The two stations share studios on Progress Parkway in suburban Maryland Heights; KMOV's transmitter is located in Lemay, Missouri.

At its launch, channel 4 was owned by a consortium which included Robert T. Convey (28%) and the now-defunct Newhouse Newspapers–published St. Louis Globe-Democrat (23%), who jointly operated KWK radio (1380 AM, now KXFN); Elzey M. Roberts Sr., former owner of KXOK radio (630 AM, now KYFI), which had to be sold as a condition of the license grant (23%); and Missouri Valley Television Inc., made up of Saint Paul, Minnesota–based Hubbard Broadcasting (23%) and several St. Louis residents (combined 3%).

The station's original studios, built by KWK radio in anticipation of television, were located on Cole Street in Downtown West.

[6] The agreement required CBS to give up its construction permit for channel 11, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) transferred it to one of the failed applicants, a group led by St. Louis hotelier Harold Koplar, for no financial consideration.

[7] Almost immediately, the deal was held up after the St. Louis Amusement Company, another of the original applicants for channel 11, protested to the United States Court of Appeals in January 1958.

By late 1985, CBS was in rough financial straits, an after-effect of successfully fending off a hostile takeover attempt by Ted Turner the year before.

[13] Not long after Laurence Tisch became the company's chairman, CBS decided to sell KMOX-TV, at the time its smallest owned-and-operated television station by market size.

[14] On May 16, 1986, the original iteration of Viacom, the former CBS Inc. subsidiary and future parent company, completed its $122.5 million purchase of the station; so as to comply with an FCC regulation in place at the time that prohibited TV and radio stations in the same market but with different ownership from having the same callsigns, KMOX-TV's callsign was slightly modified to the present KMOV almost a month later on June 18.

As the deal would violate FCC regulations that disallow common ownership of two of the four highest-rated stations in a single market (KMOV and KSDK have ranked as the top two stations in the St. Louis market in total-day ratings for several years), Gannett would retain KSDK, while it would spin off KMOV to Sander Media, LLC (owned by former Belo executive Jack Sander).

[25] On December 23, 2013, shortly after the Gannett/Belo deal was approved and completed,[26] Des Moines, Iowa–based Meredith Corporation – which already had a broadcasting presence in Missouri through its ownership of fellow CBS affiliate KCTV in Kansas City – announced that it would purchase KMOV, along with KTVK and KASW in Phoenix (the latter of which Meredith would later sell to the Nexstar Broadcasting Group) for $407.5 million.

This came three weeks after the FCC's July 18 vote to have the deal reviewed by an administrative law judge amid "serious concerns" about Sinclair's forthrightness in its applications to sell certain conflict properties.

Tribune also filed a breach of contract lawsuit in the Delaware Chancery Court, alleging that Sinclair engaged in protracted negotiations with the FCC and the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division over regulatory issues, refused to sell stations in markets where it already had properties, and proposed divestitures to parties with ties to Sinclair executive chair David D. Smith that were rejected or highly subject to rejection to maintain control over stations it was required to sell.

[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][excessive citations] The deal was nullified, with Tribune eventually accepting another merger agreement with Nexstar that, due to other station spin-offs, retained the existing KTVI/KPLR duopoly and closed without issue in mid-September 2019.

[47] On December 3, 2023, with its 6 p.m. newscast, KMOV completed the on-air move from Gateway Tower to a remodeled and adapted facility in the St. Louis County suburb of Maryland Heights which had formerly been occupied by medical device manufacturer ERT, joining KTVI/KPLR in relocating to Maryland Heights, which provides much easier access to the area's freeway system via Interstate 270 and a secured parking lot rather than the cumbersome mix of on-street and underground parking it had at Gateway Tower.

A barrage of scattered prime time preemptions later followed that was so rampant, the station earned a mention in Ken Auletta's 1991 book, Three Blind Mice.

KMOV randomly replaced CBS prime time shows with programming such as Billy Graham Crusades and National Geographic specials, syndicated movie packages, and occasional local and regional sporting events, all of which allowed the station and Viacom full control of the ad time airing during the preemptions.

While it would seem like a positive aspect, the "revolving door" turnover rate of its anchors and reporters has been one of KMOV's weaknesses over the years (especially under CBS ownership, where it had the same "farm team" talent development role WKYC in Cleveland played for NBC), leading to the unfamiliarity that many of the station's on-air personalities have in the market.

Since the departure of Karen Foss from KSDK in December 2006, Larry Conners assumed the title of the longest-serving 10 p.m. news anchor in the market until he was fired by the station in 2013 after a Facebook post questioning if he was being audited by the Internal Revenue Service in the wake of a contentious interview with President Barack Obama during the 2012 election cycle.

Despite the firing of longtime anchor Larry Conners by the station in May 2013, KMOV has placed first among the market's 10 p.m. newscast in every demographic every month since that time.

In February 2002, KMOV partnered with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to produce the weekly news discussion program Extra Edition, hosted by now-former weekday morning anchor Marc Cox.

On August 22, 2024, as part of a larger initiative by Gray Television to launch regional sports networks, the MyNetworkTV subchannel was rebranded as "Matrix Midwest".

[63] In February 2025, Matrix Midwest aired matches from the Coachella Valley Invitational preseason tournament featuring St. Louis City SC of Major League Soccer.