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KHQA-TV
CityHannibal, Missouri
Channels
Branding
  • KHQA (general)
  • Tri-State Trusted News (newscasts)
  • KHQA CBS (DT1)
  • KHQA ABC (DT2)
Programming
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
KTVO (joint news operation)
History
First air date
September 23, 1953 (71 years ago) (1953-09-23)
Former call signs
KHMO-TV (CP, 2/18/1953–4/23/1953)[3]
Former channel number(s)
  • Analog: 7 (VHF, 1953–2009)
  • Digital: 29 (UHF, 2001–2009), 7 (VHF, 2009–2024)
  • All secondary:
  • DuMont (1953–1955)
  • ABC (1960–1969)
  • UPN (1995–2006)
Call sign meaning
Keokuk Hannibal Quincy Area
Technical information[4]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID4690
ERP750 kW[1]
HAAT271 m (889 ft)
Transmitter coordinates39°58′22″N 91°19′55″W / 39.97278°N 91.33194°W / 39.97278; -91.33194
Links
Public license information
Websitekhqa.com

KHQA-TV (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Hannibal, Missouri, United States, serving the Quincy, Illinois–Hannibal, Missouri–Keokuk, Iowa market as an affiliate of CBS and ABC. The station is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, and maintains studios on South 36th Street in Quincy; its transmitter is located northeast of the city on Cannonball Road near I-172.

History

[edit]

KHQA went on-the-air September 23, 1953. The station was originally owned by Lee Enterprises of Davenport, Iowa, along with the Hannibal Courier-Post and WTAD radio (930 AM and 99.5 FM, now WCOY). Despite the common ownership, Lee was unable to use the WTAD-TV calls because Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules of the time did not allow stations to share common base callsigns if they were licensed in different cities. While licensed to Hannibal (hence accounting for the "H" in its callsign, as well as its callsign beginning with a "K"), its studios have long been located across the Mississippi River in Quincy; the station signed on after the FCC allowed a station to base its main studio outside its city of license.

Channel 7 received its DuMont transmitters on July 27, 1953. They arrived on the same truck as the transmitters for future rival WGEM-TV (channel 10). The two stations' crews raced to be the first television station in the Tri-State.[5] Ultimately, WGEM-TV won the race, signing on September 4, more than two weeks before channel 7.

KHQA has always been a primary CBS affiliate, although it had a secondary affiliation with DuMont between 1953 and 1956. The station shared a secondary ABC affiliation with WGEM-TV in the 1960s. KHQA also aired a number of UPN programs during late-night hours between 1995 and 2006.[6] Lee sold the Courier-Post in 1969, but held onto its Quincy broadcasting cluster until December 1986 when the company sold KHQA to A. Richard Benedek, whose television holdings eventually became Benedek Broadcasting. The radio stations were sold to Eastern Broadcasting. Lee earned a handsome return on its purchase of WTAD radio in 1944. At the time of the sale, KHQA was the smallest station in Lee's TV portfolio.

Benedek declared bankruptcy and sold most of its stations to Gray Television in 2002, but KHQA was sold to Chelsey Broadcasting; Gray would ultimately acquire Quincy Media, parent company of WGEM AM–FM–TV, in 2021. KHQA, WHOI in Peoria, and WEYI-TV in Saginaw, Michigan, became the first three stations owned by the newly formed Barrington Broadcasting in April 2004. In early 1998, KHQA left its longtime home in the Western Catholic Union building in downtown Quincy. The station moved into a new state-of-the-art facility located on South 36th Street. On August 28, 2007, KHQA announced that a new second digital subchannel would begin carrying ABC for the Tri-States, replacing sister station KTVO (which had been ABC's affiliate of record in the Quincy market). This was launched on September 30.

On February 28, 2013, Barrington announced that it would exit from broadcasting and sell off its entire group, including KHQA-TV, to Sinclair Broadcast Group.[7] The sale was completed on November 25.[8]

On February 26, 2020, it was revealed that KHQA would undergo the same transition as Sinclair sister stations WNWO-TV in Toledo, Ohio, and WOLF-TV in Scranton, Pennsylvania, having their newscasts hubbed by another station. News management, production, and anchors would be moved to WICD in Champaign, Illinois. Weather and some reporters would be allowed to stay local, with an unspecified number of other employees allowed to move to Champaign. These changes went into effect later in the year.[9]

On November 7, 2024, it was announced that KTVO and KHQA would merge their news departments into a new operation called Tri-State Trusted, which would cover both the Ottumwa–Kirksville and Quincy–Hannibal–Keokuk markets. Newscasts would originate from the KTVO studios but also feature local content produced by KHQA.[10] The new operation launched with the morning newscast on December 9.

Technical information

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Subchannels

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The station's signal is multiplexed:

Subchannels of KHQA-TV[11]
Channel Res. Aspect Short name Programming
7.1 1080i 16:9 CBS CBS
7.2 720p ABC ABC
7.3 480i Comet Comet
7.4 TBD TBD

Before KHQA-DT2 started, sister station KTVO in Kirksville, Missouri, had served as the default analog ABC affiliate for the area. KTVO launched a CBS-affiliated second digital subchannel on May 15, 2010, effectively marking the network's return to that station after a 36-year absence. KHQA-DT1 was eventually upgraded from 720p into 1080i.

Analog-to-digital conversion

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KHQA-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 7, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal relocated from its pre-transition UHF channel 29 to VHF channel 7.[12]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Channel Substitution/Community of License Change". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission. November 27, 2020. Retrieved February 12, 2021.
  2. ^ "Report & Order", Media Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, May 21, 2021, Retrieved May 23, 2021.
  3. ^ "FCC History Cards for KHQA-TV".
  4. ^ "Facility Technical Data for KHQA-TV". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  5. ^ "UHFs ON AIR FORGE AHEAD OF VHFs IN POST -THAW TV STATION STARTS" (PDF). Broadcasting * Telecasting. August 31, 1953. p. 56. Retrieved July 13, 2017.
  6. ^ "Illinois". UPN Affiliates. UPN. Archived from the original on August 19, 2006. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  7. ^ Malone, Michael (February 28, 2013). "Sinclair's Chesapeake TV Acquires Barrington Stations". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved March 1, 2013.
  8. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 3, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. ^ "Sinclair to Hub Another Newscast?".
  10. ^ "KTVO and KHQA to expand news coverage in Tri-States". www.msn.com. Retrieved December 9, 2024.
  11. ^ "RabbitEars TV Query for KHQA". RabbitEars.info. Retrieved July 2, 2024.
  12. ^ "DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and the Second Rounds" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 29, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2012.
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