KRSD-TV
KRSD-TV and KDSJ-TV were television stations broadcasting on channel 7 at Rapid City, South Dakota, and channel 5 at Lead, South Dakota, United States. Owned by Heart of the Black Hills Stations, the two stations went on air in 1958 and 1960, respectively, and ceased broadcasting in 1976. Their licenses were not renewed by the Federal Communications Commission as a result of a years-long proceeding involving serial deficiencies in their technical operation.
History
KRSD-TV began telecasting the evening of January 21, 1958. It was co-owned with KRSD in Rapid City and KDSJ in Deadwood and debuted from new radio and television studios located on Mountain View Road. KRSD-TV was the second station on air in Rapid City and was a primary NBC affiliate. With the Rapid City station on the air, Heart of the Black Hills Stations began construction the next year on the satellite station at Lead, which went into service on January 6, 1960. By this time, KRSD-KDSJ was splitting ABC programming with its competitor, KOTA-TV.In 1965, the Federal Communications Commission adopted new network non-duplication rules for cable systems. These new policies protected local stations from competition by out-of-town imported stations by requiring the local station to be shown over any other station carrying the same programming. The Black Hills Video Corporation system in Rapid City cable system had dropped KRSD-TV and resumed carriage of KOA-TV Denver; it then resumed carrying KRSD-TV in place of KOA-TV on December 31, 1965. Within hours, the system, which served Rapid City and Ellsworth Air Force Base, received 110 calls demanding it reverse the move, and 15 subscribers canceled their service, in what Broadcasting magazine termed an "uprising"; the FCC allowed the station to drop KRSD-TV again after an engineer was dispatched from the FCC's field office in Denver and agreed that KRSD-TV's incoming signal was inadequate.
Signal and regulatory problems continued. In September 1966 and October 1967, the FCC issued notices of violation to KRSD-TV and KDSJ-TV; the FCC field engineer from Denver said that, of 40 stations he had inspected, they were "the poorest he had found in the entire district". The next year, the commission designated the two stations' license renewals for hearings, seeking to determine if the management was so "negligent, careless, or inept" that it could not be relied upon to serve as a licensee. In March 1969, hearings were held in Rapid City, at which scores of witnesses appeared. The head of the Rapid City chamber of commerce stated that local viewers were disappointed in the performance of the Heart of the Black Hills stations; Eli Daniels, one of the two owners of the company, said the Associated Press report had mischaracterized his testimony and did not take a stand in favor of or against renewal.
In July 1970, an FCC examiner recommended a probationary one-year license renewal for KRSD-TV and KDSJ-TV. Another major change occurred that year: the station exchanged primary network affiliations with KOTA-TV on September 13, switching from NBC to CBS, apparently after KOTA and NBC struck a deal.
The chief of the FCC's Broadcast Bureau, however, objected to the renewal proposal, and by the time the commission heard oral argument in October 1971, three more notices of violation had been issued, one to Rapid City and two to the Lead station, on top of the 1966 and 1967 violations and additional notices issued in 1969. For the commission, the litany of violations accumulated over the stations' time on air, from faulty tower lighting and spurious emissions to poorly kept logs and low-power broadcasts, plus a petition signed by 2,000 Rapid City viewers in 1967, merited denial of the stations' license renewals because they had deprived the public of service. It was the first time a television station had been denied license renewal on technical grounds.
Heart of the Black Hills Stations—which had sold KRSD radio earlier in the year—immediately announced its plans to appeal and expressed disappointment that the FCC had not approved an application to improve its facilities. Daniels stated that, if the FCC had allowed it to install a new antenna, it could have raised the funds needed to replace its transmitter. It charged that the station had received letters saying its picture was good, though most in actuality concerned the availability of CBS network fare and of two competing stations in the Rapid City market.
After the FCC denied a petition for reconsideration, Heart of the Black Hills took the case to federal appeals court, which upheld the decision in February 1973. In the wake of that ruling, a new company, Dakota Broadcasting Company, formed to seek new licenses for channels 7 and 5 and proposed an entirely new operation without using any of the facilities involved in broadcasting KRSD-TV or KDSJ-TV. The commission accepted Dakota's application in late May and set a period for potential other applicants to file. Heart of the Black Hills continued to fight, putting letter cards to mail to Congress in support of KRSD-TV in the Rapid City Journal newspaper.
Two applicants proposed to replace KRSD-TV and KDSJ-TV: Dakota Broadcasting and Western Television, a group with investors from Sturgis and Sioux Falls. Both sought interim operation while the FCC decided the fate of their applications; the two companies had a series of disagreements on technical issues, and the FCC ordered them to craft a joint proposal. The commission proposed to give Western interim authority if it allowed Dakota to join it. While Western hoped to be on the air by the end of the year, Western's plans hit a major snag after the death of Morton Henkin, chairman of its board of directors, in August. That event prompted the National Bank of South Dakota to advise Western that its $650,000 loan agreement would need to be renegotiated, which in turn led Dakota to ask for more financial information from Western. In October, that company's stockholders then withdrew their application.
The FCC finally granted construction permits for new channel 7 and 5 TV stations to Dakota in May 1975. The Heart of the Black Hills stations were allowed to remain on the air until Dakota could start broadcasting, but their financial difficulties ultimately forced them to make an early exit. On February 18, 1976, the company announced that KRSD-TV and KDSJ-TV would leave the air on February 29, due to increased operational costs, but Dakota would not be ready to begin broadcasts until July.
Rapid City was left with just one television station for more than four months, causing the local cable company to record a surge in new subscribers. Two-station service was restored when KEVN and KIVV, branded as "Action 7 & 5", began telecasting July 11, 1976 as primary ABC affiliates. In June 1980, a judge awarded the Associated Press a $1,210 judgment for services rendered to the former KRSD-TV after a breach of contract suit against Heart of the Black Hills Stations seeking payments for the wire service used by KDSJ radio and KRSD-TV.
KOTA and KEVN carried some CBS programming in Rapid City, but the market would not have a full-time CBS affiliate until KELO-TV of Sioux Falls established a translator in Rapid City in 1981. The Rapid City KELO translator and KGGG-FM used KRSD-TV's former tower, which Daniels continued to own. The KDSJ-TV transmitter building burned in a 1981 fire.