On December 1, 1997, KVMD launched on analog channel 31 with
America One programming. Its original analog signal was weak and could not generally be received beyond Twentynine Palms and
Yucca Valley. However, it sought and obtained carriage on many cable systems throughout Southern California, as well as
satellite TV, due to its location on the outskirts of the Los Angeles DMA and
Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
must-carry rules. On July 29, 2002, its digital signal went on the air on channel 23. This signal is much stronger, potentially reaching 80 times as many viewers over the air as its analog signal, and covering most of the
Inland Empire. It also reaches much of
Los Angeles,
Orange and northern
San Diego counties. On June 1, 2003, KVMD became the first station in the country to shut off its analog channel and go digital-only, in support of the government-mandated
digital transition. On June 1, 2008, KVMD started to air ARTN Armenian programming every night. On August 31, 2017, KVMD discontinued ARTN programming and moved to cable-only; KVMD also switched to
Almavision programming. In December 2017, it was announced that the station will become the Los Angeles market's
LATV affiliate on January 1, 2018, replacing
KJLA, which became the market's new
Azteca América affiliate. On July 1, 2021, KVMD replaced its affiliation with LATV on its main channel with
New Tang Dynasty Television (NTD). The former LATV affiliation moved to its fifth subchannel. On October 20, 2023, NTD pulled its affiliation from KVMD’s main channel. The programming has been replaced with infomercials. KVMD began to carry the
Phil McGraw-backed
Merit Street Media on its debut day, April 2, 2024, under a programming agreement with the
Trinity Broadcasting Network to assure main-channel
must-carry coverage of the network on pay-TV providers throughout the Los Angeles market. TBN flagship
KTBN-TV (channel 40) carries Merit Street on its second subchannel, but as it also asks for must-carry coverage which disallows subchannel carriage, would have had to make separate agreements with providers to carry the network otherwise. In June 2025, KVMD disaffiliated from Merit TV due to a payment dispute with Merit Street Media, and replaced the programming with infomercials. ==Subchannels==