WB affiliation
Little activity occurred on the permit, with the call sign KAIK; Brooks considered running home shopping on the station, and he was approached by KPHO-TV about potentially splitting rights to a new major league baseball team with the station.
In December 1994, Brooks entered into a local marketing agreement with Media America Corporation, then owners of KTVK (channel 3). KTVK, in the concluding phase of losing its ABC affiliation, had acquired a large inventory of children's programs, including Fox Kids, and the WB affiliation that did not fit with its planned programming as an independent. Brooks, who was wanting to run a station catering to Phoenix's youth audience but had not been able to get the station going, was surprised when KTVK approached him; Delbert Lewis, the owner, owned a farm adjacent to one of Brooks's properties in Florence but had never met him.[6]
KASW signed on September 23, 1995, as the first new full-power Phoenix television station since KUTP started up in December 1985.[7] In addition to WB, Fox Kids and syndicated shows, as well as old movies on the nights when The WB did not air programming, it also aired a 30-minute newscast, known as NewsNight, produced by KTVK;[8] the logo fit the station's youth appeal and was described by Dave Walker of The Arizona Republic as "reminiscent of an amoeba-shaped 1960s coffee table". Brooks, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also aired the twice-yearly LDS General Conference on channel 61. KTVK and KASW also split over-the-air coverage rights to the Phoenix Coyotes hockey team when it moved to Phoenix in 1996, with 20 of the 25 games in the package airing on channel 61.[9]
In July 1999, MAC America (the former Media America) announced it would sell KTVK to the Belo Corporation.[10] Later that year, Belo announced that it would purchase KASW from Gregory Brooks, forming the first television duopoly in the Phoenix market just as they were being legalized.[11]
From The WB to The CW
On January 24, 2006, the Warner Bros. unit of Time Warner and CBS Corporation (which had been created as a result of the split of Viacom at the start of the year) 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.[12][13] The local UPN affiliate was KUTP, owned by Fox Television Stations. None of Fox's UPN stations, some of which were in the same market as charter network outlets owned by CBS and Tribune Broadcasting, were selected for the new network, and in late February, Fox announced it would start MyNetworkTV to serve its ex-UPN portfolio (including KUTP) and other stations that would not join The CW.[14]
Sale to Nexstar and separation from KTVK
The FCC approved the sale of KASW and KTVK to SagamoreHill and Meredith on June 17, 2014, and the deal closed two days later. The two companies also agreed to voluntarily divest KASW to an independent buyer within 90 days of the deal's closure; on October 23, 2014, Meredith and SagamoreHill announced that it would sell KASW to Nexstar Broadcasting Group for $68 million, giving the company its first station in the Phoenix market. The FCC approved the sale to Nexstar on December 19, and the sale was consummated on January 30, 2015, ending the nearly 20-year partnership between KASW and KTVK.[21][22] The station began migrating out of KTVK's facilities in September 2015.[23]
Sale to Scripps; switch to independent status
In March 2019, Nexstar announced it would purchase Tribune Media. This acquisition required divestitures of several overlapping stations; however, in addition to stations in markets where divestiture was necessary, Nexstar opted to also sell KASW to the E. W. Scripps Company, owner of local ABC affiliate KNXV-TV (channel 15), creating Phoenix's third TV duopoly. Although other stations acquired from the Nexstar/Tribune divestitures came from the Tribune portfolio, KASW was the only Nexstar station to be bought out by Scripps.[24][25][26] The sale was approved by the FCC on September 16 and was completed on September 19.[27] Scripps added newscasts from KNXV and also upgraded the station's syndicated programming inventory.
On November 20, 2023, CW programming moved to the second subchannel of KNXV-TV (which otherwise carried Antenna TV programming), and KASW became an
