During the late 1940s, the
Cedar Rapids Gazette, then-owners of
KCRG (1600 AM), filed an application with the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a TV station license. At the time, the FCC had a backlog of over 200 applications and had decided not to proceed with action on further applications until the backlogged requests could be filled. After the backlog was cleared, many applications were filed for licenses. The Gazette Company did not want to compete for a license and decided to withdraw the initial application. Instead, it joined with a number of other investors as Cedar Rapids Television Company (CRTV), which was granted a license for channel 9. The station began broadcasting October 15, 1953. Initially, the station was known as KCRI-TV because the other investors did not want the new television station so closely identified with the
Gazette newspaper. The radio station also took the KCRI call sign because one of the television station's managers suggested that every mention of "KCRG" on-air was a promotion for the newspaper—one for which the
Gazette would have to pay each time. After about a year of operation, the
Gazette bought out its partners in CRTV and the station was renamed KCRG-TV in 1954. From 1954 to 2015, the station remained under the ownership of Gazette Communications, which was renamed the SourceMedia Group in mid-2010. After the 1996 sale of
WHO-TV in
Des Moines, KCRG-TV was the only locally owned and operated television station left in Iowa. KCRG started broadcasting in
high-definition television in January 2003. The station also had the first news
helicopter in Iowa, "NewsCopter 9". KCRG's broadcasts became digital-only, effective June 12, 2009. The station had attempted to convert on February 17, 2009, with the majority of other Cedar Rapids stations, but the FCC requested they maintain one analog commercial network signal for the market for the remaining four months. Upon KCRG-TV's digital transition completion in June 2009, the "KCRG-TV" callsign was legally transferred from the now-defunct
analog channel 9 to the new digital channel 9, with the "KCRG-DT" callsign being permanently discontinued. In September 2015,
Atlanta-based Gray Television and Gazette Communications announced they had an agreement where Gray Television would buy KCRG-TV for $100 million, with the transfer taking place on October 1. The sale was completed on November 1. KCRG became a sister to
KWQC-TV in nearby
Davenport after Gray purchased the
NBC affiliate as a condition of its owner,
Media General, merging with Nexstar Broadcasting Group (now
Nexstar Media Group), parent of rival
WHBF-TV. In 2019,
Ottumwa station
KYOU-TV came under common ownership with KCRG when Gray completed its merger with
Raycom Media, acquiring the
Fox/NBC-affiliated station outright from
American Spirit Media. On February 1, 2021, Gray announced it would purchase
Quincy Media for $925 million. As Quincy owned the market's
KWWL, Gray intended to
divest that station and retain KCRG in order to satisfy FCC requirements. The sale was completed on August 2, with KWWL going to
Allen Media Broadcasting and KCRG becoming a sister to
KTIV in
Sioux City and
KTTC in
Rochester, Minnesota, the latter of which serves the north-central portion of Iowa. The acquisition gives Gray stations in every market covering Iowa outside of Des Moines.
Subchannel history As of June 15, 2008, KCRG launched a second digital subchannel called "KCRG 9.2", which originally aired a wheel schedule of local news, weather and features. The remainder of the screen had a news ticker, current weather conditions, rotating weather images and program listings. Over time, syndicated and locally produced programs were added, culminating in the addition of
MyNetworkTV to the subchannels in October 2011, one month after
KWKB dropped the service and became a sole CW affiliate. However, MyNetworkTV's programming runs as an overnight offering on 9.2, airing from 2 to 4 a.m., seven hours later than its usual prime time slot. Subchannel 9.2 is also used to air ABC network programming preempted on the main signal for breaking news coverage; a prime example was during the
Great Iowa Flood of June 2008, when 9.2 carried ABC's coverage of the
NBA Finals while 9.1 provided full coverage of the disaster. The schedule of 9.2 prominently features live and taped local sports coverage, including regular season and state championship coverage of
volleyball,
wrestling,
soccer, baseball,
football, and
basketball (the latter two sports are broadcast on Friday evenings). Also featured are coverage of the
Dubuque Fighting Saints (
USHL hockey),
Cedar Rapids Kernels (
Midwest League baseball), and
University of Northern Iowa athletics. Ancillary sports programming includes the discussion show
On Iowa Live and the
Zach Johnson Foundation pro-am golf tournament. In late August 2011, KCRG added a third subchannel, 9.3, branded "WXNow" and featuring local forecasts and looping conditions originated locally from station weather computers. On October 1, 2013, the WXNow loop was moved to an online-only streaming channel on the station's website and replaced on 9.3 by the lifestyle-oriented
Live Well Network. With Live Well slated to discontinue programming in January 2015, subchannel 9.3 joined
Antenna TV that month, taking over the network's Eastern Iowa affiliation from KWKB (subchannel 20.2). At the start of March 2019, KCRG added two more subchannels on 9.4 and 9.5, carrying
Heroes & Icons and
Start TV respectively, as part of a multi-station deal with Gray and
Weigel Broadcasting, which owns H&I and Start TV. The new subchannels were made possible with a
multiplexer upgrade which also resulted in KCRG-DT2 being upgraded to an HD presentation. On New Year's Day 2020, KCRG launched a new subchannel on channel 9.6 that is affiliated with
Circle, a country music-related TV network that was launched the same day. On August 2, 2021, Antenna TV left the Cedar Rapids market and was replaced by The CW on 9.3, taking the network's affiliation from KWWL-DT2. Also, Heroes & Icons was moved to KWWL-DT2 with Start TV and Circle leaving the Cedar Rapids market due to KCRG using up all available bandwidth within its multiplexer to allow broadcasting The CW and MyNetworkTV in HD. Start TV re-entered the Cedar Rapids market on KWKB-DT4 in November 2023. ==News operation==