Early history The station first signed on the air on November 3, 1993, as KNWS-TV, a
24-hour all-news station that was owned by Douglas R. Johnson through his
Johnson Broadcasting company. the station abandoned its all-news format entirely on January 1, 1998, and became a traditional
independent station, broadcasting syndicated classic television series and movies, as well as
Houston Astros baseball games (many of the games were also simulcast on sister station
KLDT in
Lake Dallas, Texas). It also maintained local news updates, using the remains of the station's old newsroom. During this time, the station adopted the slogan "TV 51 Has The Shows You Know". By 2000, however, some of the programming had been dropped in favor of
infomercials, a trend that would continue over the next decade. The Astros remained on KNWS until 2008, when the team's game telecasts moved to
KTXH (channel 20). Some
NBC shows that
KPRC-TV (channel 2) declined to air also aired on KNWS. Two such NBC programs were the daytime
talk show Leeza, which briefly aired on KNWS in 1998, and the
soap opera Passions, which also briefly aired on the station in 2001. In
1996, KNWS carried
NBC Sports coverage of
Notre Dame football home games as well as the
Breeders' Cup. In 2000, KNWS carried Game 6 of the
American League Championship Series (coincidentally, the last
MLB game aired by NBC to date). During the non-stop coverage of 2005's
Hurricane Rita on Houston's news-producing stations, KNWS carried
CBS network programs, on behalf of its local affiliate,
KHOU (channel 11), which preempted them in order to run special coverage of the storm. KNWS repeated this pattern during
Hurricane Ike.
Sale to Una Vez Más Johnson Broadcasting filed for
bankruptcy protection in October 2008. One year later, impatient creditors asked the bankruptcy court to allow the sale of KNWS and KLDT. Una Vez Más Holdings, LLC
emerged as the leading bidder. The sale to Una Vez Más was approved by the bankruptcy court on December 29, 2009, and finally received FCC approval on September 27, 2010, after the Commission rejected a petition to deny the sale made by
Spanish Broadcasting System. The new owners reserved the KAZH call letters, but changed them instead to KYAZ. but due to the bankruptcy filing, that plan was scrapped. Instead, reflecting the pending sale to Una Vez Más, an
Azteca América subchannel was added to the station's digital signal as channel 51.2 on April 25, 2010. RTV ended up on
KUVM-CD, a Mako Communications station, and the previous affiliate of Azteca América in Houston. KYAZ began simulcasting Azteca América on subchannels 51.1 and 51.2 on December 29, 2010, the same day its new call letters were approved.
Sale to Weigel Broadcasting On September 14, 2020,
Weigel Broadcasting announced that it would buy three of HC2's TV properties (including KYAZ and its longtime Dallas sister KAZD) as well as a low-powered station. The sale was consummated on December 29, making this the fourth ownership change in 11 years. KYAZ and KAZD became MeTV owned-and-operated stations on March 29, 2021. ==Technical information==