Early years The station signed on December 28, 1992, as KHDT-TV, airing an analog signal on VHF channel 9. The launch allowed KHDT-TV to beat a year-end deadline to get on the air. It was originally owned by William Schuyler, who had put several television stations on the air in California, and was affiliated with the Home Shopping Network (
HSN). On January 16, 1995, it became a charter
UPN affiliate while continuing to air HSN from midnight to 6 p.m. Schuyler sold KHDT-TV in 1996 to Boise Broadcasting, a division of Las Vegas-based Lambert Television. On September 2, 1996, the station dropped most of its home shopping programming for a general-entertainment independent lineup and became an affiliate of UPN and
The WB. In commercials, the station's mascot was Boise DJ Brad Rowen under the alias "Rot Wyler", fitting with the "canine" pronunciation of the call sign; the station's website called him "Idaho's most misunderstood no news anchor" and promised, "If there's news in the Treasure Valley, be assured K9-TV will miss it!" The station was operated by Banks Broadcasting by 2000; Banks then purchased the station in 2001. In the wake of the 2006 merger of UPN and The WB into
The CW, KNIN-TV became the network's Boise affiliate.
Journal ownership and Fox affiliation On July 1, 2008, Banks Broadcasting announced that it had agreed to sell KNIN to
Journal Communications (owner of KIVI and four FM and two AM radio stations), creating Boise's first television
duopoly and marking Banks's exit from the television business. However, it was unclear how Journal was going to justify the purchase to the FCC because Boise had too few unique station owners to permit a duopoly. While the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) initially rejected the application on November 10, 2008, stating Journal had not successfully shown that KNIN-TV was a "failing station" that could be rolled into a duopoly, shortly afterward, Banks Broadcasting filed an appeal, and on January 16, 2009, the FCC reversed its decision, allowing the deal to go through. The purchase closed on April 24; some KNIN-TV employees were laid off after the sale. After a dispute involving affiliation fees, Fox announced in May 2011 that it would discontinue its affiliation with
KTRV-TV (channel 12) and move its programming to KNIN-TV in September. It was one of two affiliation changes for the same reason made by Fox at that time, along with another in
Evansville, Indiana. CW Plus programming moved to
KYUU-LP and a subchannel of CBS affiliate
KBOI-TV. On July 30, 2014, the
E. W. Scripps Company announced it would acquire Journal Communications in an all-stock transaction and then spin off both companies' print assets. Originally, KNIN-TV, KIVI-TV and five radio stations were not included in the merger; in September, Journal filed to transfer these stations to Journal/Scripps Divestiture Trust (with Kiel Media Group as trustee). The merger was completed on April 1, 2015, and Kiel Media Group assumed the operations of the license; Scripps retained KIVI-TV and the radio stations. On May 7, 2015,
Raycom Media agreed to purchase KNIN-TV for $14.5 million; Scripps then entered into a
shared services agreement to allow KIVI to continue to provide services to KNIN-TV, the second such agreement between Scripps and Raycom after
one in
West Palm Beach, Florida. The sale was completed on October 1, 2015. Raycom Media merged with
Gray Television in January 2019.
Sale to Marquee Broadcasting Gray Television announced on February 15, 2023, that it would trade KNIN-TV to
Marquee Broadcasting in exchange for Marquee's
WPGA-TV serving the
Macon, Georgia, market. The station swap would complete a key objective for Gray by giving it a full-service station in every market in Georgia, the company's home state. The swap was completed on May 1, 2023. ==Newscasts==