It was the NBC affiliate for eastern Idaho at start-up, the network having decided to move to the new station from KTLE (channel 6) in Pocatello.

KIFI-TV was owned for the first 44 years of its existence by the Brady family, publishers of The Post Register newspaper in Idaho Falls.

[2] It intended at that time to broadcast its signal from the KIFI radio studio and transmitter site on North Yellowstone Highway.

[5] In 1955, the J. Robb Brady Trust acquired KIFI and co-owned KWIK in Pocatello from the Carman–Wrathall–Powers group, which at the same time sold some of its other stations to newspapers in Utah.

[7] Sam Bennion became a competing applicant in February 1959,[8] but an FCC examiner dismissed his bid that December for failure to prosecute and granted the construction permit to KIFI.

The former DJ, known for his unconventional presentation of local weather, caught his big break when the manager of a San Francisco station watched his forecasts while skiing at Sun Valley.

General manager Rickie Orchin Brady cited ABC's higher network news ratings as the impetus for the switch.

[23][24] NPG entered into a shared services agreement to operate KIDK, then owned by Fisher Communications, in December 2010.

[26] In 2013, KIDK was sold to VistaWest Media, a company whose principal had previously worked for NPG;[27] the CBS affiliation and programming moved to a subchannel of KIFI on January 1, 2021.