KHME (channel 23) is a television station in Rapid City, South Dakota, United States, affiliated with the classic television network MeTV. It is owned by Gray Television alongside ABC affiliate KOTA-TV (channel 3) and low-power Fox affiliate KEVN-LD (channel 7). The stations share studios on Skyline Drive in Rapid City, where KHME's transmitter is also located. KHME also operates a full-power satellite in Lead, South Dakota, KQME (channel 10), which can also be seen over-the-air in Rapid City. KQME's transmitter is located atop Terry Peak. History KHME debuted on the air as KOTA-TV, with test operations on June 1, 1955, with regular programming beginning one month later on July 1. It was the second television station in South Dakota, and the first in the western part of the state. The station was owned by Rapid City businesswoman Helen Duhamel, and was a sister station to CBS Radio Network affiliate KOTA (1380 AM). Duhamel bought a minority stake in the radio station in 1943 and gradually expanded her holdings until she bought full control in 1954. Channel 3 originally carried programming from all three networks, though it was a primary CBS television affiliate. Helen's son William (Bill) Duhamel would become KOTA-TV's president and general manager in 1976. When KRSD-TV, the original channel 7 in Rapid City, signed on in 1958, it took the NBC affiliation, sharing ABC with KOTA-TV. In 1965, channel 3 took on an unusual "joint primary" affiliation with CBS and ABC, slightly favoring CBS. It was certainly quite a struggle to fit as many network shows as possible onto the schedule, especially in the daytime, so KRSD-TV had to take up some of the slack. But channel 7 always had a painfully weak signal which, by 1966, had deteriorated to the point of unacceptability. For this reason, and at NBC's insistence, the two stations switched affiliations on September 13, 1970, making KOTA-TV a joint-primary affiliate of ABC and NBC. A year later, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) would yank KRSD-TV's license due to its inadequate technical quality; that station's owner would fight the decision, but finally gave up and ceased operations on February 29, 1976. For the next several months, KOTA-TV had only PBS station KBHE-TV (channel 9) as a competitor. But when the new channel 7, KEVN-TV, opened on July 11, 1976, it took all ABC programming; KOTA-TV kept its NBC primary affiliation and added a secondary