KLML signed on the air on October 22, 1979, as KJCT, the first television station in Western Colorado since
KREX-TV in 1954. It was owned by the Pikes Peak Broadcasting Company as a
semi-satellite of fellow ABC affiliate
KRDO-TV in
Colorado Springs. Before channel 8's sign-on, all three major networks had been shoehorned onto KREX-TV. However, cable viewers could watch the full ABC schedule via
Denver's KBTV (channel 9, now
KUSA). The station had full production facilities in Grand Junction; however, much of the programming was fed via hundreds of miles of microwave links from KRDO. In the late 1990s, KJCT chief engineer Roger Hightower modernized KJCT into one of the first true digital facilities in Colorado, and severed the electronic umbilical cord with KRDO. KJCT was the first Western Colorado television station with modern
electronic news gathering technology. "8 Live," the stations' first live microwave newsvan, came into service in 1984. In 2006,
News-Press & Gazette Company announced the purchase of KJCT along with KRDO-TV and
KRDO radio from Pikes Peak Broadcasting. As of January 2007, KJCT added a new second subchannel carrying
Telemundo programming. In late 2008, KJCT's third digital subcarrier became western Colorado's affiliate for
The CW. However, despite The CW being available locally, Denver's
KWGN-TV, which has been on cable for decades in Grand Junction, is still available through two low-powered repeaters in the area. On August 2, 2013, News Press & Gazette announced the sale of KJCT's license assets to Excalibur Broadcasting and its non-license assets to
Gray Television; Excalibur is owned by former Gray executive, Don Ray. Gray planned to operate the station through
joint sales and shared services agreements, making KJCT a sister station to
KKCO. The sale was completed on October 31. This was NPG's first broadcast divestiture since the sale of its original group of five stations to
New Vision Television in 1993. In the wake of the FCC's increased scrutiny towards virtual duopolies, Gray announced that it would move KJCT's programming to a subchannel of KKCO, and sell KJCT to a
minority owned broadcaster, which would operate the station autonomously from KJCT or any other broadcaster. On August 27, 2014, Gray announced that it would sell KJCT to Jeff Chang and Gabriela Gomez-Chang, owner of
KQSL. On October 28, 2014, the call sign became KGBY; this change was temporary and was reverted to KJCT in November 19, 2014, with the permanent change to KGBY slated to occur upon the completion of the sale. A week earlier, on October 21, the FCC approved a swap of virtual channels between KJCT/KGBY and a co-owned low-power station in Grand Junction, KKHD-LP (channel 20), that Gray simultaneously acquired; as a result, KGBY uses PSIP to map to virtual channel 20, while KKHD inherited virtual channel 8, as well as KJCT's ABC programming. The swap was intended to reduce viewer confusion that would otherwise result from a move of ABC programming. The sale was completed on December 15, at which point the KGBY call sign returned. Earlier that year, the station switched to
Court TV, moving
Cozi TV to the fourth subchannel. The KGBY-LD call sign was then placed by Chang on the construction permit formerly known as K10QV-D at
Palm Springs, California, which he had purchased earlier in the year. ==News operation==