It is owned and operated by the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, alongside NBC affiliate KFOR-TV (channel 4).

The news programming lasted less than a year before being discontinued, while VEU was shuttered in October 1982, leaving KAUT to become one of three independent stations in the market.

KAUT was then donated to the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA), the state's public TV broadcaster, and revamped as a secondary service known as The Literacy Channel under KTLC call letters.

The Literacy Channel did not receive state money; operating funds came from private donors and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Paramount Stations Group placed the winning bid and returned channel 43 to commercial operation as UPN affiliate KPSG on June 20, 1998.

[5] At the time, applications were open on three different Oklahoma City UHF channels—14, 34, and 43—and the Trinity Broadcasting Network also sought a religious station using channel 14.

[13] On October 15, 1980, KAUT began broadcasting Golden West's VEU subscription TV service, featuring first-run motion pictures and other entertainment specials.

[22] Viewer acceptance was never high with the notable exception of waiting rooms and places of business, where television ratings are not measured,[23] and the news department was disbanded in August 1981, leaving 15 employees out of a job.

[26] With VEU subscriptions in Oklahoma City peaking at 22,000, short of the 35,000 necessary to turn a profit,[27] Golden West decided to terminate operations of the VEU service in Oklahoma City on October 17, 1982, and convert KAUT into a full-time commercial and ad-supported independent station with daytime programs from the Financial News Network.

[27] The new format, which emphasized series in prime time instead of movies to provide an alternative to independents KOKH-TV (channel 25) and KGMC,[29] led to the cancellations of two music programs aired by the station.

[43][44] In July 1988, Pappas Telecasting proposed a $30 million triple acquisition that would have resulted in major changes in independent television in Oklahoma City.

It proposed to buy KOKH-TV, KGMC, and KAUT-TV; consolidate their programs onto channel 25; and then sell the latter two stations to the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA) and a religious organization, respectively, removing them as competitors to KOKH.

As the OETA Foundation, the charitable fundraising arm of the educational authority, sought funds for the KGMC purchase in addition to a $1 million conditional grant from Pappas,[45] others did not have a favorable reaction.

[52] The entire transaction fell through on February 3, when Busse formally terminated the purchase agreement with Pappas;[53] three days earlier, the FCC had dismissed the respective transfer applications for KGMC and KAUT.

[58] At night, The Literacy Channel offered rebroadcasts of children's shows from PBS, including Sesame Street—never before aired in the evening[58]—and Reading Rainbow.

[59][60] As the OETA's state budget appropriation shrank, KTLC began altering its program format to save money, even though most of the channel's funding initially came from private sources.

In July 1993, weekday and weekend morning schedules were axed, initially temporarily, in response to a 17.9-percent budget cut that left the Literacy Channel with no state funding source.

"[65] In October 1997, the OETA decided to sell KTLC in order to fund costly digital television conversion mandates for the rest of its statewide network, with the sale proceeds to be placed in an endowment to cover those costs; The Literacy Channel was planned to continue as a cable service and, eventually, a digital subchannel of the OETA transmitters.

By 1997, it was under the ownership of Sinclair, which that summer signed a deal to flip six UPN affiliates including KOCB to its rival, The WB, in January 1998.

[68] The move put UPN on the back foot; the network contested the validity of the action in Maryland courts, where it lost twice.

[71] As part of the deal, for five years, Paramount agreed to air The Literacy Channel programs from 9 a.m. to noon on weekdays; provide the OETA with $100,000 in airtime for promotion; include the OETA in volume discounts for digital television equipment purchases; donate discarded equipment; and simulcast one fundraising drive a year.

On June 20, 1998, after delays,[72] UPN returned to Oklahoma City after five months as channel 43 launched a new program schedule under the new call sign KPSG.

[77] In September 2005, the New York Times Company, owner of NBC affiliate KFOR-TV (channel 4), agreed to purchase KAUT from what was then the Viacom Television Stations Group[78] for $22 million.

[99] KAUT replaced KOCB as the Oklahoma City affiliate of The CW on September 1, 2023, a year after Nexstar bought majority control of the network.

[105][106][107] KAUT discontinued regular programming on its analog signal, over UHF channel 43, on February 17, 2009, the original date for the federally mandated digital television transition.