KAAL TV Austin MN

KAAL is an ABC-affiliated television station licensed to Austin, Minnesota, United States, serving Southeastern Minnesota and Northeastern Iowa. It broadcasts a high definition digital signal on UHF channel 33 (or virtual channel 6 via PSIP) from a transmitter in Grand Meadow Township, Minnesota.

Owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, KAAL has studios on Salem Road in Rochester, Minnesota. KAAL is the ABC-affiliated television station for the Driftless Area of Southeastern Minnesota and Northeastern Iowa. KAAL TV 6 began broadcasting on August 17, 1953 as KMMT. The station, along with KAUS AM 1480, was owned by three Austin-area businessmen. The calls didn't originally stand for anything, but were picked at random by the Federal Communications Commission. Blackhawk Broadcasting of Waterloo, Iowa bought KMMT and KAUS in 1957.

Channel 6's calls became KAUS-TV (for AUStin) in 1968, after its radio sister. In 1975, Blackhawk sold KAUS-AM, and KAUS-TV became KAAL, representing Austin and Albert Lea (a nearby city). Blackhawk sold KAAL to the News-Press & Gazette Company of St. Joseph, Missouri in 1980. Dix Communications bought the station five years later, and sold it again to Grapevine Communications in 1997. Grapevine renamed itself GOCOM in 2000. Hubbard Broadcasting Corporation purchased KAAL from GOCOM on January 1, 2001.