WKOW
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|---|---|
| Channels | |
| Branding | WKOW 27 (call letters are pronounced individually);27 News |
| Programming | |
| Affiliations |
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| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| Cable:Bally Sports Wisconsin,Bally Sports North | |
| History | |
First air date | June 30, 1953 |
Former call signs | WKOW-TV (1953–2009) |
Former channel number(s) | Analog:27 (UHF, 1953–2009) |
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Call signmeaning | "cow"(forWisconsin's dairy industry) |
| Technical information[2] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 64545 |
| ERP | 800kW |
| HAAT | 455 m (1,493 ft) |
| Transmitter coordinates | 43°3′21″N89°32′6″W/ 43.05583°N 89.53500°W |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Website | wkow |
WKOW(channel 27) is atelevision stationinMadison, Wisconsin,United States, affiliated withABCand owned byAllen Media Group.The station's studios are located on Tokay Boulevard on Madison's west side, and its transmitter is located on South Pleasant View Road in the city's Junction Ridge neighborhood.
History
[edit]
WKOW-TV (the suffix was dropped from thecall signin 2009) was launched on June 30, 1953, as Madison's first television station.[3]The station was originally aligned withCBSand owned by the Monona Broadcasting Company, led by a group of local area businessmen along with WKOW radio (AM 1070, nowWTSO). The WKOW call sign was an acknowledgment to Wisconsin's dairy industry, and featured a smilingbovine(or cow) alongside the emphasized "K-O-W" of thecall sign.WKOW-AM-TV shared studios on Tokay Boulevard on Madison's west side beginning in 1953.
WKOW-TV remained with CBS until 1956, when CBS moved to the newWISC-TV.WKOW-TV subsequently joined ABC (who had been withWMTVon a secondary basis), while WKOW radio remained withCBS Radio.From January to August 1958, WKOW was part of the short-lived, Wisconsin-orientedBadger Television Network,alongsideMilwaukee'sWISN-TVandGreen Bay'sWFRV-TV.[4]In 1960, Monona Broadcasting sold the station to Midcontinent Broadcasting. Midcontinent Broadcasting sold both WKOW andWAOWinWausauto Horizon Communications in September 1970.
In 1974, Terry Shockley became manager of WKOW and its fellow sister stations that were part of the Wisconsin Television Network (which included WAOW in Wausau andWXOWinLa Crosse). Horizon sold its stations, along with WKOW to Liberty Communications in 1978. Also during the 1970s, Horizon sold the radio stations in accordance with theFCC's "one tomarket"policy of that era. Despite the separate ownership, the renamed WTSO would remain at Tokay Boulevard alongside WKOW-TV through the 1980s and 1990s until becoming part of theClear Channel Communicationscluster, where it is today an all-sports station. (For a time in the 2000s, WKOW-TV supplied weather updates to the Clear Channel stations. As of October 2010, however, the station is no longer involved with WTSO or other Madison Clear Channel stations in any way.)
In January 1985, Liberty Television sold WKOW and its Wausau and La Crosse sister stations to Tak Communications, which would later purchaseKITVinHonolulu, Hawaii,andWGRZ-TVinBuffalo, New York.Tak filed forChapter 11 bankruptcyprotection in the latter half of 1991 and went into receivership when the company's creditors seized its assets in early 1994. As part of Tak Communications' bankruptcy sale, Shockley purchased the four Wisconsin stations in 1995 (WKOW, WAOW, WXOW, andEau Claire'sWQOW) for his newly formed company, Shockley Communications. In June 2001, WKOW and its Wisconsin sister stations were acquired byQuincy Newspapersfrom Shockley.
On January 7, 2021, Quincy Media announced that it had put itself up for sale.[5]On February 1,Gray Televisionannounced it would purchase Quincy's radio and TV properties for $925 million. As Gray already owns WMTV in the Madison market, and both that station and WKOW rank among the market's top four stations, it agreed that WKOW would be divested in order to satisfy FCC requirements.[6]On April 29, Gray announced that WKOW would be divested to Allen Media Broadcasting. The $380 million deal includes WAOW, WXOW, WQOW,WREXin neighboringRockford, Illinois,and other Quincy-owned stations where overlaps with Gray occur.[7]The sale was officially completed on August 2, 2021.[1]
Digital television
[edit]
WKOW has been a pioneer of sorts in the world ofdigital terrestrial television.When the station launched high-definition broadcasts on October 29, 1998 (on digital channel 26), it became at the time the smallest United States television station to launch digital HD broadcasts. WKOW is still regularly used for digital television experiments, including an October 2014 test involving one of the competitors for theATSC 3.0standard in4K resolution,backed byLGandZenith.[8]
In the late 2000s, WKOW would launch twodigital subchannelsalongside primary channel 27.1. Subchannel 27.2 was originally affiliated with theRetro Television Network,which was replaced on July 1, 2011, by the similarly-formattedMeTV.Subchannel 27.3 launched in March 2009 with the movie networkThis TV,which was replaced on September 2, 2015, at 12 noon by MeTV's sister network,Decades.
A caveat in Gray Television's purchase of Quincy Media's stations in 2021 involved WKOW's subchannels: In requiring that Gray spinoff WKOW and other stations to Allen Media Broadcasting, theU.S. Department of Justicedeemed as an "excluded asset" the MeTV affiliation that WKOW had carried, meaning that Gray taking over the MeTV affiliation in Madison — as well as MeTV and The CW affiliations in Eau Claire, La Crosse, Wausau — would not adversely affect Allen Media's operations as "viable, independent competitors" in those markets.[9]As a result on August 2, 2021, when Gray's purchase of Quincy Media and Allen Media's purchase of WKOW became final, the MeTV affiliation moved to a subchannel of Gray-owned WMTV.[10]
To fill the void left by MeTV's departure, Decades would be temporarily simulcast on subchannels 27.2 and 27.3 for two weeks until August 19, 2021, when This TV returned to 27.3; the move reunited WKOW with This TV, which Allen Media purchased in late 2020.
Programming
[edit]Sports programming
[edit]WKOW serves as the originating station for broadcasts ofWisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association(WIAA) championship events. WKOW, its Allen Media-owned sister stations in Central and Western Wisconsin, and affiliates in the Milwaukee and Green Bay markets air WIAA boys' and girls'hockeyandbasketballstate championships each March. (The hockey and boys' basketball tournaments are staged in Madison, the girls' basketball tournament in Green Bay.) WKOW is also an affiliate of theGreen Bay Packerstelevision network along with its AMG sisters, carrying the team's preseason games and in-season programming. By coincidence as part of AMG's investment inDiamond Sports Group,WKOW is now a half-sister operation ofBally Sports Wisconsin.In 2023, WKOW and its sisters and other affiliates began to also carry the WIAA football championships atCamp Randall Stadium,returning the games to the station for the first time since the mid 1990s.
Subchannel 27.2 has cleared any ABC programming that may be preempted on 27.1 for local sports and breaking news coverage (e.g.coverage of the WIAA state hockey and basketball tournaments carried each March on 27.1).
Until the 2023 (when the rights toBig Ten Conferencesports departed ABC and ESPN), WKOW carriedWisconsin Badgerssports originated at the network level.
News operation
[edit]WKOW presently broadcasts24+1⁄2hours of local newscasts each week (with4+1⁄2hours each weekday and two hours each on Saturdays and Sundays).
WKOW debuted a news department on the first day of its broadcasting in summer 1953. Local news, weather, and sports were seen in the initial shows. From 1999 to 2011, the station produced, through a news share agreement, the market's first nightly prime time newscast onSinclair-ownedFoxaffiliateWMSN-TV(Fox 47 News at 9); the newscast originated from a secondary studio at WKOW, and although it featured WKOW personnel in the broadcasts, WMSN maintained separate weeknight news and sports anchors, as well as using theme music and graphics packages that are found on other Sinclair stations and that are different from that on WKOW's newscasts. (WISC-TVsubchannelTVWhad aired a prime-time newscast from 2004 to 2011; a third station,WBUW,had its own 9 p.m. newscast from 2003 until 2005.) WISC-TV took over the production of the WMSN newscast at the beginning of 2012.
On October 26, 2010, WKOW became the third station in Madison to upgrade newscasts to high definition, following WISC-TV and WMTV. The WMSN broadcasts, however, were still in 4:3 standard definition, as the station did not have the necessary equipment to air local or syndicated HD programming.
Technical information
[edit]Subchannels
[edit]The station's signal ismultiplexed:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27.1 | 720p | 16:9 | WKOWABC | ABC |
| 27.2 | CATCHY | Catchy Comedy | ||
| 27.3 | 480i | MeTOONS | MeTV Toons | |
| 27.4 | 720p | CourtTV | Court TV | |
| 27.5 | 480i | CRIME | True Crime Network | |
| 27.6 | thegrio | TheGrio |
Analog-to-digital conversion
[edit]WKOW shut down its analog signal, overUHFchannel 27, at 1 p.m. on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were totransition from analog to digital broadcastsunder federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 26,[12][13]usingvirtual channel27.
WKOW serves as themaster hubfor Allen Media Group's five-station network of ABC affiliates throughout western and northern Wisconsin.
References
[edit]- ^ab"Gray Closes Quincy Buy, Spinoffs To Allen Media,"fromTVNewsCheck,February 8, 2021
- ^"Facility Technical Data for WKOW".Licensing and Management System.Federal Communications Commission.
- ^"WKOW-TV: June 30, 1953".WisconsinBroadcastingMuseum.
- ^Golembiewski, Dick (2008).Milwaukee Television History: The Analog Years.Marquette University Press. pp.213–270.ISBN978-0-87462-055-9.
- ^"TV Station Owner Quincy Media Up for Sale,"from Northpine, July 1, 2021
- ^Goldsmith, Jill (February 1, 2021)."Gray Television Acquires Quincy Media For $925 Million In Cash".Deadline Hollywood.Penske Media Corporation.RetrievedFebruary 1,2021.
- ^"Gray Sells Divestiture Stations From Quincy Media Transaction to Allen Media for $380 Million,"press release from GlobeNewswire, April 29, 2021
- ^Winslow, George (October 22, 2014)."Futurecast Broadcast System Tested at WKOW".Broadcasting and Cable.RetrievedOctober 22,2014.
- ^"COMPETITIVE IMPACT STATEMENT Case 1:21-cv-02041,"from the United States Department of Justice (filed July 27, 2021, Retrieved February 8, 2021)
- ^"Gray Takes Over CW, MeTV Affiliations in Several Markets,"fromNorthpine,February 8, 2021
- ^RabbitEars TV Query for WKOW
- ^"DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds"(PDF).RetrievedMarch 24,2012.
- ^"WKOW-TV ends its analog signal, becomes WKOW-DT",from wkowtv, February 17, 2009. The link includes a 4-minute video of its analog shutdown.