This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2017)
The station began broadcasting on February 19, 1999; it was built and signed on by Paxson Communications as an owned-and-operated station of the family-oriented Pax TV network (later reformatted into a general entertainment service as i: Independent Television, now Ion Television), with religious programming from The Worship Network airing during the overnight hours.
On September 24, 2020, the Cincinnati-based E. W. Scripps Company announced it would purchase KPXL-TV's owner, Ion Media, for $2.65 billion, with financing from Berkshire Hathaway.[2] Part of the deal included divesting 23 stations nationally to Inyo Broadcast Holdings (then-undisclosed at the time of the announcement) that would maintain Ion affiliations.[3]
From 2000 to 2004, KPXL aired rebroadcasts of NBC affiliate KMOL-TV (channel 4)'s newscasts at 6:30 and 10:30 p.m. (KMOL-TV became WOAI-TV in 2002). KPXL was also an affiliate of The News of Texas from 1999 to 2000.[4]
Because it was granted an original construction permit after the FCC finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997,[6] the station did not receive a companion channel for a digital television station. KPXL-TV discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 26, on June 12, 2009. The station "flash-cut" its digital signal into operation UHF channel 26.[7]