It is owned by the News-Press & Gazette Company (NPG) alongside San Luis Obispo–licensed low-power, Class A Fox affiliate KKFX-CD (channel 24); NPG also provides certain services to Santa Maria–licensed Telemundo affiliate KCOY-TV (channel 12) through a shared services agreement (SSA) with VistaWest Media, LLC.

In September 1998, KEYT-TV owner Smith Broadcasting purchased radio station KTMS (1250 AM) for $1.6 million[6] and launched an all-news format with new call letters KEYT to match those of its new TV sister.

On September 7, 2012, News-Press & Gazette Company announced that it had entered into an agreement to purchase KEYT-TV from Smith Media for $14.3 million.

KEYT's newscasts and site now include a graphics package that is similar to all NPG stations and is operated by Internet Broadcasting.

[12] By the fall of 2007, the station had managed to obtain syndication broadcast rights to Family Guy and South Park, and officially launched its second digital subchannel under the branding "MyNetworkTV Central Coast" in October 2007, replacing Los Angeles–based MyNetworkTV affiliate KCOP on all cable systems in the Central Coast region.

On April 18, 2017, the 3.2 subchannel dropped Retro TV because station management was unsure of it continuing as a going concern with a declining affiliate base, along with contractual restrictions on using it as an overflow channel for breaking news.

In the interim, the station relaunched KEYT-DT2 as News Now, airing simulcasts and rebroadcasts of newscasts from KEYT-TV and KKFX-CD, along with live rolling coverage of local political events, news coverage and other public affairs and local interest programming; the subchannel continues to carry MyNetworkTV programming in prime time.

The station's digital signal is multiplexed: KEYT-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 3, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009).