The two stations share studios on Eraste Landry Road in Lafayette; KADN-TV's transmitter is located south of Church Point, in rural Acadia Parish.

It did not help matters that WBRZ-TV in Baton Rouge and KPLC-TV in Lake Charles both provided strong grade B coverage to most of the market after relocating their transmission towers and increasing their respective heights.

This left WBRZ (and later WRBT, now WVLA) and KPLC as the region's de facto NBC affiliates; the latter was carried by most cable providers in south-central Louisiana.

The allocation for channel 15 in Lafayette as a commercial TV station remained after the demise of KLNI-TV, but the frequency stayed dark for the next five years.

KADN-TV, the current incarnation of channel 15, began broadcasting on March 1, 1980, as an independent station, offering mainly movies, old sitcoms, children's programming, and local sports.

Shortly after KADN signed on the air, KLFY preempted an episode of the popular prime time drama series Dallas to run a Billy Graham televangelism special.

At that time, an arrangement was made for channel 15 to officially become a CBS secondary affiliate, picking up a microwave relay of WAFB in Baton Rouge for network programming.

In 1997, Communications Corporation of America (ComCorp) began operating KADN in 1997 through a leased marketing agreement with original owner Charles Chatelain until purchasing the station outright in late 2004.

[5] On May 7, 2015, Nexstar Broadcasting announced that KLAF-LD, which simulcasts on KADN-TV's DT2 channel, would be the new NBC affiliate for the Lafayette market effective July 1, 2015.

Since Media General already owned CBS affiliate KLFY-TV, and since the Lafayette market is too small to allow duopolies in any case, in order to comply with FCC ownership rules as well as planned changes to rules regarding same-market television stations which would prohibit future joint sales agreements, the company was required to sell either KLFY or KADN to another company.

[8] Upon completion of the sale, it reunited KADN and KLAF-LD with WEVV-TV in Evansville, Indiana, which Bayou City bought from Nexstar when it acquired ComCorp in January 2015.

[10] On January 11, 2024, KADN-TV reached an agreement with New Orleans Pelicans over-the-air rightsholder Gray Television to air 10 games on the station during the 2023–24 NBA season.

Originally, the first 20 minutes of the program were taped earlier and geared specifically towards the Acadiana audience, with stories by Lafayette-based reporters, plus a local forecast.

KADN then joined WGMB's live broadcast for the final two segments, which included generic national and world news, plus a statewide sportscast.

[14][15] Until that time, KLAF-LD simulcast newscasts from Baton Rouge-based NBC affiliate WVLA-TV, which Nexstar operates under a shared services agreement (SSA) with White Knight Broadcasting.