Duluth Broadcast Television Station Guide
The Duluth market has seven broadcast television stations producing 29 channels of digital programming. Here’s a look at what’s available to those willing to jostle an antenna.
“Joel in Duluth” currently has an essay on the front page of Dailykos.com, a hive of fightin’ mad progressives. The essay is a cogent analysis of the recent Santos scandal in New York, where a Dem candidate’s oppo research was so underwhelming, he lost to Santos (above) who immediately became embroiled in a scandal about whether his bio is full of lies. Joel in Duluth diagnoses the problem using his own campaign experiences.
Oddly, this ad uses Duluth as a benchmark against which a reader might understand how many Italians are in New York. For a while, Duluth was one of the 100 biggest media markets in the United States, and so among media professionals it could serve as a benchmark.
From the Media History Digital Library.
KDAL 610 AM is a commercial talk radio station in Duluth, owned and operated by Midwest Communications. There was also a KDAL-TV, which later became KDLH and then merged with KBJR.
Advertising campaigns for Duluth’s KDAL radio in the trade press were intent on revealing the cosmopolitan dimensions of Duluth. These ads both reveal Duluth’s unique industries and reveal that some of Duluth’s retail, especially, can stand shoulder to shoulder with other major urban areas.
This ad campaign, luring businesses to advertise on TV in Duluth/Superior uses a picture of supporters of the Revolutionary government of Cuba manning a machine gun post overlooking one of the main streets, Zapata Avenue, into the heart of Havana, Jan. 4, 1959.
Radio and television audiences in Duluth were surveyed in 1961. While the general demographics could be useful for media historians, it might surprise the readers of Perfect Duluth Day that, in 1961, the category of “first generation Scandinavian immigrants” was statistically significant in a survey like this. We are not so far away from the days when Duluth was a rich community built from immigrants, with all the magic and tension that follows from immigration.
Information from Media History Digital Library.
Briefly, Duluth-Superior radio stations KDAL and WEBC advertised together. I found these joint ads while scouring a database of media trade publications.
I’ve been excavating media magazines for references to Duluth. Some of them are adverts for WEBC 560 AM, which is presently branded at “Northland Fan” and broadcasts Duluth-area sports interspersed with statewide sports talk from KFAN in Minneapolis and national sports talk from FOX Sports Radio.
Forty years ago today — July 30, 1982 — the Duluth Herald newspaper was published for the last time. The first issue was published April 9, 1883, and its cover appeared as artwork on the final edition.
After 64 years of affiliation with the University of Minnesota Duluth, 103.3 FM is now a product of the Duluth Superior Area Educational Television Corporation, the public media organization that also owns WDSE/WRPT-TV, the Duluth area’s PBS affiliate.
Documenting all extant media coverage of my exploits since 2005. Sharing them here. Articles, interviews, TV, radio, all the things:
One hundred years ago the assailants of Duluth Ripsaw newspaper publisher John L. Morrison appeared in court one week after attacking him in his office. The May 19, 1921 Duluth Herald provides an account of the incident.
I just found an investigative podcast based out of Duluth called “Uncovering the Truth in Minnesota.”
“Unconstrained, unbiased, and driven for the truth, follow us as we use journalism to tell the untold stories of Minnesota,” reads the description on Apple Podcasts. “Join your Co-hosts, Sarah Knieff and Izabel Johnson, for weekly episodes released on Tuesdays!”