History
In 1980, Midcontinent Broadcasting filed to build a translator for KELO-TV on channel 15 in Rapid City. At the time, Rapid City was one of the few markets in the country without full service from all three major networks. CBS programming was divided between then-ABC affiliate KOTA-TV and then-NBC affiliate KEVN; the two stations carried up to six hours each of CBS programming each week. Black Hills cable viewers could watch the full CBS schedule on KMGH-TV from Denver. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the application in November despite protests from KOTA and KEVN; in particular, KOTA feared allowing a KELO-TV translator in the Black Hills would give that station a "monopoly position" in South Dakota television.[3]
The new KELO-TV translator, K15AC, began broadcasting September 26, 1981. Operating at 1,000 watts, it brought CBS programming to viewers within a 35-mile radius of Rapid City. It initially operated with a shoestring staff, with a resident manager based at his home in Rapid City and a single reporter whose stories ran on KELO-TV's Big News. It also did not sell advertising in the Black Hills at the outset.[4] The translator received the signal of KELO-TV satellite KPLO-TV in Reliance–Pierre and beamed it through three microwave sites to Rapid City.
While K15AC displaced KMGH on Rapid City cable systems, it was initially unable to get on cable systems outside the city. According to KELO broadcast operations head Evans Nord, this was because KOTA-TV owner Duhamel Broadcasting Enterprises refused to allow the South Dakota Cable Company, which held the cable franchise for most of the Black Hills region outside Rapid City, to add K15AC; Duhamel was half-owner of South Dakota Cable along with Midcontinent.[4] With this in mind, two years after K15AC began operating, Midcontinent applied for a new full-power license on channel 15, which was granted in January 1987 and took the call letters KBLO-TV that May. It was licensed for 700,000 watts with almost double the coverage area of K15AC. KBLO-TV was planned for local program origination, unlike its sister stations KDLO or KPLO.[5] (The call sign was changed to KCLO-TV in May 1988.) Midcontinent invested $1.7 million to convert the Rapid City operation to full power.[6]
Upon signing on as a full-power station on November 28, 1988, KCLO-TV aired KELO-TV's newscasts on an hour delay, with five-minute local cut-ins at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. The local cut-ins were discontinued in January 1991 when KCLO-TV began airing all local and network programming live, time-shifted for the Mountain Time Zone. According to station officials, this was initially intended to allow Black Hills viewers to stay abreast of late-breaking coverage of the Gulf War. Due to favorable reception of the shuffled schedule, Midcontinent decided to make the shifted schedule permanent, thus returning to the schedule that had aired in Rapid City between 1981 and 1988.
On January 12, 1996, Midcontinent Media announced that it had sold KELO-TV and its satellites to Young Broadcasting for $50 million.[7] Young assumed control on May 31, 1996.[8] Young Broadcasting merged with Media General in 2013,[9] Media General was in turn acquired by Nexstar Broadcasting Group in a sale announced in January 2016[10] and completed on January 17, 2017.[11]
KELO-TV along with KDLO-TV and KPLO-TV started a second subchannel, UTV (renamed KELOXTRA in 2021[12]), with the market's UPN affiliation on March 15, 2004. UPN programs had been seen in Sioux Falls on KCPO-LP (channel 26); while it technically increased the coverage area of UPN programming, it made it a digital-only service as opposed to analog KCPO-LP, which limited the number of viewers who could tune in at the time.[13] UTV became the MyNetworkTV affiliate in Sioux Falls in 2006; The CW went to WB affiliate KWSD-TV, owned by Rapid Broadcasting.[14][15] UTV was not broadcast in Rapid City, where Rapid-owned KKRA-LP was the MyNetworkTV affiliate.[16]
