ABC15 Arizona history

In 1981, the Suns signed a 13-year agreement to telecast games through American Cable, resulting in the launch of the Arizona Sports Programming Network; however, American Cable sub-licensed games to ON TV in part because they had not yet wired all of the metropolitan area.

By July 1982, ON TV had 39,000 subscribers in Phoenix, but signs of trouble for the business were emerging rapidly.

Oak Communications ultimately shuttered ON TV in Phoenix on May 4, 1983, resulting in the loss of 140 jobs.

In mid-1985, KNXV began producing Friday Night at the Frights starring "Edmus Scarey" (portrayed by Ed Muscare), a series of decidedly campy B-movie wraparounds.

After KPHO turned down an offer to affiliate with the fledgling Fox network, it approached KNXV. KNXV joined Fox at the network's inception on October 9, 1986; as Fox's first and only program was The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, KNXV remained essentially independent.

The station also became the over-the-air broadcaster of the Suns again; it lost the rights to televise the team's games to KUTP (channel 45) in 1988.

By 1990, KNXV had surpassed KPHO in total day ratings, even though the station still produced no local newscasts, and it was regularly appearing as one of the top five Fox affiliates by ratings in the country.

While KPHO attempted to woo Fox away with its existing news operation, KNXV retained the affiliation, having become by 1992 the second most successful Fox affiliate in ratings after KTXL in Sacramento, California.

KNXV was already in the process of building a local news department when the affiliation switch was announced; in September 1993, the station had hired its first news director, and the station's staff of 30 had reported to Phoenix in the weeks before the New World deal was announced.

Over the second half of 1994, ABC programming migrated from KTVK to KNXV in stages as the outgoing affiliate shed a variety of its soon-to-be former network's offerings.

The rest of ABC's programming moved to KNXV on January 9, 1995.

On July 27, 2007, two news helicopters leased to KNXV and KTVK collided while covering a police pursuit in downtown Phoenix.

KNXV-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 15, at 12:01 a.m. on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate.

On March 20, 2019, Scripps announced that it would acquire Phoenix's affiliate of The CW, KASW, and seven other stations from Nexstar Media Group as part of that company's proposed acquisition of Tribune Media. Its 2015 acquisition of Journal Communications included KGUN-TV and KWBA-TV, the ABC and CW affiliates in Tucson.