KWWF (channel 22) was an

independent television station An independent station is a broadcast station, usually a television station, not affiliated with a larger broadcast network. As such, it only broadcasts syndicated programs it has purchased; brokered programming, for which a third party pays t ...

licensed to

Waterloo, Iowa Waterloo is a city in and the county seat of Black Hawk County, Iowa, Black Hawk County, Iowa, United States. As of the 2020 United States census the population was 67,314, making it the List of cities in Iowa, eighth-most populous city in the st ...

, United States, which served the Eastern Iowa

television market A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...

. The station was owned by Stratus Media Holdings. KWWF's transmitter was located near

Walker, Iowa Walker is a city in Linn County, Iowa. The population was 688 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa metropolitan area. History Walker began as an outgrowth of the Burlington, Cedar Rapids and Northern Railway. It was named i ...

History

KWWF opened on December 1, 2002, with a format of

infomercial An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of di ...

home shopping Home shopping is the electronic retailing and home shopping channels industry, which includes such billion dollar television-based and e-commerce companies as Shop LC, HSN, Gemporia, TJC, QVC, eBay, ShopHQ, Rakuten.com and Amazon.com, ...

and

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

rerun A rerun or repeat is a rebroadcast of an episode of a radio or television program. The two types of reruns are those that occur during a hiatus and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Variations In the United Kingdom, the word "repe ...

s. Later, the station began airing religious programs from

LeSEA Broadcasting Family Broadcasting Corporation, formerly known as LeSEA Broadcasting, is an American Christianity, Christian television network. Founded by Lester Sumrall in 1972, Family Broadcasting Corporation is headquartered in South Bend, Indiana, and br ...

Equity Broadcasting Equity Media Holdings Corporation was a broadcasting company based in Little Rock, Arkansas, that owned and operated television stations across the United States. Prior to March 30, 2007, the company was known as Equity Broadcasting, a name late ...

bought the station in 2004, and quickly made it a general entertainment station. KWWF affiliated with

UPN The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that operated from 1995 to 2006. It was originally a joint venture between Chris-Craft Industries (later sold to News Corporation)'s subsidiary, United Television, ...

on September 13, 2004, and the station soon gained carriage on cable systems throughout the market. Under Equity ownership, the station's

master control Master control is the technical hub of a broadcast operation common among most over-the-air television stations and television networks. It is distinct from a production control room (PCR) in television studios where the activities such as swit ...

, located in

Little Rock, Arkansas Little Rock is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Arkansas, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The city's population was 202,591 as of the 2020 census. The six-county Central Arkan ...

, relayed its signal via the Galaxy 18 satellite to the transmitter and area cable systems. In 2006, Equity outright refused to affiliate their stations with

The CW The CW Network, LLC (commonly referred to as The CW or simply CW) is an American commercial broadcast television network which is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75% ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the firs ...

, the merger of UPN and

The WB The WB Television Network (shortened to The WB, stylized as "THE WB", and nicknamed the "Frog Network" and/or "The Frog" for its former mascot Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network that ran from 1995 to 2006. It launched on ter ...

, with

KWKB KWKB (channel 20) is a religious television station licensed to Iowa City, Iowa, United States, serving the Eastern Iowa and Quad Cities television markets as an owned-and-operated station of Tri-State Christian Television (TCT). The station' ...

taking both that affiliation and second replacement network

MyNetworkTV MyNetworkTV (stylized as mynetworkTV; unofficially abbreviated MNT or MNTV) is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its Fox Television Stations ...

. This left Equity to have KWWF become an affiliate of Equity Broadcasting's own

Retro Television Network Retro TV (stylized as retrotv), formerly known as Retro Television Network, is an American broadcast television network owned by Get After It Media. The network mainly airs classic television sitcoms and drama series from the 1950s through t ...

to fill the gaps left by the end of UPN programming. In 2008, most RTN programming was removed from KWWF and moved to a digital subchannel of

KWWL KWWL (channel 7) is a television station licensed to Waterloo, Iowa, United States, serving as the NBC affiliate for Eastern Iowa. Owned by Allen Media Group, KWWL maintains studios on East 5th Street in Waterloo, with news bureaus and advertis ...

. KWWF then became an independent station, carrying various syndicated programs, as well as a handful of Equity-produced live shows, which were also aired on many RTN stations. KWWF was sold to Valley Bank at auction on April 16, 2009, as a part of Equity's bankruptcy. Valley Bank, in turn, filed to sell KWWF to an ownership group connected to Fusion Communications in August. Because it was granted an original

construction permit Planning permission or building permit refers to the approval needed for construction or expansion (including significant renovation), and sometimes for demolition, in some jurisdictions. House building permits, for example, are subject to bu ...

after the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(FCC) finalized the

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using Digital signal, digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an ...

allotment plan on April 21, 1997, the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth's s ...

. Instead, at the end of the digital TV conversion period for full-service stations, KWWF was required to turn off its

analog signal An analog signal (American English) or analogue signal (British and Commonwealth English) is any continuous-time signal representing some other quantity, i.e., ''analogous'' to another quantity. For example, in an analog audio signal, the ins ...

and turn on its

digital signal A digital signal is a signal that represents data as a sequence of discrete values; at any given time it can only take on, at most, one of a finite number of values. This contrasts with an analog signal, which represents continuous values; ...

(called a "

flash-cut A flash cut, also called a flash cutover, is an immediate change in a complex system, with no phase-in period. In the United States, some telephone area codes were split or overlaid immediately, rather than being phased in with a permissive di ...

"). , this station was scheduled to go

dark Darkness is the condition resulting from a lack of illumination, or an absence of visible light. Human vision is unable to distinguish colors in conditions of very low luminance because the hue-sensitive photoreceptor cells on the retina are ...

in 2009. According to the station's DTV status report, "On December 8, 2008, the licensee's parent corporation filed a petition for bankruptcy relief under

Chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, w ...

of the federal bankruptcy code... This station must obtain post-petition financing and court approval before digital facilities may be constructed. The station will cease analog broadcasting on February 17, 2009, regardless of whether digital facilities are operational by that date. The station will file authority to remain silent if so required by the FCC." While the

DTV Delay Act The digital television transition in the United States was the switchover from analog to exclusively digital broadcasting of terrestrial television programming. It was originally set for December 31, 2006, but was delayed several times due ...

extended this deadline to June 12, 2009, Equity applied for an extension of the digital construction permit, in order to retain the

broadcast license A broadcast license is a type of spectrum license granting the licensee permission to use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum in a given geographical area for broadcasting purposes. The licenses generally include restrictions, which va ...

in case the station went dark. Fusion Communications was able to build a temporary digital site near Walker to meet the deadline. At the end of analog broadcasting on June 12, 2009, KWWF transitioned from the old Equity facility to Fusion's Iowa master control facility and continued to provide a signal to cable systems. Thereafter, KWWF was affiliated with Untamed Sports TV. KWWF's satellite feed was still available on Anik F3 C-Band as of November 2010. Although the station transmitted in

720p 720p (720 lines progressive) is a progressive HD signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HD (1.78:1). All major HD broadcasting standards (such as SMPTE 292M) includ ...

, Untamed Sports never maintained a

high definition High definition or HD may refer to: Visual technologies *Blu-ray Disc, the universal optical High Definition disc format *HD Photo, former name for the JPEG XR image file format *HDV, format for recording high-definition video onto magnetic tap ...

programming feed and all programming on the station was carried in standard definition. In 2012, Fusion Communications was acquired by Stratus Media Holdings. KWWF ceased broadcasting on August 2, 2013, due to financial difficulties. On August 8, 2013, the station's owners filed a Notification of Suspension of Operations / Request for Silent STA with the FCC.Federal Communications Commission: Notification of Suspension of Operations / Request for Silent STA for KWWF, August 8. 2013.
/ref> On March 14, 2014, Stratus surrendered KWWF's license to the Federal Communications Commission, which canceled the license a week later.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kwwf 2002 establishments in Iowa 2013 disestablishments in Iowa WWF Television channels and stations disestablished in 2013 Television channels and stations established in 2002 WWF Waterloo, Iowa