In response to a recent post about the shape of states if determined by TV viewing patterns, a reader asks “I’m curious about that outlier county in the Nebraska Panhandle. How does an isolated county like that get attached to a state/market?”
The location in question is Morrill County, which is in the middle of the Nebraska Panhandle but has historically been part of the Rapid City, South Dakota, TV viewing area.
A half-dozen or so counties in the Panhandle were regarded as being part of the Rapid City market at one time or another, served by KOTA-TV (Rapid City) via satellite KDUH-TV/4 (Scottsbluff). It was a confusing situation, with Scottsbluff itself considered to be part of the Cheyenne market and served by a separate station (KSTF/10) relaying Cheyenne programming. Both stations offered their own local news inserts.
But times have changed. The former KDUH-TV is no longer a KOTA satellite, and viewership in most of the Panhandle has shifted to Denver stations via satellite and cable.
When I assembled the original map, I used information from the TVTV.us listing service that indicated that Morrill County was the only place left in Nebraska where Rapid City stations were still provided to satellite viewers. It turns out Morrill County may have been the last outpost of Rapid City TV in the Panhandle.
A check of DirecTV and DISH Network’s websites show both now offer Denver channels in Morrill County, just as they do in most of the Panhandle. Meanwhile, Allo Communications’ system in the county seat, Bridgeport, carries all of the Scottsbluff/Cheyenne stations along with several channels from Denver, but none from Rapid City.
The FCC’s “significantly viewed” list, developed back in the 1970s, lists KDUH and KSTF as the only stations having significant over-the-air viewership in Morrill County. However, with only a few stations receivable over the air, viewers must use cable, satellite, or streaming TV providers to receive full-network service, locking most of the region into the Denver market.
When Gray TV submitted an application with the FCC to buy KDUH in 2015, it said the conversion of the station to a semi-satellite of KNOP-TV (North Platte) would improve the availability of Nebraska news to orphan counties in the Panhandle that are in the Denver market. KNEP now offers several Panhandle-focused newscasts but the entire region remains in out-of-state TV markets.