History
KCAU signed on air as KVTV on March 9, 1953. It is western Iowa's oldest television station. KCAU was primarily affiliated with the CBS network, but it also carried programs from ABC, NBC and DuMont. It lost NBC in 1954 when KTIV signed on. KVTV was sold to Forward Broadcasting in 1965, who, effective in the late summer of 1967, changed the call letters to KCAU-TV and the primary network affiliation to ABC on September 2 of that year; their last broadcast as a CBS affiliate was of Tom and Jerry at 12 noon, then they carried ABC's American Bandstand at 12:30 PM. This left Sioux City without a local CBS outlet until September 5, 1967, when KMEG-TV signed on and took the CBS affiliation. KTIV did carry tape-delays of a few ABC programs KCAU didn't have for several days after KCAU took the primary ABC affiliation.
Citadel Communications (not to be confused with the larger Citadel Broadcasting, the former owner of numerous radio stations across the U.S.) bought the station in 1985, also purchasing Albion, Nebraska, station KBGT-TV (channel 8) a year later; that station was converted into KCAN, a satellite of KCAU. (Citadel moved KCAN's license to Lincoln, Nebraska and converted the station into KLKN, a standalone ABC affiliate, in 1996.)
From 1953 to 1985 KCAU was home to Canyon Kid's Corner, a popular children's show in the area, and it was hosted by longtime KCAU announcer Jim Henry during the entire run of the program.
Until 2011, KCAU did not carry ABC World News Now. Instead, the station joined its fellow Citadel stations in signing off every night at 1:05 a.m., one of the few stations in the United States to do so. World News Now's current run on KCAU is its second; the station had aired the program during the early 2000s.
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