WDAZ-TV - Coverage Area

Coverage Area

Although WDAZ broadcasts in a small market that reaches only 82,000 television households, the station is also carried on Shaw Communications and MTS TV in southern Manitoba, including the Winnipeg area, reaching an additional 256,000 homes. Winnipeg is the center of a market with over 1 million people—more than three times the entire population of WDAZ's American coverage area (and indeed double the entire population of the Fargo/Grand Forks market).

WDAZ and Prairie Public Television are the only stations from this region that still air in Manitoba, after KVLY-TV (formerly KTHI) and KXJB were replaced with other network affiliates in March 1986. This was due to a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission decision that allowed the Winnipeg cable companies to replace the CBS and NBC affiliates with Detroit stations because of complaints about poor reception, but denied them the ability to replace WDAZ with WXYZ or PPTV with WTVS (although this station would later be added as a second PBS station to cable customers). Shaw Cable airs WDAZ on cable channel 7 and MTS TV airs WDAZ on cable channel 13.

WDAZ can also be seen over the air in extreme southern Manitoba, and in southern parts of Winnipeg, with a rooftop antenna. WDAZ's over-the-air signal is spotty at best in Manitoba, as its transmitter is more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Winnipeg.

Advertising from Winnipeg businesses sometimes air on the station, although this is sometimes ineffective due to simultaneous substitution. This practice requires Shaw and MTS to replace WDAZ's signal with that of a Winnipeg station (usually either CKY-TV or CKND-TV) whenever the same program and episode airs at the same time. Because WDAZ is carried on cable in southern Manitoba, it has become somewhat of a regional superstation.

Some areas that carry WDAZ on cable in western Minnesota are actually in the northwestern part of the Minneapolis/St. Paul television market.