Citadel ownership
Wesray intended all along to sell some of Forward's television properties and its four radio stations, and KCAU-TV was the first to find a buyer. In July 1985, KCAU-TV was purchased for $14 million by Citadel Communications, a company owned by Phil Lombardo.[26] General manager Turner exited, receiving a standing ovation from staff. 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; Canyon Kid's Corner, by then a weekly show,[27] was canceled after 32 years on the air and more than 70,000 guests.[28]
Citadel sought to expand KCAU-TV's circulation to the southwest. In 1986, the company acquired KBGT-TV, a struggling independent station in Albion, Nebraska, from the Amaturo Group, and converted it into a satellite station as KCAN (call letters that matched KCAU-TV and also reflected the major cities served of Columbus, Albion, and Norfolk).[29] The FCC approved the deal because it agreed with Citadel's contention that Albion could not support its own TV station, and ABC approved extending the affiliation because some of the households reached by its transmitter did not receive ABC from another station.[30] The deal, which would add 463,000 viewers to the station's potential audience, did not include KBGT's satellite studio in Lincoln, Nebraska.[31]
KCAN continued as a complement to KCAU-TV for more than a decade, but beginning in 1991, Citadel began efforts to move the station south to Lincoln, which only had one full-service commercial TV station.[32] A new UHF station would replace it at Albion.[33] KOLN, the existing commercial station in Lincoln, and several stations in Omaha challenged the proposal, but the FCC gave initial approval in April 1993[34] and final approval in June 1995.[35] It became a standalone station, KLKN, on April 1, 1996.[36] KCAU-TV was the initial advertising sales and marketing partner for the local The WB 100+ Station Group station, "KXWB", when it launched in 1998.[37]
