KGAN

'KGAN' is a television station based out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It transmits on VHF channel 2. KGAN is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, and is a CBS affiliate. KGAN is the primary CBS affiliate for northeast Iowa, including Iowa City, Waterloo, and Dubuque.

Contents

History

Personalities and programming

References

External links

History

On September 30, 1953, 'WMT-TV' began broadcasting. General manager William B. Quarton made some remarks, which were then followed by a broadcast of a World Series game between the Yankees and Dodgers.
The station was authorized to transmit at 100,000 watts, and WMT became the very first station to transmit at full power. The station was licensed to serve the Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, and Dubuque areas, making it the first station to be given split-market status by the Federal Communications Commission. Initially the station was owned by a group consisting of American Broadcasting Stations, Quarton, and several others. WMT-TV was a sister station of WMT-AM 600, which had been broadcasting in the area since 1922. The call sign stood for the '''W'aterloo 'M'orning 'T'ribune'', which owned WMT radio from 1928 until 1934.
The station was based at what came to be known as Broadcast Park. When the KGAN facilities were first built, the surrounding area was still mainly rural. A 702 foot high broadcast tower was built to transmit the signal. This tower served as the primary tower for the next four years. In 1956 a taller tower near Walker, Iowa, was built to transmit the signal, but a storm on December 10 blew the tower down. The tower was soon rebuilt, and remains in service today.
In 1968, WMT-AM-FM-TV was sold to what would become Orion Broadcasting of Louisville, Kentucky. They would remain under Orion's ownership until 1981, when Orion merged with Cosmos Broadcasting, a subsidiary of insurance and broadcasting conglomerate Liberty Corporation. However, the two companies owned more TV stations than the FCC allowed at the time. As a condition of the sale, Cosmos had to sell WMT-TV, and found a buyer in Guy Gannett Publishing of Portland, Maine. On October 16, 1981 WMT-TV changed its callsign to 'KGAN-TV'. The station was purchased by Sinclair, along with most of Gannett's broadcasting holdings, in 1999. Sinclair then announced the sale of KGAN, along with WICS in Springfield, Illinois and WICD in Champaign, Illinois, to Sunrise Television that same year. However, the FCC did not allow Sunrise to buy WICS/WICD due to Sunrise's ownership structure. Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst (HMTF), an investment firm controlled by Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars owner Tom Hicks, owned a large block of Sunrise stock. HMTF is majority stockholder of LIN TV, then-owner of WAND in Decatur. The FCC ruled that HMTF held enough stock in Sunrise that an acquisition of WICS/WICD would have resulted in a duopoly between two of the four highest-rated stations in the Central Illinois market--something which is forbidden by FCC rules. And because KGAN was part of the package deal, it would not have been sold to Sunrise alone, without the inclusion of WICS/WICD. As such, Sinclair retained ownership of all three stations.
The weather department at WMT-TV was highly revered by eastern Iowans for many decades under the direction of Conrad Johnson in the 1960's and 1970's. Shortly after his retirement, longtime meteorologist Dave Towne continued that tradition for another decade. Dave was joined briefly by Andre Bernier (weekday morning and noon weather) in 1981. Andre left KGAN-TV in March 1982 when he became part of the launch team for The Weather Channel. Dave Towne took a sabbatical from television to pursue other interests and returned briefly to KGAN on weekends, but has now retired from Cedar Rapids television altogether.
The station has won two George Foster Peabody awards. The first Peabody Award was awarded in 1956 for the station's role in developing "The Secret of Flight" television programs. These programs were made with the assistance of Dr. Alexander Lippisch, who was the director of the Collins Aeronautical Research Laboratory. The programs focused on aeronautical education. Later, in 1994, KGAN won another Peabody award. This Peabody was awarded for the work investigative reporter Sandy Riesgraf performed in helping to expose a sewer solvent scandal.
KGAN began producing ''FOX 17 News at Nine'' (now known as ''FOX News at Nine'') in 2001, for their Sinclair Broadcast Group sister station, KDSM, in Des Moines. In 2002, Cedar Rapids FOX affiliate, KFXA began simulcasting the newscast to its Eastern Iowa viewers.
On January 5, 2007, KGAN was pulled from Mediacom systems as part of an ongoing retransmission dispute between Mediacom and Sinclair. The move threatened to leave many eastern Iowa cable viewers without coverage of Super Bowl XLI, even though some viewers in KGAN's viewing area were served by other CBS affiliates such as WHBF-TV in the Quad Cities, which was added to Mediacom's lineup in Iowa City shortly before the impasse.^[1] The dispute ended on February 2, when the two sides reached an agreement that restored KGAN to Mediacom systems.^[2]
KGAN has frequently pre-empted shows from CBS, like in the past, CBS Kids shows pre-empted by movies, sports and paid programs, today CBS 2 pre-empts programming from CBS in favor of special paid programs such as Billy Graham.
KGAN does not have a morning newscast, but it does air the CBS Early Show from 6 to 8 a.m. with a return to local weather updates during the show, anchored by meteorologist Bob Lesh.

Personalities and programming

CBS 2 News Staff:

★ Jared Aarons - Sports Director

★ Teal Anderson - Reporter

★ Erika Cervantes - Reporter

★ Cary J. Hahn - Iowa Traveler

★ Bryan Hughes - Chief Meteorologist

★ Chris Jones - Anchor/Reporter

★ Josie Koler - Anchor

★ Bob Lesh - Meteorologist

★ [http://www.kgan.com/news/jmitelman.shtml Josh Mitelman - Weekend Sports

★ Justin Roberts - Weekend Weather

★ Tim Seymour - Anchor

★ Megan Terlecky - Anchor/Reporter

References

1. Mediacom loses 22 Sinclair stations Rachel Gallegos
2. Mediacom and Sinclair Make A Deal Shirley Brady


★ KGAN. ''CBS 2 At 50''. Article from the KGAN web site (http://www.kgan.com/50/index.shtml). Date Accessed: July 30, 2005. Cedar Rapids: KGAN-TV.

External links

★ KGAN Web Site

★

★ Google Map of the KGAN Broadcast Tower Location

★ Legendary WMT kids show host Marshal J Fan Page