More than five years after the former KCCO-TV/7 (Alexandria) left the air, a new TV station is now using channel 7 in central Minnesota.
Radiant Life Ministries, a sister organization to Tri-State Christian Television (TCT), has filed a license to cover application with the FCC stating that new station KONC/7 has been constructed as authorized. Though licensed to Alexandria, the new station actually transmits from the KCLD(FM) tower near St. Cloud.
It’s not immediately clear if the new station is on the air permanently. Letters submitted as part of its Aug. 24 application indicate the station planned to begin full-power broadcasts on or about Aug. 16. The station was required to notify area hospitals about its sign-on due to potential interference to biomedical telemetry devices that operate in the television broadcast band.
The 140kW station’s rooftop antenna coverage area stretches from Alexandria and Willmar to Lake Mille Lacs and the northwestern suburbs of the Twin Cities. Coverage is more limited with indoor antennas.
The station’s filing indicates that KONC’s programming originates at TCT headquarters in Marion, Ill. Regionally, TCT also owns stations in Duluth, Sioux Falls, Des Moines, and Iowa City.
As a full-power license, KONC will eventually be able to exert “must-carry” status to be added to cable and satellite providers across the Minneapolis TV market.
Channel 7 was previously used by KCMT-TV and KCCO-TV from 1958 to 2017. As a result of the FCC’s 2017 spectrum auction, KCCO-TV owner CBS received $9,987,598 to take KCCO off the air.
In 2022, with channel 7 not having been reallocated to any other station during the spectrum repack, Radiant Life Ministries won the channel 7 license with a $4,955,000 bid in an FCC auction.