City Waterloo Slogan Dare To Defy | Branding CW 7.2 Affiliations The CW (2016–present) | |
Channels Digital: KWWL-DT 7.2 (VHF)
Virtual: 7.2 (PSIP) Owner Quincy Media
(KWWL License, LLC) | ||
KWWL-DT2 is the new CW affiliated television station for the northeastern third of Iowa that is licensed to Waterloo. It is a second digital subchannel of NBC outlet KWWL that is owned and operated by Quincy Media. Over-the-air, the station broadcasts a 720p high definition digital signal on VHF channel 7.2 (or virtual channel 7.2 via PSIP) from a transmitter at the AFLAC Tower north of Rowley, a city in Buchanan County. Unlike fellow CW affiliates in smaller markets, including sister stations WGEM-DT2 in Quincy, Illinois and WEEK-DT3 in Peoria, Illinois, KWWL-DT2 is not a member of The CW Plus.
History
KWWL-DT2 began operations in November 2004 as an affiliate of NBC Weather Plus, airing national weather forecasts from the service as well as inserts of local weather forecasts from the KWWL weather center. However, on October 7, 2008, NBC Universal announced that they would shut down the NBC Weather Plus service by December 31, 2008, concurrently, in January 2009, that subchannel began airing RTV programming.
On February 17, 2009, as part of the digital television transition in the United States, KWWL shut down its analog signal on VHF channel 7 and relocated its digital signal from UHF channel 55 which was among the high band UHF channels (52-69) that were removed from broadcasting use as a result of the transition, to its analog-era VHF channel 7. As a result, KWWL-DT2 was naturally moved from UHF channel 55.2 to VHF channel 7.2. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers have always displayed 7.2 as the virtual channel for KWWL-DT2.
In late-April 2011, KWWL-DT2 dropped RTV and became affiliated with This TV, a digital broadcast television network which places a large programming emphasis on films obtained from the MGM library and also airs classic television programming.
In April 2016, KWWL announced that they would add programming from The CW on KWWL-DT2 beginning on September 12, 2016. At the same time, KWWL-DT2 ended its 5 year affiliation with This TV. This resulted in an affiliation swap between KWWL-DT2 and Iowa City based KWKB (channel 20), the Cedar Rapids market's former CW affiliate, which then became the This TV affiliate for the Cedar Rapids market.