The station first signed on the air on March 15, 1990, as K15CZ; it originally operated as an
independent station. K15CZ formerly operated a
repeater station,
K17DL in Branson; in 2009, that station was transferred to Branson Visitors TV, LLC (a company in which Schurz holds a 50.1-percent interest) and now airs tourist information for the Branson area. The station became a charter affiliate of the United Paramount Network (
UPN) when the network launched on January 16, 1995; the station changed its on-air branding to "UPN 15". In the late 1990s, K15CZ entered into a
local marketing agreement with
South Bend, Indiana-based
Schurz Communications, owners of
NBC affiliate
KYTV (channel 3); Schurz eventually bought the station outright in 2002. On January 24, 2006, the
Warner Bros. unit of
Time Warner and
CBS Corporation announced that the two companies would shut down
The WB and UPN and combine the networks' respective programming to create a new "fifth" network called
The CW. K15CZ became the Springfield market's CW affiliate when the network launched on September 18, 2006;
Harrison, Arkansas-licensed
KWBM (channel 31) became a charter affiliate of
MyNetworkTV, which launched two weeks earlier on September 5 as a secondary replacement for The WB and UPN. In May 2006, the station obtained the website
domain name, theozarkscw.com; this web address redirected to The CW's network website for a time until the station's website officially launched. Since the station was licensed as a low-power translator, it did not originally offer a digital signal of its own. In 2006, KYTV began carrying a
standard definition simulcast of K15CZ; this was subsequently moved to the second digital subchannel of ABC affiliate KSPR-TV (channel 33). The
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted a
construction permit for K15CZ to build digital transmitter facilities, with the digital signal being "
flash-cut" into operation on its former analog UHF channel 15 when the transmitter was completed; the digital license was issued on January 23, 2015. Schurz announced on September 14, 2015, that it would exit broadcasting and sell its television and radio stations, including K15CZ-D, KYTV, and the SSA with KSPR, to
Gray Television for $442.5 million. On March 10, 2016, K15CZ-D was authorized by the FCC to change their call letters to KYCW-LD. The call letters were again changed, to KSPR-LD, on February 1, 2017. This was in accordance with the deal that saw Schurz sell its entire television division, including KYTV, to Gray. As part of the deal, KYTV ended its joint sales agreement with KSPR-TV, and Gray entered the channel 33 license into the FCC's
broadcast incentive auction. Also as part of the deal, the original KSPR changed its call letters to
KGHZ, while the
KYCW-LD call sign was transferred to K25BD-D (channel 25) in Branson. Shortly after the change in callsigns, the KSPR intellectual unit, including the ABC affiliation, moved to KSPR-LD, while KGHZ began airing
Antenna TV programming. KSPR-LD also traded virtual channel positions with KGHZ, with KGHZ's primary subchannel becoming 15.1 and KSPR-LD's becoming 33.1. On May 31, 2017; Gray signed off KGHZ and returned its license to the FCC. During the transition, KSPR's operations remained unchanged, though over-the-air viewers were asked to rescan their televisions in order to continue watching the station. However, few viewers actually lost access to ABC programming due to the high penetration of cable and satellite, which are all but essential for acceptable television in this vast and mountainous market. ==News operation==