The station's transmitter is located in the West Austin Antenna Farm in unincorporated Travis County.

Soon after KLRU was brought on line, its owner, the Southwest Texas Public Broadcasting Council, laid the groundwork for repurposing it as a full-fledged PBS station for the Austin area.

A year later, the Capital of Texas Public Broadcasting Council was formed as KLRU's owner.

This arrangement proved insufficient to cover all of Travis and Williamson counties, and reception in Austin had been poorer than expected due to intervening hilly terrain.

[5] The Southwest Texas Public Broadcasting Council, owner of KLRN, filed to build a new television station on Austin's non-commercial reserved channel 18 in 1975 and received a construction permit on September 3, 1976.

[9] Born at a time when its ownership was embroiled in other controversies involving operations, the station's first license was only for one year due to misrepresentations over matching donations during the fund drive.

[9] Only a year after KLRU hit the airwaves, it received its own Austin-based governing board, though it continued under the ownership of the Southwest Texas Public Broadcasting Council.

In particular, they believed a split would allow KLRU to be "a better (corporate) citizen" in Austin and use its longstanding ties to UT to increase local programming.