In 1993, Larry H. Miller, the then-owner of the Utah Jazz of the NBA, purchased the station and renamed it KJZZ-TV; it also became the new TV home of the basketball team for 16 seasons.

Sinclair purchased KJZZ-TV from the Miller family in 2016; the station airs syndicated programming and local newscasts from KUTV.

An original construction permit was granted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on December 6, 1984, to American Television of Utah, Inc., a subsidiary of Salt Lake City–based American Stores Company, for a full-power television station on UHF channel 14 to serve Salt Lake City and the surrounding area.

Instead, in late 1986, American reached a deal with the Grant Broadcasting System, which had started new independent television stations in Chicago, Miami, and Philadelphia, to form a joint venture which would run channel 14.

[4] The joint venture never came to fruition; channel 14 was renamed again on February 29, 1988, to KXIV (representing the Roman numeral for 14); and American Television took up the task of building the station.

[8] "Real TV" cast itself as an alternative to the programming offered by Salt Lake's existing television stations, emphasizing classic shows.

[11] Miller set about making channel 14 a higher-profile station centered on sports coverage, with the Jazz, the high-level minor league hockey Salt Lake Golden Eagles (which Miller also owned and who already had several games a year on channel 14), and syndicated coverage of the expansion Colorado Rockies as the nuclei.

The relationship would last more than five years, but changes in UPN's programming mix—which included Black-focused sitcoms on Monday and Tuesday evenings, along with WWF SmackDown on Thursdays in the peak of the boundary-pushing Attitude Era—sat uncomfortably with station management and generated a response that drew national attention.

In October 2000, KJZZ opted out of its affiliation agreement, and the network announced it would move its programs to KAZG, then a small home shopping station based in Ogden, in January 2001.

Rigby also cited the underperformance of the raunchy one-season sitcom Shasta McNasty and the single-demographically focused SmackDown as advertiser-repellent.

The MyNetworkTV affiliation then moved to St. George-based KCSG, which reached the Salt Lake City area via coverage on local cable television providers.

[22] It also tried its hand at local programs such as The KJZZ Cafe and Home Team, but those efforts were axed in late 2008 due to poor viewership and revenues.

[26] On April 4, 2016, Larry H. Miller Communications Corporation agreed to sell KJZZ-TV and eight translators to Sinclair Broadcast Group for $6.5 million.

[38] Since 2023, KJZZ has aired select football games involving Utah State University not picked up for national television.

[47] KJZZ-TV extends its coverage throughout the entire state of Utah, plus parts of Idaho and Nevada, using an extensive network of primarily community-owned translator television stations listed below.