Broadcast History: Timeline of Early TV in Iowa

Did you know that Cedar Rapids’ first taste of TV actually came from the Quad Cities? How about the fact that central Iowa had only one station for the first several years of TV? Or that Fort Dodge once had its own station?

Here’s a timeline of the first two decades of TV history in Iowa:

Cedar Rapids/Waterloo
2 WMT-TV (CBS) from 9/30/1953
9 KCRI-TV (ABC) from 10/15/1953
7 KWWL-TV (NBC) from 11/29/1953
9 KCRG-TV (ABC) from 1954

Des Moines/Ames
4 WOI-TV (CBS/NBC/ABC) from 2/21/1950
5 WOI-TV (CBS/NBC/ABC) from 1952
17 KGTV (ABC/CBS) in 1953 only
13 WHO-TV (NBC) from 4/15/1954
5 WOI-TV (CBS/ABC) from 4/15/1954
8 KRNT-TV (CBS) from 7/31/1955
5 WOI-TV (ABC) from 7/31/1955
11 KDPS-TV (NET) from 1959
11 KDIN (NET) from 1969

Fort Dodge
21 KQTV (NBC) from 1953
21 KVFD-TV (NBC) from 1966

Ottumwa/Kirksville (MO)
3 KTVO (CBS/NBC/ABC) from 11/21/1955
3 KTVO (ABC/CBS/NBC) from 1968

Quad Cities
5 WOC-TV (NBC/CBS/ABC) from 10/31/1949
4 WHBF-TV (CBS/ABC) from 7/1/1950
5 WOC-TV (NBC/ABC) from 7/1/1950
6 WOC-TV (NBC/ABC) from 1952
8 WQAD (ABC) from 8/1/1963
4 WHBF-TV (CBS) from 8/1/1963
6 WOC-TV (NBC) from 8/1/1963

Quincy (MO)/Hannibal (IL)
10 WGEM-TV (NBC/ABC) from 7/15/1953
7 KHQA (CBS) from 9/23/1953
7 KHQA (CBS/ABC) in the 1960’s
14 WJJY (ABC) from 8/18/1969 (went off the air in 1971)
10 WGEM-TV (NBC) from 8/18/1969

Sioux City
9 KVTV (CBS/NBC/ABC) from 3/9/1953
4 KTIV (NBC/ABC) from 10/10/1954
9 KVTV (CBS/ABC) from 10/10/1954
9 KCAU (ABC) from 9/2/1967
4 KTIV (NBC) from 9/2/1967
14 KMEG (CBS) from 9/5/1967

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Cedar Rapids’ first TV experience actually came from two Quad Cities stations, since WHBF-TV and WOC-TV were easily receivable with rooftop antennas for several years before Cedar Rapids’ local stations began. The two Quad Cities stations were still receivable in Cedar Rapids until the end of analog TV in 2009.

Cedar Rapids got TV of its own in 1953, when three stations signed on within two months: CBS affiliate WMT-TV/2, ABC affiliate KCRI-TV/9 (later KCRG-TV), and Waterloo NBC affiliate KWWL-TV/7. Both Cedar Rapids-licensed stations first transmitted from the immediate vicinity of the city but later moved to towers midway between Cedar Rapids and Waterloo.

Elsewhere, Iowa State University’s WOI-TV had a monopoly on TV in central Iowa in the early 1950s due to an FCC freeze on new TV stations. It carried all of the networks until new competitors signed on in the mid-50s.

And KVFD-TV operated in Fort Dodge from 1953 to 1977, competing with Des Moines TV stations in the north-central part of the state. In 1977 it sold its channel 21 facility to the Iowa Public Broadcasting Network and briefly moved KVFD to channel 50 before going off the air permanently later that year.

LINK: World Radio History’s collection of Broadcasting Yearbooks