The station first signed on the air on November 3, 1993, as KNWS-TV, a
24-hour
all-news station that was owned by
Johnson Broadcasting
.
[3]
The all-news format featured special segments, and pre-recorded newscasts that were looped, then updated, throughout the day. During 1995, KNWS
simulcast
live coverage of the
O. J. Simpson murder trial
from
KTLA
in
Los Angeles
.
KNWS began cutting back on its news programming in November 1996; following a canceled sale to
home shopping
operator Global Broadcasting Systems in 1997,
[8]
[9]
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,
[10]
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
.
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 Mas Holdings, LLC
emerged
as the leading bidder.
[11]
[12]
The sale to Una Vez Mas was approved by the bankruptcy court on December 29, 2009,
[13]
and finally received FCC approval on September 27, 2010, after the Commission rejected a petition to deny the sale made by
Spanish Broadcasting System
.
[14]
The new owners reserved the KAZH call letters,
[15]
but changed them instead to KYAZ.
[4]
Prior to the sale to Una Vez Mas, KNWS had made plans to add the
Retro Television Network
on a digital subchannel,
[16]
but due to the bankruptcy filing, that plan was scrapped. Instead, reflecting the pending sale to Una Vez Mas, an
Azteca America
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 America in Houston.
KYAZ began simulcasting Azteca America on subchannels 51.1 and 51.2 on December 29, 2010, the same day its new call letters were approved.
[12]
Cold Case Files
was acquired by
KUBE-TV
(channel 57), and weekly episodes of
Cheaters
moved to
KIAH
(channel 39). The weekly
Heart of the Nation Catholic Mass
also moved to KUBE-TV. It is unknown if more of channel 51's former meager programming inventory relocated to other stations.
In 2014, Una Vez Mas' TV assets (including KYAZ) were then sold to Northstar Media,
LLC
. In turn,
HC2 Holdings
acquired Northstar Media in addition to
Azteca America
on November 29, 2017, making KYAZ an Azteca owned-and-operated station.
[17]
Sale to Weigel Broadcasting
edit
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.
[18]
[19]
KYAZ and KAZD became MeTV owned-and-operated stations on March 29, 2021.