Gray TV Launches 9:00 Newscast in Sioux Falls

Gray TV’s “Dakota News Now” is launching the Sioux Falls market’s only 9 p.m. newscast on Monday, April 6.

The half-hour weeknight newscast will air on CW affiliate KSFY-DT2/13.2, which is carried on cable and satellite providers and relayed on translators and satellite stations across eastern South Dakota. The station reported that it had originally planned to launch the newscast in the fall but moved up the timeline due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Dakota News Now at 9” was one of several additions that Gray TV promised in a request for a waiver to buy NBC affiliate KDLT/46. Earlier this year, KDLT added an hour of news at 4 p.m. and moved its 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts each back a half-hour, offering the only local news in those time slots. It also began simulcasting KSFY from 5 to 7 a.m. and at 10 p.m.

Numerous additional newscasts are still coming, according to the commitments made to the FCC:

• A 7 to 9 a.m. weekday newscast on CW
• An hourlong news and talk show on KSFY at 9 a.m. weekdays
• A half-hour newscast on KDLT at 11 a.m. weekdays
• Weekend morning newscasts on KSFY.

The Sioux Falls market has been one of the only markets in the country without a newscast in the last hour of prime time. KTTW/7 is one of the only FOX affiliates that does not carry news, and market leader KELO-TV/11 has not launched a 9 p.m. newscast on its MyNetworkTV subchannel.

Though “Dakota News Now at 9” will be the only 9:00 newscast in the market, it won’t be the first: PAX affiliate KAUN/36 and successor WB affiliate KWSD/36 aired “Newscenter1 at 9” in the early 2000’s. The newscast originated at KAUN/KWSD’s sister station in Rapid City.