It is non-directional by day but uses a directional antenna at night to avoid interfering with WMVP in Chicago and XEOY in Mexico City, the two other Class A stations on 1000 AM.

KNWN's programming is simulcast full-time on 97.7 MHz KNWN-FM, licensed to Oakville, Washington, as well as on several FM translator stations.

However, the August 1941 adoption of the Federal Communications Commission's "duopoly" rule restricted licensees from operating more than one radio station in a given market,[3] and an attempt by the Fisher family to be granted an exemption was unsuccessful.

[6] At its new frequency, KOMO began broadcasting with 50,000 watts of power from its current transmitter site on Vashon Island in 1948.

New studios at the corner of Fourth and Denny, near what is now the Seattle Center, were dedicated in February 1948[7] and included space for an expansion into television broadcasting.

Through the 1940s and 1950s, KOMO carried network dramas, comedies, game shows, soap operas and big band broadcasts, during the Golden Age of Radio.

From 1967 to 1978, KOMO was the original flagship station of the Seattle SuperSonics of the National Basketball Association with Bob Blackburn on play-by-play.

KOMO carried a full-service schedule of adult contemporary music, personality, news, talk, and Washington Huskies sports well into the early 1990s.

Following an outcry from loyal fans following his firing at KIRO-FM ("The Buzz 100.7") in 1999, local comedian Pat Cashman took over as KOMO's morning drive host, with Dr. Laura added for middays.

In late 2002, Fisher Communications announced a six-year contract for Seattle Mariners play-by-play rumored to be worth at least $10 million annually, a record for any Major League Baseball radio broadcast agreement, which started in the 2003 season.

Concurrent with the acquisition of the Mariners broadcast rights, KOMO dropped its talk shows and became an all-news station with reports from an enlarged radio news staff and material from KOMO-TV newscasts.

Some notable anchors include Bill Yeend, Manda Factor, Brian Calvert (who also works as a reporter and weathercaster on KOMO-TV), Lisa Brooks, Bill Rice, Art Sanders, Nancy Barrick, Pamela McCall, and Eric Slocum.

The move was made to improve KOMO's coverage in the southern part of the market, as well as give listeners who prefer the sound of FM that option.

On April 11, 2013, after 87 years of owning the station, Fisher Communications announced that it would sell its properties, including KOMO, to the Sinclair Broadcast Group.

[19] Two months after the sale, several radio employees were laid off as part of general cutbacks by Sinclair at most of the stations they acquired from Fisher.

[22] As required by the terms of the sale, KOMO's call sign was changed to KNWN (for "Northwest News") on February 2, 2022.

[23] During the week preceding the relaunch, competitor KIRO-FM began promoting itself as "Your Northwest News Station".