KCAU-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Sioux City, Iowa, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Nexstar Media Group.

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.

[2] 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.

[2] The 1909 structure had previously functioned as Sioux City's municipal auditorium, a meeting place for fraternal organizations, and as the Tomba Ballroom.

[10] In late 1957, Cowles sold WNAX and KVTV to the Peoples Broadcasting Corporation, a subsidiary of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, for $3 million.

[11] KVTV began producing a regular series of bowling telecasts in conjunction with KELO-TV of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

[12] 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.

[14][15] That December, after seven years of joint work and the withdrawal of an objection by KQTV in Fort Dodge,[16] KVTV moved to a new tower near Hinton, Iowa, that it co-owned with KTIV.

William F. Turner served as general manager of KCAU-TV from 1966 to 1985, and the station spent most of that time as the market leader in Sioux City; at its height, it had a nearly 2-to-1 ratings lead over KTIV.

[25] Days after closing on the purchase, Lombardo put his stamp on the station on November 18, 1985, firing 22 staffers in what a front-page headline of the Sioux City Journal termed a "purge" of a third of the staff; he was reported to have called KCAU-TV "hemorrhaging" and in need of "major surgery".

Among those to lose their jobs was Jim Henry;[10] Canyon Kid's Corner, by then a weekly show,[29] was canceled after 32 years on the air and more than 70,000 guests.

[31] The deal, which would add 463,000 viewers to the station's potential audience, did not include KBGT's satellite studio in Lincoln, Nebraska.

[41] On September 16, 2013, Citadel announced that it would sell KCAU-TV, along with WOI-DT in Des Moines and WHBF-TV in Rock Island, Illinois, to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group for $88 million.

[42] Citadel's sale of the three stations followed Phil Lombardo's decision to "slow down", as well as a desire by Lynch Entertainment, an investor in WOI and WHBF, to sell.