Ask NorthPine: Why Aren’t There More TV Translators?

Question: I am planning antennas for our new house in the Brainerd/Aitkin area, and it looks like I can get all of the networks except for NBC. I’m surprised there’s no NBC signal I can even attempt to get. Do the networks just not concern themselves with rural coverage?

There used to be far more low-power transmitters, known as translators, relaying network affiliates to rural areas such as Aitkin and Brainerd.

The main reason interest in translators has waned is that broadcast TV viewership in rural areas is extremely low. With poor reception and few channels available, a huge number of rural TV households signed up for cable or satellite in the 80s and 90s. Even with all of the recent cord-cutting, a translator might literally only serve a few hundred homes that have antennas. That’s not enough of an economic incentive to justify the expense of building and maintaining a translator, because it will not result in any change in the revenue earned by the TV station.

The Duluth TV stations used to operate translators licensed to Aitkin. But once Aitkin County was moved from the Duluth market to the Minneapolis market due to changes in viewing patterns, there was no longer any incentive to continue maintaining the translators (since out-of-market viewers don’t count for ratings), and they were shut down.

Meanwhile, Brainerd did have NBC affiliate KARE via KLKS-LP/14 (Breezy Point) until the station shut down a decade ago.

Even given those shutdowns and others, Minnesota still has far more TV translators than any other part of the Upper Midwest.

There are basically three types of translators: those owned by community groups, those owned by local governments or cooperatives, and those owned by the stations themselves.

Many of the older translator systems were established by community non-profit groups that shut down when viewers stopped giving money. For example, Bemidji hasn’t had NBC over the air since Headwaters TV shut down decades ago. Walker, Alexandria, and Willmar are the few places in Minnesota where community groups still run translators.

There are also many government-run translator systems in northern Minnesota and several systems run by power cooperatives in the south.

As for station-owned translators, KMSP, KSAX, and KQDS-TV are the only Minnesota stations that still run their own translator networks, and Gray TV recently signed on some low-power stations acting as translators for its stations. Massive station-owned translator systems are more common in western states like Utah and Arizona.

I’m a big fan of broadcast TV, so it’s disappointing that the economics don’t work to keep translators on the air.

This is the first in a weekly series of Ask Northpine features. Please send your questions to [email protected]!