In late 1959, as it was preparing to build new facilities for itself,[3] Phoenix commercial television station KVAR offered to sell its old transmitter on South Mountain, valued at $150,000, to ASU for $30,000.

The offer jumpstarted plans to build an educational television station in Phoenix and prompted the Arizona Board of Regents to authorize expenditures for the transmitter and additional equipment in January 1960.

[6] In 1973, KAET moved from its original home in the Engineering Center to another location on the Tempe campus, the newly built Stauffer Hall communications building.

In June 1999, KAET was issued a permit to construct digital television facilities on UHF channel 29.

During the late-2000s recession, fundraising efforts at KAET fell behind projections, resulting in two major rounds of layoffs.

The first round came in late October 2008, when the station, having missed its fundraising targets by hundreds of thousands of dollars, had to lay off six workers.