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Minneapolis–Saint Paul, also known as the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, in the state of Minnesota, United States of America, has two major general-interest newspapers. The region is currently ranked as the 15th largest television market in the United States.[1] The market officially includes 59 counties of Minnesota and Wisconsin, and extends far to the north and west. The radio market in the Twin Cities is estimated to be slightly smaller, ranked 16th in the nation.[2]
A number of other weekly and monthly publications (most of which are fully supported by advertising) are also available. The most prominent of these is Village Voice Media's City Pages, the alternative weekly. (2002 newcomer The Rake offered some competition in the form of a free monthly, but ceased publication in 2008.[5]) Pulse of the Twin Cities is another weekly which has less advertising and more coverage of local music and activism. La Matraca News is a Spanish-language weekly print and online publication.
There are also numerous weekly student publications at area colleges, including the University of Minnesota's The Wake[6] student magazine, Macalester College's The Mac Weekly, and St. Thomas' TommieMedia.com,[7] which replaced student newspaper The Aquin that was shuttered in 2009.[8]
Minneapolis community newspapers include the sister publications Downtown Journal, formerly Skyway News, and Southwest Journal, which cover downtown and southwest Minneapolis, respectively, as well as numerous neighborhood papers such as the North News, Seward Profile, Southside Pride, and Whittier Globe.
Only one weekly newspaper is devoted to neighborhood news in either city: St. Paul's East Side Review. Saint Paul also has a monthly, Highland Villager, and a bi-monthly neighborhood newspaper for Frogtown, Greening Frogtown.[9]
Instead of neighborhood or general-interest news, some periodicals are topical, such as those covering the Minnesota music scene. Others are audience-specific, such as Lavender Magazine for the state's gay community. The Minnesota Women's Press,[10] one of the few feminist newspapers in the country, serves the local feminist community. Another periodical of note is the Asian American Press.[11]
Three other stations serve the Twin Cities from studios in suburban areas. Fox O&O KMSP-TV and MyNetworkTV O&O WFTC are co-owned by Fox Television Stations, with studios located in Eden Prairie. KARE is the NBC affiliate in the Twin Cities, owned by TEGNA and based in Golden Valley.
For much of the last two decades, KARE had the most popular evening newscasts. Since around 2010, however, WCCO has become the most watched station in the market in nearly all time slots. On the other end, KSTP has struggled to maintain ratings on its news programs. KMSP has had a 9 o'clock newscast since at least the early 1990s when it was a UPN affiliate.
KSTP claims to have been the first station in the country to run a regular nightly newscast. It is the oldest station in the state to still be operating, having first gone on the air in 1948. TV broadcasts first occurred more than a decade earlier during the 1930s when engineers for radio station WDGY (now KFAN) experimented with a mechanical television system. Mechanical TV quickly lost favor, and the station's owner decided to let the license expire in 1938.
Communities in the region have their own Public, educational, and government access (PEG) cable TV channels. One channel, the Metro Cable Network, is available on channel 6 on cable systems across the seven-county region. Minneapolis Telecommunications Network (MTN)[12] has three public-access television cable TV channels and Saint Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN)[13] has two.
Area residents of the right age look back fondly on many of the locally produced shows that were on the air for about two decades, from the early days of TV in Minnesota up until the 1970s. WCCO, KSTP, KMSP, and WTCN (now KARE) all had children's shows, though there were a few other notable shows targeting an older audience.
Several television programs originating in the Twin Cities have been aired nationally on terrestrial and cable TV networks. KTCA created the science program Newton's Apple and distributes a children's program today. A few unusual comedic shows also originated in the area. In the 1980s, KTMA (now WUCW) created a number of low-budget shows, including the cult classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 (which later aired on The Comedy Channel/Comedy Central from 1989 to 1996 and the Sci-Fi Channel from 1997 to 2004). The short-lived Let's Bowl (which aired on Comedy Central) started on KARE, and the PBS series Mental Engineering originated on the St. Paul public-access television network.
Most of the major TV and radio transmitters are located in Shoreview, Minnesota, and backup facilities for some are maintained atop the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis (though a few low-power broadcasters use the IDS as their primary transmitter location).
