Forum Communications' entry into Sioux Falls broadcast market latest evolution in South Dakota media

Fargo-based company buying TV stations in state's largest city

An announcement by Forum Communications Co. that it is buying an established independent television station in Sioux Falls marks the latest turn in a rapidly evolving media market in South Dakota’s largest city.

The Fargo-based company, which owns newspapers and television stations in the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin, will buy KWSD-TV, channel 36, a high-power channel. The deal also includes a low-power station, call sign KCWS-TV.

Forum has been probing its way into the Sioux Falls market for a long time, and this summer it established a beachhead when it hired Patrick Lalley, the former news director of the Argus Leader, as a Sioux Falls-based reporter.

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