WQAD-TV - Digital Channels

Digital Channels

The "Quad Cities Weather Channel" was a 24-hour weather service provided by WQAD and had been available to television viewers on digital channel 8.2 and on Mediacom channel 14. This was created in 2001 and featured its "Exclusive Live Triple Doppler" and weather updates every fifteen minutes. Since then, the station has added the five and fourteen day outlook with the latest weather around the region with an "L Bar". As of May 2009, the "Quad Cities Weather Channel" had been powered by The Local AccuWeather Channel. As of August 13, 2007, its main competitor was the "KWQC 24-7 Weather Channel" which is offered by rival NBC affiliate KWQC-TV.

On March 5, 2011, WQAD discontinued the "Quad Cities Weather Channel" and digital channel 8.2 became affiliated with Antenna TV. WQAD's subchannel affiliation with Antenna TV is the second classic TV service available in the Quad Cities with the subchannel affiliation of WHBF-TV with Retro Television Network being the first. Hence, "WQADATV" and "RTV 4" were competitors against each other up until January 16, 2012, when WHBF discontinued its affiliation with Retro Television Network and became affiliated with Live Well Network; however, WHBF broadcasts that network's programming in a 16:9 letterbox format while keeping its secondary digital subchannel in its native 4:3 480i SDTV format to preserve bandwidth.