KCND was established by the Community Radio Corporation, the parent company of KNOX-TV and KNOX AM in Grand Forks, North Dakota, after being granted a construction permit by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in July 1958.

In 1962, KCND was acquired along with KNOX-TV Grand Forks and KXGO-TV Fargo for $675,200 by the Pembina Broadcasting Company, a group led by Ferris Traylor, the part-owner of an Indiana TV station.

[9] In 1963, citing the three stations' weak financial condition, the FCC approved a plan that resulted in Pembina Broadcasting moving KXGO to a taller tower to serve both Fargo and Grand Forks under the new call letters KTHI-TV, closing down KNOX-TV, and effectively making KCND into a KTHI semi-satellite.

[10] In November 1963, KCND added an additional microwave relay path to Minneapolis via Fargo, to improve signal quality when the primary link was experiencing "network trouble".

[11] In addition to problems with the microwave relay system that forwarded network programming to the Pembina studio, KCND also suffered from spotty reception in Winnipeg, causing the station to struggle financially in its early years.

Thereafter, it carried about half of the ABC primetime lineup (which was in those days a distant third among the U.S. networks in the ratings) and showed low-budget syndicated programming (e.g., series like Felony Squad that had run for one or two seasons years earlier) and movies the rest of the time.

[15] In mid-February, Communications Winnipeg Co-Op, a group of "lawyers, university professors and students, [and] freelance broadcasters", announced their own application to create a not-for-profit, member-supported station.

In May 1974, John Boler, the founder and then-owner of Valley City-Fargo, N.D. CBS affiliate KXJB-TV informed both the FCC and the Winnipeg newspapers that he intended to apply for a new channel 12 license if KCND-TV went off the air, or make his own offer to purchase the station if the McLendon-Canwest agreement fell through.

[31] A second application, filed in November 1979, resulted in Boler and fellow investors Jack Wood and Robert Alphson being awarded a license in 1981 to start a new channel 12 station at Pembina.

[32] In issuing the license, the FCC dismissed objections filed by Canwest and by KTHI-TV Fargo owner Spokane Television, Inc., both opposing the establishment of a new Pembina station on competitive grounds.

[33] After receiving the license, Wood unsuccessfully approached Canwest with an offer to purchase the KCND tower, then still standing near Pembina but awaiting the move to a site near Minnedosa, Man.

[39][40] It was and remains a satellite of KVRR in Fargo,[41] which was an independent station when KNRR began broadcasting, but became a charter affiliate of the Fox television network later in 1986.