KDWN's original 50,000-watt transmitter was on Galleria Drive in Henderson, and was nondirectional in the day and used three inline towers to produce a directional night signal nulled toward WGN on the same channel in Chicago.

KDWN also served as Southern Nevada's primary entry point station for the Emergency Alert System.

[6] The station began by broadcasting a full service format of middle of the road music, news, sports and talk.

KDWN was the top news/talk outlet in the Las Vegas radio market and won an award for its coverage of the 1980 MGM Grand Fire.

[8] Unlike most Las Vegas-area stations, KDWN remained locally owned, even as most of its competitors were bought out by large radio corporations such as Clear Channel Communications and Infinity Broadcasting.

[10] KDWN was now audible with a good radio between nighttime and dawn in Los Angeles, San Francisco and around the West Coast.

Eventually KDWN, no longer in control of the program, decided not to continue carrying it in syndication and it was picked up by rival Las Vegas talk station KXNT.

In March 2006, Beasley Broadcast Group, a Naples, Florida–based company, announced plans to buy the station for $17 million.

[11] A Las Vegas newspaper reported a rumor that KDWN would change to an all-sports format, effective July 1, 2006, although the switch did not happen.

Host Jim Dallas reported on Wake Up, America on July 21, 2006, that audience backlash against the change forced Beasley to retain the talk radio format.

[13] On February 13, 2023, Audacy announced that KDWN would be signing off on March 1, while the translator would remain on air with the same programming.

With the station signing off, KXNT replaced KDWN as the primary entry point in Southern Nevada for the Emergency Alert System.

[14] On March 1, 2023, at midnight, following the station's broadcast of Audacy-based podcast Perilous World Radio, the station gave a final message redirecting listeners to the FM signal or Audacy app, then played the state anthem, Home Means Nevada, as sung by The Killers (a live recording from October 19, 2010), then a station ID before concluding with the Star-Spangled Banner as performed by Alabama, a picture of the transmitter sites transmitted using slow scan television, and a series of Q code messages ending with "KDWN QRT", the latter portion the Q code signal to end transmission.

[16] The stations did not return to the air within a year of shutting down;[17] on March 11, 2024, Audacy submitted an application to cancel the license.

[18] The Federal Communications Commission cancelled the station’s license on March 22, 2024 because it had been silent for more than twelve consecutive months.