KCRG-TV
 
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Cedar Rapids-Waterloo- Iowa City-Dubuque, Iowa United States |
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| City | Cedar Rapids, IA |
| Branding | KCRG-TV 9 (general) KCRG-TV 9 News (newscasts) |
| Slogan | Your 24-Hour News (and Weather) Source |
| Channels | Digital: 9 (VHF) |
| Subchannels | 9.1 ABC 9.2 MNTV 9.3 Antenna TV |
| Owner |
Gray Television (Gray Television Licensee, LLC) |
| First air date | October 15, 1953 |
| Call letters' meaning |
K-Cedar Rapids Gazette (former sister newspaper) |
| Sister station(s) |
Quad Cities: KWQC-TV Madison: WMTV La Crosse/Eau Claire: WEAU |
| Former callsigns | KCRI-TV (analog, 1953–1954) KCRG-TV (analog, 1954–2009) KCRG-DT (digital, 2003–2016) |
| Former channel number(s) | 9 (VHF analog, 1953–2009) 52 (UHF digital, 2003–2009) |
| Transmitter power | 18 kW |
| Height | 607 m |
| Facility ID | 9719 |
| Transmitter coordinates | 42°18′58.4″N 91°51′31.1″W / 42.316222°N 91.858639°W |
| Licensing authority | FCC |
| Public license information: |
Profile CDBS |
| Website | www.kcrg.com/ |
KCRG-TV, channel 9, is a television station, operating as an ABC network affiliate for the Cedar Rapids, Iowa metropolitan area and the nearby cities of Waterloo, Dubuque, and Iowa City. The station is owned by Gray Television.
The station broadcasts on VHF digital channel 9 and is the primary ABC broadcaster for the northeast quarter of Iowa.
During the late 1940s, the Cedar Rapids Gazette, then-owners of KCRG-AM 1600, filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission for a TV station license. At the time, the FCC had a backlog of over 200 applications and had decided not to proceed with action on further applications until the backlogged requests could be filled.
After the backlog was cleared, many applications were filed for licenses. The Gazette Company didn't want to compete for a license and decided to withdraw the initial application. Instead, it joined with a number of other investors as Cedar Rapids Television Company (CRTV), which was granted a license for channel 9. The station began broadcasting October 15, 1953.
Initially, the station was known as KCRI because the other investors didn't want the new television station so closely identified with the Gazette newspaper. The radio station also took the KCRI call sign because one of the television station's managers suggested that every mention of "KCRG" on-air was a promotion for the newspaper—one for which the Gazette would have to pay each time. After about a year of operation, the Gazette bought out its partners in CRTV and the station was renamed KCRG-TV in 1954.
From 1954 to 2015, the station remained under the ownership of Gazette Communications, which was renamed the SourceMedia Group in mid-2010. After the 1996 sale of WHO-TV in Des Moines, KCRG-TV was the only locally owned and operated television station left in Iowa. KCRG started broadcasting in high definition television in January 2003. The station also had the first news helicopter in Iowa, "NewsCopter 9". In September 2015, Atlanta, Georgia based Gray Television and Gazette Communications announced they had an agreement where Gray Television would buy KCRG-TV for $100 million, with the transfer taking place on October 1. The sale was completed on November 1. KCRG became a sister to KWQC-TV in nearby Davenport after Gray purchased the NBC affiliate as a condition of its owner, Media General, merging with Nexstar Broadcasting Group (now Nexstar Media Group), parent of rival WHBF-TV.
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Wikipedia