KDLT-TV (channel 46) is a television station in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, United States, affiliated with NBC and Fox. It is owned by Gray Television alongside ABC/CW+ affiliate KSFY-TV (channel 13). Both stations share studios in Courthouse Square on 1st Avenue South in Sioux Falls, while KDLT-TV's transmitter is located southeast of the city near Rowena.
The station operates a full-time satellite KDLV-TV (channel 5) in Mitchell, whose tower is located in Plankinton. KDLV is a straight simulcast of KDLT; its existence is only acknowledged in station identifications. Aside from the transmitter, KDLV has no physical presence in Mitchell. Both of KDLT's subchannels also air on KPRY-TV in Pierre, a semi-satellite of sister station KSFY-TV.
KDLT-TV got its start as KORN-TV, an NBC affiliate on channel 5 in Mitchell, in 1960. It did not begin broadcasting to the Sioux Falls area until 1969, when it switched to ABC. The station changed its call letters to KXON-TV in 1973 when channel 5 was split from KORN radio. The station was sold again in 1982 to become KDLT-TV; it lost its ABC affiliation when the network opted to move to KSFY-TV the next year, picking up NBC instead. For the better part of its history, it suffered from low ratings and the perception that it was a Mitchell station rather than a Sioux Falls station. In 1987, most operations, including news production, moved to Sioux Falls. In 1998, as part of an effort to improve the station's coverage, a new transmitter on channel 46 in Sioux Falls became the main station, while channel 5 was repurposed as a full-time satellite for the market's western portion. Even after these changes, the station has spent the better part of its history as the lowest-rated Big Three station in the market.
In 2019, Gray Television, owner of KSFY, sought and was granted Federal Communications Commission approval to buy KDLT in hopes of creating a stronger challenge to long-dominant KELO-TV. This brought KDLT and KSFY under one roof, with a merged news operation known as Dakota News Now. Gray then bought the market's Fox affiliation, resulting in the migration of Fox from KTTW to a subchannel of KDLT-TV and the two stations' satellites.
History
The Mitchell years
Mitchell Broadcasting Association, owner of radio station KORN, applied on July 30, 1957, to build a new television station on channel 5 in Mitchell, to be located southeast of the city. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the application on November 13 of that year, but it was more than two years before KORN-TV was built and activated on June 12, 1960. It was a primary affiliate of NBC. The next month, in Sioux Falls, KSOO-TV (the future KSFY-TV) signed on, also an NBC affiliate.
Coinciding with the construction of a new tower in Salem, midway between Mitchell and Sioux Falls, KORN-TV switched to ABC on May 12, 1969, giving the network its first primary affiliate in South Dakota. The signal traveled in a radius from the transmitter site, providing city-grade coverage to 23 counties in eastern South Dakota and giving Sioux Falls full service from all three major networks.
Mitchell Broadcasting sold the station to Buford Television of Tyler, Texas, in 1972 for $775,000. The new owners changed the call sign the next year to KXON-TV, as Mitchell Broadcasting retained the KORN radio stations. Additionally, Buford opened a sales office in downtown Sioux Falls, the station's first physical presence in the city. Buford saw the station through a lengthy reconstruction after the Salem tower was felled in an ice storm on March 27, 1975; ice built up on the tower and, aided by gusting winds, led to its collapse. The station reverted to its original tower in Mitchell before a replacement tower was activated at Salem in mid-1976.