WQAD DT3

History

Northwest Television, the original owner of Galesburg licensed WMWC-TV, had applied for a license to broadcast a digital signal on channel 53 and had planned to sign on September 1, 2001 as the UPN affiliate for the Quad Cities television market, with operations for the proposed station to be handled by Second Generation of Iowa, owner of KFXA in Cedar Rapids. However, the application for the new station was challenged by Grant Broadcasting System II, then-owner of KLJB-TV and KGWB-TV. In May 2002 after receiving permission to begin broadcasting an analog signal on UHF channel 26, the predecessor of this digital subchannel station began transmitter tests and on June 1, signed-on as WBQD-LP with the UPN network affiliation that was originally to have gone to WMWC. The owner of the low-power television station was Four Seasons Broadcasting; a partnership between Malibu Broadcasting in Cleveland, Ohio and Venture Technologies Group, LLC in Los Angeles, California. In November 2004, it was announced that WBQD would enter into a joint sales agreement with WQAD. On September 5, 2006, WBQD became a MyNetworkTV affiliate. It adopted the nickname "My TV 16" in reference to its channel number on Mediacom. WBQD's over-the-air signal did not reach the entire market due to its low-power status, but most viewers watched WBQD via its simulcast on this station, WQAD's third digital subchannel, which covers the entire market.

WBQD had a construction permit for a low-power digital transmitter on VHF channel 7 with the calls WBQD-LD. However on June 30, 2009, Four Seasons Broadcasting, the owner of the station, filed for digital displacement relief and requested to move its digital channel assignment to UHF channel 14 instead. After an engineering study, it was determined that even as a low-power digital station, WBQD would cause and/or receive more than acceptable interference to and from KWWL in Waterloo, Iowa and KHQA-TV in Hannibal, Missouri, both of which are full power digital television stations that broadcast on channel 7 and had "flash-cut" to their former analog channels after the digital transition.

While transmitting an analog signal, Four Seasons Broadcasting initially operated WBQD outright from 2002 to 2004. However, they had WBQD operated through a local marketing agreement (LMA) by WQAD's former owners, The New York Times Company from 2004 to 2007, and by Local TV LLC from 2007 to 2011. This made it a sister outlet to WQAD and the two outlets shared studios on Park 16th Street, in the Prospect Park section of Moline. However, some internal operations of WBQD (such as the maintenance of program logs) were actually based at the shared facilities of co-owned MyNetworkTV affiliate WAOE as well as ABC/CW affiliate WHOI and NBC affiliate WEEK-TV in East Peoria, Illinois. WBQD's analog signal aired from a transmitter on 70th Street, next to Black Hawk College, near the Poplar Grove section of Moline, Illinois.

On December 9, 2011, WBQD-LP notified the FCC that they went silent after losing their tower lease on the Black Hawk College campus in Moline. This occurred more than a year after Black Hawk College sold public broadcasting station WQPT-TV to Western Illinois University-Quad Cities though there is no indication of any connection to this. However, on June 6, 2013, the FCC cancelled the license of WBQD-LP, after being off the air for over a year. After WBQD went silent in December 2011, this station, WQAD-DT3, which had for years been simulcasting WBQD's programming and MyNetworkTV affiliation in 480i 4:3 standard definition, began operating the Quad Cities' MyNetworkTV affiliation outright, rebranding it as "My TV 8.3" in reference to the station's virtual channel location. As WQAD-DT3 is continuing to broadcast WBQD's MyNetworkTV and syndicated programming, and cable providers used 8.3 as their signal source for the station for years, the low-powered license for WBQD-LP was practically all but redundant. On October 9, 2012, the cable channel assignment for WQAD-DT3 on Mediacom moved from channel 16 to channel 3.

WMWC-TV was eventually granted its construction permit on July 20, 2007, and it finally signed on in August 2012 as a religious station affiliated with TBN. WMWC is broadcast in digital on VHF channel 8 (WQAD's former analog allocation) but through the use of PSIP remaps to virtual channel 53 as that was WMWC's pre-transition digital-only allocation. As of December 2012, WMWC is now owned and operated by the TBN network.

On July 1, 2013, Local TV LLC announced that all of their stations, including WQAD, would be acquired by the Tribune Company. On April 22, 2014, WQAD-DT3 began broadcasting in high definition, utilizing MyNetworkTV's standard 720p format.

In early March 2015, it was announced that WQAD-DT3 would broadcast 45 Chicago Cubs games and 55 Chicago White Sox games to Quad City area baseball fans during the 2015 Major League Baseball Season. This was due to the baseball games no longer being available on a national basis to cable and satellite viewers via WGN America. The origination of the baseball broadcasts was split between Chicago's WGN-TV (which is a direct sister station to WQAD under Tribune ownership) and ABC O&O station WLS-TV. During the latter part of March 2015, it was revealed that the Quad Cities' CW affiliate KGCW would air the 24 remaining Cubs games not broadcast by WQAD-DT3. The broadcasts originating from WGN-TV were aired on WQAD-DT3 while the games broadcast by WLS-TV were aired on KGCW.

On October 4, 2015, WQAD-DT3 announced the expansion of their sports programming into the winter months which included televised broadcasts of the Chicago Bulls during the 2015–16 NBA Season and the Chicago Blackhawks during the 2015–16 NHL Season. 37 out of 46 telecasts (combining both teams) were aired on WQAD-DT3 with eight of the remaining nine telecasts airing on parent station WQAD-TV and one telecast airing on WQAD-DT2. As with the Cubs and White Sox baseball broadcasts, the originating station of the Bulls and Blackhawks telecasts was WGN-TV. Prior to the Fall of 2015, telecasts of both the Bulls and Blackhawks were aired nationally on WGN America prior to that station cancelling all of its sports telecasts.

Programming

Syndicated programming on WQAD-DT3 includes What Went Down, Dr. Phil, Just for Laughs, Tosh.0, The Jerry Springer Show, The Steve Wilkos Show, Judge Faith, Judge Judy, Celebrity Name Game, Bridezillas, Cougar Town, Raising Hope, The King of Queens, Rules of Engagement, Cops Reloaded, Right This Minute, Sport Science, The Tim McCarver Show, The Walking Dead, Elementary, Person of Interest, Corrupt Crimes, Cheaters, Haven, Sanctuary, Rizzoli & Isles, Extra, Access Hollywood, On the Money, Real Green, Ron Hazelton's HouseCalls, Hometime, Designing Spaces, and Branson Country USA.

Also, as required per the Children's Television Act of 1990, WQAD-DT3 airs three or more hours of Educational and Informational programming on Sunday mornings, including Into the Outdoors, Live Life and Win, Biz Kid$, DragonflyTV, Missing, Wild America, and Pets.TV.

As of the 2014–2015 TV season, WQAD-DT3 broadcasts Midnite Mausoleum, a locally produced horror host program featuring horror films. The hosts of the show are Marlena Midnite and Robyn Graves. Midnite Mausoleum airs every Friday and Saturday evening at 10:30 pm.

WQAD-DT3 is affiliated with the Raycom Sports-operated ACC Network and airs live broadcasts of college football and college basketball events from the Atlantic Coast Conference.

On December 27, 2015, WQAD-TV news anchor and reporter Angie Sharp revealed the addition of a new live half-hour 9 pm newscast to WQAD-DT3 beginning on January 4, 2016. The new 9pm newscast will directly compete against the 9 pm hour-long newscast on local Fox affiliate KLJB, which is owned by Marshall Broadcasting and operated through a SSA by Nexstar Media Group (owners of local CBS affiliate WHBF-TV which now produces the KLJB newscasts). Previously, WQAD-DT3 had aired rebroadcasts from WQAD's 5 pm and 6 pm newscasts during the 9 pm time slot.

As of the 2016 Major League Baseball Season, WQAD-DT3 once again airs telecasts of Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox games originating from WGN-TV.

During overnight hours, the station airs paid programming from Corner Store TV. However, as of the 2014–2015 television season, there were more hours of regular programming overnight which included the syndicated programming lineup of WQAD-DT3 and fewer hours of infomercials. As of the 2015–2016 television season, WQAD-DT3 airs infomercials on weekends only, as the weekday schedule includes all regular syndicated programming in addition to the MyNetworkTV schedule.