The station signed on for the first time on May 15, 1954, as KGLO-TV, owned by
Lee Enterprises along with the
Globe Gazette and KGLO radio (
1300 AM and 101.1 FM). On the station's first day, reception of its analog signal on
VHF channel 3 was reported as far away as
Gary, Indiana. The original
effective radiated power of 100,000
watts was the maximum amount permitted on the heritage allotment. It was affiliated with CBS owing to its radio sister's long affiliation with CBS Radio, but also carried a secondary relation with
DuMont until 1956, when that network ceased operations. In August 1977, the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that one company could not own all the media outlets in a city, forcing Lee Enterprises to break up its cluster in Mason City. As a result, KGLO radio was sold to BY Communications in 1977 and the television station was renamed KIMT (standing for "Iowa Minnesota Television") on August 1. In 1980, it was sold to the Shott family of
Bluefield, West Virginia, and their
Daily Telegraph Printing Company. However, in 1984, they sold KIMT and
WBTW in
Florence, South Carolina, to Spartan Radiocasting Company (later to become
Spartan Communications). Early in the morning on June 27, 1995, KIMT news anchor
Jodi Huisentruit was abducted outside her apartment while on her way to work. She has not been found and the case remains unsolved to this day. Spartan merged with
Media General in 2000. KIMT's digital signal on UHF channel 42 launched in May 2002 and added high definition capabilities from the network during that summer. KIMT celebrated its 50th anniversary on May 15, 2004, with flashbacks and other special programming. On October 18, 2018, KIMT moved to channel 24 as part of the FCC repack. On April 6, 2006, Media General announced it would sell KIMT as part of the company's acquisition of four
NBC owned-and-operated stations. On August 2,
New Vision Television made public it had bought KIMT and sister station
WIAT in
Birmingham, Alabama, for $35 million. That company's acquisition of the two outlets was finalized on October 12, 2006. As part of the
analog to digital transition in 2009, the station opted to keep its analog channel on-air until the revised June 12 deadline. After the transition (which occurred at 12:12 p.m.), KIMT planned to continue using digital channel 42 and filed paperwork with the FCC to eventually increase that signal's output power from 200 to 800
kW which would more effectively fill its coverage footprint. On May 7, 2012,
LIN TV Corporation announced that it would acquire the New Vision Television station group, including KIMT, for $330.4 million and the assumption of $12 million in debt. On October 2, the FCC approved the proposed sale to LIN TV. The transaction was finalized on October 12, 2012. On March 21, 2014, Media General announced that it would acquire LIN. The merger was completed on December 19, making KIMT a Media General property once again, and marking the third ownership change for the station in less than a decade. In September 2015, Media General announced the acquisition of
Meredith Corporation in a cash and stock deal valued at $2.4 billion. Upon completion of the deal, KIMT, along with
Davenport sister station and NBC affiliate
KWQC-TV, would have become Meredith's first television stations in its home state of Iowa. However, on January 27, 2016, it was announced that the
Nexstar Broadcasting Group would buy Media General for $4.6 billion. KIMT would have become part of "Nexstar Media Group", joining a cluster of Nexstar stations serving Iowa including ABC affiliates
WOI-DT in
Des Moines and
KCAU-TV in
Sioux City, and CBS affiliate
WHBF-TV in the
Quad Cities. On June 13, 2016, Nexstar announced that it would sell KIMT and four other stations to
Heartland Media, through its USA Television MidAmerica Holdings
joint venture with MSouth Equity Partners, for $115 million; the sale was required to allow Nexstar to comply with FCC ownership caps following the merger. The deal was consummated upon the approval of Nexstar's merger with Media General on January 17, 2017. On October 1, 2019,
Allen Media Broadcasting, a subsidiary of
Entertainment Studios, announced that it would acquire KIMT and 10 other Heartland stations for $290 million. The sale was approved by the FCC on November 22, 2019. On June 1, 2025, amid financial woes and rising debt, Allen Media Group announced that it would explore "strategic options" for the company, such as a sale of its television stations (including KIMT).
July 2015 carriage dispute with Mediacom On July 14, 2015, KIMT and its
digital subchannels were pulled from the North Iowa region's
Mediacom cable systems due to a
carriage dispute over
retransmission consent fees between Mediacom and KIMT owner Media General. This carriage dispute was part of an ongoing disagreement nationwide between Mediacom and Media General, which saw Media General stations in 14 television markets in the United States pulled from Mediacom cable systems and even three
Fox affiliates owned by Media General were lost to Mediacom subscribers in
Hampton Roads, Virginia,
Terre Haute, Indiana, and
Topeka, Kansas just before the start of the
2015 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. On July 30, 2015, Mediacom and Media General reached a new agreement, thereby restoring KIMT and its digital subchannels to North Iowa area Mediacom subscribers. ==News operation==