, which now airs on KMSP/9 at 6:30. (Seinfeld changed stations in many markets at the beginning of April.) (4/10/01)

MINNESOTA:
KSTP-TV/KSTC assignment editor Steve Smith is leaving to join KMSP as a reporter. (4/10/01)

MINNESOTA:
The situation with KBGY/107.5 (Faribault) is a little more involved than was reported here earlier. James Ingstad was originally granted the construction permit for the station but later sold his other stations in the area to Cumulus Media. KBGY, though, was excluded from the sale. Ingstad later filed to transfer KBGY to Milestone Radio, which was approved by the FCC. Cumulus objected, saying they had an earlier agreement with Ingstad giving them first right to purchase the station. In late February 2001, Ingstad filed another application to transfer KBGY's license, this time to Cumulus. Cumulus is apparently putting the station on the air, since the station's ID's include the company's standard line -- "a Cumulus station." KBGY has been running the same satellite-delivered format used by Cumulus' KRFO-FM/104.9 (Owatonna). That brings up the question of whether what's on the station now is the permanent format. Besides KBGY's strong signal in the Faribault/Owatonna area, KBGY has a fair signal into the southern suburbs of the Twin Cities, Mankato, Austin, and Rochester. The station reaches the entire Twin Cities metro, though the signal is poor in the central and northern parts of the metro. (4/6/01, revised 4/8/01)

MINNESOTA:
North Central Christian Broadcasting plans to move it's Bloomington translator, K220EG/91.9, to 91.5 as K218DK on Friday (4/7). K218DK will transmit with 99 Watts from the Southgate building at the junction of I-494 and Highway 100 -- four miles closer to Minneapolis. K220EG had upgraded last year to 250 Watts from its existing location near 35W's Minnesota River bridge, but the antenna's low height prevented the signal from getting out very well, and the higher power was causing interference problems in a nearby office. (The original purpose of the translator was to feed programming to WNCB's now-gone translator on the IDS building.) North Central intends to apply to upgrade K218DK to 250 Watts once the station's on the air. The translator is one of 17 that rebroadcasts WNCB/89.3 (Duluth), which airs a Christian Hits format. They've signed on translators in Spencer, IA, Hutchinson, MN, and Balaton-Marshall, MN in the past three months. Translators for Estherville, IA, Clara City, MN, Brookings, SD, and Milbank, SD are in the works. (4/6/01)

MINNESOTA:
After a year with a Hot Adult Contemporary format, WKLK-FM/96.5 (Cloquet) has now changed to Classic Rock. The station is still called "K96.5" and the positioners are "Legends Rock" and "Rock Classics." The new format is satellite-delivered, as was the last one. The Hot AC format competed for listeners in the Cloquet area with several Duluth stations, while the new format faces direct competition only from Duluth's KQDS/94.9. (4/5/01)

MINNESOTA:
Older news -- following Paul Bunyan Broadcasting's recent purchase of KLLZ/99.1 (Walker-Bemidji), the station has been moved in with KBUN/1450, KKZY/95.5, and KBHP/101.1. The format was adjusted from "Real Rock" to Classic Rock as "Z99." (4/3/01)

MINNESOTA/WISCONSIN:
Midwest Sports Channel, or MSC, officially changed to FOX Sports Minnesota/Wisconsin on April 3. The change follows the sale of the network from Viacom to News Corp. It began in the late 1980's as `CCO II and became MSC in 1989. (4/3/01)

MINNESOTA:
KZIO/104.3 (Two Harbors-Duluth) recently dropped its locally-automated Light Adult Contemporary format in favor of locally-automated Oldies. The station is repeated on translator K292EZ/106.3 (Duluth). (4/3/01)