Market Eye: Rapid Revival

Business in eastern Iowa flatlands picking up after lethal ‘08 floods

By Michael Malone -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/28/2011 12:01:00 AM

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Sundance Film Festival sleeper hit ‘Cedar Rapids’ may not equal the buzz of Woody Allen’s ‘Manhattan’ or Robert Altman’s ‘Nashville’, but the movie has helped put Iowa’s second-largest city on the map. It’s something to celebrate in this vast Midwest market, which was slammed three years ago by a deadly tornado and floods.

Much of Cedar Rapids has not yet recovered from 2008’s disasters, but KWWL’s morale got a boost when the station reopened its downtown newsroom on Jan. 15. “It had been under 9 feet of water,” says Kim Leer, KWWL station manager.

DMA No. 88 is the rare four-city market: Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Iowa City and Dubuque. KWWL, an NBC affiliate owned by Quincy Newspapers Inc., is based in Waterloo, about an hour north of Cedar Rapids. Market leader KCRG, an ABC affiliate owned by SourceMedia Group, is based in Cedar Rapids, as are Sinclair CBS affiliate KGAN and Second Generation TV Fox outlet KFXA. The latter two work out of the same facility and share talent.

KCRG and Cedar Rapids newspaper The Gazette are in adjacent buildings, with a second- floor walkway connecting them. A joint newsroom cranks out content for broadcast, print and online. “We have one content room feeding all the platforms,” says Shannon Booth, director of broadcast products at KCRG. “We have 75 ‘content gatherers,’ and community contributors as well.”

The strategy is working. KCRG ran the table in last November’s sweeps, winning all major ratings races. KCRG took late news with a 13 household rating/31 share, ahead of KWWL’s 10/23. “We’ve got a strong anchor team that the audience can all relate to,” says Booth. “We offer good storytelling and strong weather.”

KWWL is a close second in all key races except prime, where the CBS affiliate was runnerup. After the flood damage, KWWL made a major investment in new gear, including robotic cameras; the station offers the market’s only local HD content. “Our switchers were so old that they either had to go, or we had to get out of the news business,” quips Leer.

Rounding out the market are KWKB, a hybrid CW-MyNetworkTV affiliate owned by KM Communications, and a small indie owned by Waterloo TV Group. The main cable operators are Mediacom and ImOn.

The leading stations are making good use of their multicast options. KWWL has This TV and RTV on its .2 and .3 channels. In addition to second-run programs, including Oprah Winfrey at 9 p.m. and a comedy block starting at 10 p.m., KCRG is pumping up its local offerings on the digital tier. A new live truck means high school sports broadcasts a few nights a week, as well as Cedar Rapids RoughRiders hockey and Cedar Rapids Kernels baseball come spring.

“We’re helping create awareness [about local sports] for viewers, and making them want to find it,” Booth says.

KWWL is also leading a campaign for viewers to contact Dish Network and DirecTV to get the satellite operators to pick up the extra channels.

Major employers in the market include agricultural giant John Deere, aircraft electronics outfit Rockwell Collins and a distribution center for Target. The population is nearly 92% white, according to BIA/Kelsey. Iowa is of course the site of the caucuses that kick off the presidential campaign every four years. The action historically starts around June, but gets earlier every cycle. KCRG, for one, is already detailing the ’12 election action on its IowaCaucus.com site.

Greater Cedar Rapids is slowly recovering after horrific disasters. “We came out of the historic flood and hit the downturn in 2009,” says KCRG’s Booth. “But things came back in 2010, and they look good in 2011.”

E-mail comments to mmalone@nbmedia.com and follow him on Twitter: @StationBiz