A license to operate a fourth television station in Iwate Prefecture was established on 19 June 1995.

The company that was awarded that license, known as Iwate Asahi Television (founded 21 June 1995), began construction on the station a month later.

The Asahi network's full schedule was available on some local cable television providers via JOEM-TV (from Sendai), which was receivable over the air in portions of the prefecture's southern areas.

The 11 March 2011 earthquake resulted in an indefinite postponement of the shutdown of all analog broadcasts across Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures.

JOIY-TV finally shut down its analog signal on 31 March 2012 shortly before 0:00 JST, with regular programming having ended twelve hours earlier.