Owned by Imagicomm Communications, the station has studios on South Regal Street in Spokane, and its transmitter is on Krell Hill southeast of the city.

After beating out Springfield Television for the construction permit in 1981,[4] Spokane native Robert Hamacher, a former employee of KREM-TV and later an executive at KSTW in Tacoma,[5] put KAYU on the air on October 31, 1982.

[11] KCYU and KBWU remained semi-satellites of KAYU until 1999, when full-power sister station KFFX-TV signed on from Pendleton, Oregon, and became their program source.

Brady holds an unspecified minority interest in the company, which gave KAYU an in-state sister station in Seattle's CBS affiliate KIRO-TV.

[12][13][14] On March 29, 2022, Cox Media Group announced it would sell KAYU-TV and 17 other stations to Imagicomm Communications, an affiliate of the parent company of the INSP cable channel, for $488 million;[15] the sale was completed on August 1.

[19] KAYU-DT2 became an alternate affiliate of The CW on February 25, 2023, when it began carrying the network's coverage of LIV Golf[20] due to KSKN owner Tegna's refusal to air the controversial Saudi-owned tour on its stations.

KAYU currently broadcasts a 10 p.m. newscast produced by NBC affiliate KHQ-TV (channel 6), which airs for 35 minutes on weeknights and a half-hour on Saturdays and Sunday evenings.