KCAU-TV

KCAU-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Sioux City, Iowa, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Nexstar Media Group. The station's studios are located on Gordon Drive in Sioux City, and its transmitter is located near Hinton, Iowa.

The first television station in the region, the station began broadcasting as CBS affiliate KVTV in 1953. It was acquired in 1965 by a company that became known as Forward Communications; under Forward stewardship, the station activated a 2,000-foot (610 m) tower, changed its call sign to KCAU-TV and its affiliation to ABC in 1967, and became the leading station in the market through the early 1980s, when it was overtaken by its principal competitor, KTIV. It was owned by Citadel Communications from 1985 to 2014, when it was purchased by Nexstar.

The Cowles Company, which owned WNAX in Yankton, South Dakota, filed to build a new television station on channel 9 in Sioux City, on June 30, 1952. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved it on November 19, after a competing application from Siouxland Television Company merged into the Cowles bid; it was the second construction permit granted for a station in the city after one for UHF channel 36. A downtown office was set up on Pierce Street, and the transmitting facility was built north of the city at 41st and Howard streets. The call letters KVTV were selected; the station could not be WNAX-TV because the FCC did not allow two stations located in different cities to share the same base call sign.

KVTV began broadcasting on March 29, 1953. It was affiliated with CBS, NBC, and DuMont, with ABC coming on board shortly after launch. When KTIV signed on in 1954, NBC programming moved there, and the two stations split DuMont (until that network folded) and ABC. In 1956, KVTV moved to the former municipal auditorium at Seventh and Douglas streets in downtown Sioux City. The 1909 structure had previously functioned as Sioux City's municipal auditorium, a meeting place for fraternal organizations, and as the Tomba Ballroom.

One of the first programs on the new station was a children's show hosted by Jim Henry, who was approached to see if he knew anyone who would be a good host, but could not recommend anyone else. His Brooklyn accent made him an odd fit for a Western-themed kids' program, but Canyon Kid's Corner became a long-running feature of the station.

In late 1957, Cowles sold WNAX and KVTV to the Peoples Broadcasting Corporation, a subsidiary of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, for $3 million. KVTV began producing a regular series of bowling telecasts in conjunction with KELO-TV of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Big Bowl, which was produced in Sioux City and aired until 1973, featured competitors from the two cities facing off against each other and was credited with increasing bowling's popularity regionally. Also under Peoples, the station erected its first weather ball atop the Badgerow Building, which remained in place until it was destroyed in a 1973 windstorm.

In 1965, Peoples sold KVTV to the Wisconsin Valley Television Company of Wausau, Wisconsin, owner of WSAU AM-FM-TV in Wausau and WMTV in Madison. That December, after seven years of joint work and the withdrawal of an objection by KQTV in Fort Dodge, KVTV moved to a new tower near Hinton, Iowa, that it co-owned with KTIV. The former tower was dismantled; the land was sold to the Sioux City school system to build North High School, and the antenna was gifted to South Dakota Educational Television, which used it as a backup for its KBHE in Rapid City.

Bigger changes were in store beyond a new tower. In 1967, Forward Communications—which changed its name from Wisconsin Valley at the start of the year owing to its expansion outside the state—changed the station's call letters to KCAU-TV to "reflect the new character of the station" and switched network affiliation from CBS to ABC. At the time, neither Sioux City nor Sioux Falls had an ABC affiliate. With Sioux Falls CBS affiliate KELO-TV about to activate a 2,000-foot tower of its own and other nearby stations airing CBS, Forward concluded there would be a larger audience for an ABC station. The station advertised in the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, staking a claim to be the ABC affiliate for both Sioux City and Sioux Falls.