WQAD-TV (channel 8) is a television station licensed to Moline, Illinois, United States, serving the Quad Cities area as an affiliate of ABC.

It made changes to the local newscasts in an attempt to lift them out of second- and third-place positions, but it has remained in second, as a variety of owners have been unable to put the station ahead of dominant KWQC-TV in the Quad Cities market.

While the Quad Cities area had only received two very high frequency (VHF) television channels (4 and 6), the possibility of adding a third was raised in 1955 in connection with a dispute in the nearby Peoria, Illinois, market.

[10][11] Radio station KSTT in Davenport, Iowa, filed;[12] followed by Tele-Views News Company of Rock Island, Illinois, which published a regional TV magazine;[13][14] Midland Broadcasting Company in Moline, which also included the children of CBS executive H. Leslie Atlass;[15][16] Illiway Television, primarily consisting of Quad Cities-area investors;[17] Moline Television Corporation, composed of 24 stockholders, primarily residents of the Illinois part of the Quad Cities, as well as former WGN radio and television president Frank Schreiber;[18][19] and Public Service Broadcasting Company, part-owned by WMT-TV of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

[20][21] By the start of 1958, these seven groups were in contention for the channel; at the same time, the FCC was defending its Peoria deintermixture decision in federal court,[22] with judge Warren Burger finding in its favor in March 1958.

[28] Weeks before then, on October 20, the Supreme Court of the United States put a freeze on the move of channel 8 to the Quad Cities when it agreed with WIRL-TV that the Peoria deintermixture matter should be reviewed for possible interference in light of an undue influence scandal plaguing the FCC.

WIRL-TV had claimed that Robert S. Kerr, a senator from Oklahoma and a stockholder in another Peoria TV station, had exerted influence in favor of deintermixture.

[32] FCC hearing examiner Charles J. Frederick delivered an initial decision in April 1960 favoring Community Telecasting Corporation.

[33] Illiway and Moline Television appealed, calling into question evidence presented about the experience of Community's proposed general manager.

[34] The applicants submitted final oral arguments to the FCC in early June 1961,[35] and later that month, the commission announced that it had chosen not to follow the examiner's recommendation and award the channel to Moline Television instead.

[36] The change was criticized by Peoria representative Robert H. Michel, who charged FCC chairman Newton Minow with political motives in the decision because he knew one of the principals in Moline Television.

[37] Community asked the FCC to reopen the record,[38] but the commission issued a final decision in favor of Moline Television on May 16, 1962.

[39] Even though Moline Television was approved for the construction permit, it still had to face potential appeals from losing applicants as well as the resolution of the underlying channel allocation case, which affected Peoria and Springfield, Illinois.

[43] The station took the call letters WQAD-TV; Moline Television moved to build studios on 16th Street and signed an affiliation agreement with ABC.

[48] In addition to bringing the Quad Cities the full ABC network schedule for the first time, the station offered local newscasts and a farm and home show airing on weekdays.

[51] Moline Television agreed to sell the station to the Evening News Association in 1966;[52] the sale was opposed by several principals of Community Telecasting,[53] and the deal was ultimately terminated in October 1967.

In February 1968, the FCC designated the license challenge and WQAD-TV's renewal for comparative hearing over commitments made in the original application and its financial qualifications during the Evening News Association sale attempt.

As most of the population of the Quad Cities is in Iowa, WQAD's image as an Illinois station hurt it among many viewers, while channel 6 commanded more than half of the late news audience.