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Outlet profile

Gray Media / KOTA-TV

U.S. center-right (corporate local TV; mostly non-ideological local news)

Owned byKOTA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Rapid City, South Dakota, is owned by Gray Media, Inc. (formerly Gray Television, NYSE: GTN), an Atlanta-based publicly traded company. Gray also owns KHME (MeTV) and low-power KEVN-LD (Fox) in the same market. It is the largest U.S. owner of top-rated local TV stations, in 117 markets reaching about 37% of U.S. households.
FundingMainly local and national advertising, political advertising (which rises in election years), and retransmission-consent fees paid by cable, satellite and streaming distributors. Gray is publicly traded, so shareholders and debt financing also support it. Carriage disputes, such as the one with DISH that ended in 2026, affect its revenue.
On the administrationmostly neutral

Background

KOTA-TV is one of western South Dakota's longest-running TV stations and has been an ABC affiliate for decades. It is now part of Gray Media's large station group. Gray, based in Atlanta, grew through many station purchases and deals in recent years. In 2026 it closed a $171 million purchase of 10 stations from Allen Media Group, after FCC approval. Gray's CEO, Hilton Howell Jr., is often described by critics as aligned with Republican causes, and the company needs FCC approval for deals, which gives it a stake in good relations with the Trump-appointed FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr. In September 2025, Nexstar and Sinclair pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! from their ABC stations after Carr criticized the host, but Gray planned to air the show's return. Local stations like KOTA mostly cover community news, weather and regional politics, and they air national content from ABC. Gray has also been criticized by media-reform groups for consolidation and for shared or centralized content. Overall, its perspective is commercial and local, with a modest right-of-center tilt at the corporate level and little overt editorializing on air. I could not verify KOTA's founding date or its full ownership chain from the sources I consulted, so those details are left out.

Sources

  1. Gray Media stations, including KOTA/KEVN, return to DISH
  2. KOTA-TV (Wikipedia)
  3. Who Owns Gray Media (Free Press)
  4. Gray Media closes deal to acquire Allen Media TV stations (The Desk)
  5. Nexstar-owned ABC affiliates won't show Kimmel's return Tuesday, joining Sinclair in preempting program (CNBC)
  6. FCC Killed the Broadcast TV Ownership Cap (TheWrap)

Profile compiled 2026-10-20; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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