On February 26, 1953, the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) simultaneously issued construction permits to the owners of radio station
KID for channel 3 and
KIFI for channel 8. It intended at that time to broadcast its signal from the KIFI radio studio and transmitter site on North Yellowstone Highway. However, KIFI's ownership at the time consisted of multiple people: Frank C. Carman, Grant R. Wrathall, and Edna O. Powers. Each had an interest in five TV outlets, but together they owned seven—more than allowed by FCC regulations introduced in late 1953. In October 1954, the permit for what had been designated as KIFT—along with those of co-owned stations in
Boise and
Pocatello—was surrendered to the FCC on economic grounds. In 1955, the J. Robb Brady Trust, owner of
The Post Register newspaper, acquired KIFI and co-owned
KWIK in Pocatello from the Carman–Wrathall–Powers group, which at the same time sold some of its other stations to newspapers in Utah. Less than two years later, the new KIFI ownership made a move to establish a TV station. On August 9, 1957, the Eastern Idaho Broadcasting and Television Company, the licensee of KIFI, applied for channel 8. Sam Bennion became a competing applicant in February 1959, but an FCC examiner dismissed his bid that December for failure to prosecute and granted the
construction permit to KIFI. KIFI-TV began broadcasting on January 23, 1961. The station was an affiliate of
NBC, having signed for network affiliation in November 1960. In making a deal with channel 8, NBC cut off the second television station to start in Eastern Idaho,
KTLE (channel 6) in Pocatello. It was claimed that KIFI offered a better, higher-power signal to Eastern Idaho than KTLE. NBC also alleged that Idaho Falls was an easier sell than Pocatello to network sponsors; KTLE executive director L. John Miner noted that Pocatello had not been a city with a station until channel 6 signed on, compared to Idaho Falls, which already had
KID-TV (channel 3). KTLE attempted to obtain ABC affiliation in a final effort to keep the station viable, but ABC was already affiliated with KID-TV. KTLE shut down on January 23, 1961, when KIFI-TV came to air. In 1962, KIFI aired the first live remote basketball telecast in Idaho, from Reed Gym at
Idaho State University in Pocatello. The station was first locally with color cameras, computerized election returns, and
stereo sound. From 1971 to 1977 and again from 1980 to 1981,
Lloyd Lindsay Young worked as KIFI-TV's weather presenter. The former DJ, known for his unconventional presentation of local weather, caught his big break when the manager of a San Francisco station watched his forecasts while skiing at
Sun Valley. On September 21, 1995, KIFI announced its plan to switch network affiliation to ABC in January 1996. General manager Rickie Orchin Brady cited ABC's higher network news ratings as the impetus for the switch. By this time, KIFI had the number-one local newscasts in the market.
News-Press & Gazette Company ownership and consolidation with KIDK The Brady family sold KIFI-TV to the
News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG) in 2005. In announcing the $2.5 million transaction, Orchin Brady noted that the increasing consolidation of the TV station industry had increased the cost of equipment and programming beyond what a standalone station could pay. In 2009, the station acquired
The CW affiliation for the Idaho Falls–Pocatello market. NPG entered into a
shared services agreement to operate KIDK, then owned by
Fisher Communications, in December 2010. Operations of the two stations were combined, with 27 of 43 KIDK employees being laid off and another 14 joining KIFI. When the agreement took effect in January 2011, KIDK's news offerings were reorganized to reduce overlap with KIFI. In 2013, KIDK was sold to VistaWest Media, a company whose principal had previously worked for NPG; the CBS affiliation and programming moved to a subchannel of KIFI on January 1, 2021. ==Technical information==