Channel 11 signed on the air January 11, 1999, as KAUP, a
Fox affiliate; on April 5, the call letters were changed to KFFX-TV. It was the first full-powered VHF station in what had previously been a "
UHF island". It was also the first station on the Tri-Cities side of the market not to be a satellite of a station in
Yakima. The station replaced KBWU-LP (channel 66), a low-power semi-satellite of
KAYU-TV in
Spokane (which was carried by cable providers throughout southeastern Washington and northeastern Oregon); KCYU-LP was also a semi-satellite of KAYU before the launch of KFFX. KBWU (which originally had the call sign K66BW, though it was referred to as "KBW" outside of
station identifications) had been on the air since October 1, 1989; that station, now KBWU-LD (channel 36), is now a translator of KFFX. Initially, the KFFX-TV license was owned by Communication Properties; Northwest Broadcasting, through its Mountain Broadcasting subsidiary, operated the station under a
local marketing agreement. Northwest filed to acquire KFFX outright in November 1999; however, the sale, approved on September 27, 2000, was not completed until January 14, 2003, because Northwest was required to divest another full-power television station in the Tri-Cities market, KBKI (channel 9, later known as
KCWK) in
Walla Walla, in order to complete its purchase of KFFX. KBKI was ultimately acquired by
Pappas Telecasting. In February 2019,
Reuters reported that
Apollo Global Management had agreed to acquire the entirety of Brian Brady's television portfolio, which it intended to merge with
Cox Media Group (which Apollo acquired at the same time) and stations spun off from
Nexstar Media Group's purchase of
Tribune Broadcasting, once the purchases were approved by the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In March 2019 filings with the FCC, Apollo confirmed that its newly-formed broadcasting group, Terrier Media, would acquire Northwest Broadcasting, with Brian Brady holding an unspecified minority interest in Terrier. In June 2019, it was announced that Terrier Media would instead operate as Cox Media Group, as Apollo had reached a deal to also acquire Cox's radio and advertising businesses. The transaction was completed on December 17. On March 29, 2022, Cox Media Group announced it would sell KFFX-TV, KCYU-LD and 16 other stations to
Imagicomm Communications, an affiliate of the parent company of the
INSP cable channel, for $488 million; the sale was completed on August 1. the deal was consummated on July 18. On April 1, 2026, KFFX's intellectual unit (Fox affiliation, branding, and
syndicated programming) moved to the third subchannel of
KEPR-TV. As a result, Roar moved to KFFX's main subchannel. ==Newscasts==