KCAU 9 is ready to sign-off from Douglas Street and leave the building that has housed KCAU for 60 year.
Great things are ahead as we prepare to bring you a new caliber of news from our state of the art facility on Gordon Drive. But, we can’t move forward with out looking back at where it all started.
The year was 1953, and entertainment at home revolved around the radio.
So when the idea came to build Western Iowa’s only television station right here in Sioux City, there were some skeptics.
Roger Miller says, “We weren’t really sure that television was really going to make it.”
Miller, a radio-trained audio engineer, was hand picked to help put KVTV on the air. He switched on the mic during the first broadcast on March 19th, 1953. After the first show, he only had one question.
“‘Who’s that guy over there who swears at everyone and pushes all those buttons and tells everybody what to do?’ He said, ‘well, he’s the director.’ I said, ‘that’s what I’d like to do.”
Two months later, he became one.
The original studio for KVTV was built in a converted tire store on Pierce Street. Just a few years later, the station moved into its next home, 625 Douglas Street: the old Sioux City Auditorium and former Tomba Ballroom.
The news content ranged from the stock yard to entertainment. As popularity grew for segments like Jim Henry’s “The Canyon Kid,” the skeptics began to drop off.
Decades later, TV has stood the test of time, and so has KCAU. While the look has changed and people have come and gone, we’re proud to carry on the legacy started more than 60 years ago in Downtown Sioux City and in the place we’ll launch the next 60 years of being Siouxland Proud.
