KMEG

KMEG (channel 14) is a television station in Sioux City, Iowa, United States, affiliated with the digital multicast network Dabl.

Medallion Broadcasters, Inc., applied to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in November 1966 seeking authority to build a television station on ultra high frequency (UHF) channel 14 in Sioux City.

Medallion, a group of northwest Iowa residents, sought to bring the missing ABC network to Sioux City.

[2] The group was headed by Robert Donovan, longtime sales manager of one of the two existing stations in Sioux City, KVTV (channel 9, now KCAU-TV).

[4] Construction then began, with Medallion taking up space in a building at Seventh Street and Floyd Boulevard previously used by a coffee company.

President Fred Thompson noted that the family-owned broadcaster chose KMEG for its first expansion outside New England because it was "small, controllable and affordable".

[22][23] After one season, KMEG began to air the program beginning in September 1994;[24] the "home office" formally left Iowa in 1995.

[25] After decades of broadcasting, the Rines-Thompson family that owned Maine Radio and Television Company made the decision in the late 1990s to exit the business.

It moved its antenna to a tower being built by a new Siouxland television station, KPTH (channel 44), to improve its signal quality.

Pappas assumed operations of KMEG and moved KPTH into the Dakota Dunes studios from its offices in South Sioux City, Nebraska.

[34] In November 2007, Waitt announced it would sell KMEG to Siouxland Television, LLC, with Pappas continuing to operate it as part of the deal.

However, Pappas's Sioux City duopoly was among the company's thirteen stations which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May 2008.

On January 16, 2009, it was announced that several of the Pappas stations involved in the bankruptcy (including KPTH) would be sold to New World TV Group (also known as Titan Broadcast Management or Titan TV Broadcast Group) after the transaction received United States bankruptcy court approval; New World/Titan also took over their operations while the sale was completed.

It made little headway in the ratings, however; by the time channel 14 was on the air, Sioux City viewers already had formed news habits watching long-established KTIV and KCAU-TV.

[42] In 1993, the station began airing regular weather updates, including the hiring of two meteorologists to produce custom forecasts.