It also doubles as a secondary CBS station in the Platte Purchase area (northern portions of the St. Joseph, Missouri, television market) alongside local affiliate KCJO-LD.

[3] The station's call letters were originally intended to be KMA-TV, reflecting its first owner, Shenandoah, Iowa–based May Broadcasting, which owned KMA (960 AM) in that community.

However, this violated Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules, which at the time required stations have the same or adjacent city of license in order to share a base call sign.

A few months after returning to CBS, May sold both of its television stations—KMTV and KGUN-TV in Tucson, Arizona—to Lee Enterprises after over 37 years of ownership.

In late January 2007, Journal announced the sale of radio station KOMJ (1490 AM) to Cochise Broadcasting LLC,[7] in order to purchase KMTV outright.

The sale of KOMJ was necessary because Journal already owned the maximum number of broadcasting properties in the Omaha media market as designated by the FCC.

The combined firm will retain their broadcast properties, including KMTV, and spin off their print assets as Journal Media Group.

with Kelly also aired on KMTV (as far back as the Regis and Kathie Lee era) until 2012, when the show moved to Fox affiliate KPTM.

[citation needed] The station also ran a long-running children's religious show that debuted in 1961 called Ms. Jean's Storytime, which ended in September 2011 after a 50-year run.

In August 2012, the station began carrying Green Bay Packers preseason football games, as part the team's "official broadcaster" deal with Journal, which in addition to owning KMTV and WTMJ, also owns Green Bay's WGBA-TV, a deal which continues under Scripps ownership.

KMTV returned a newscast to the 6 p.m. timeslot on September 5, 2006, coinciding with Katie Couric's debut as anchor of the CBS Evening News.

On December 22, 2006, the station announced it would not be renewing the contracts of evening news anchors Deborah Ward and Greg Peterson; the two were replaced by Carol Wang and Carlo Cecchetto on January 22, 2007.

In October 2013, KMTV became the third commercial station in Omaha (after WOWT and KPTM) to broadcast its newscasts in high definition.