Spectrum Cable has dropped several out-of-market Iowa stations from a system in southwestern Wisconsin’s Grant County.
The channels dropped are CBS affiliate KGAN (Cedar Rapids), NBC affiliate KWWL (Waterloo), and Iowa PBS. which had been carried on channels 12, 13, and 15, respectively. (The Cedar Rapids ABC and FOX affiliates already were not carried.)
The change happened “on or after” Aug. 3, according to a notice posted on Spectrum’s website. Affected communities include Bloomington, Cassville, Dickeyville, Lancaster, and Patch Grove.
The area is in Grant County, which is near Dubuque, Iowa, but is in the Madison market. Cedar Rapids-Waterloo stations provide over-the-air coverage to the western part of the county.
Carriage of out-of-market channels was common in the early days of cable TV but has become more and more rare due to tighter federal regulations and higher demands for channel capacity. Much of the out-of-market carriage that remains is of in-state TV signals in communities served by out-of-state markets.