On June 8, 1949, the Western Broadcasting Company received the construction permit to build a new radio station in Phoenix on 860 kHz.

Harrison sold KIFN in 1966[6] to the Tichenor family, which owned a group of Spanish-language stations that ultimately became the Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation.

Citing the difficulty of getting authorization to go to 24-hour operation on 860 and facing competition from 24-hour station KPHX, Méndez sold KIFN in 1982 to Beta Communications, bringing it under common ownership with Apache Junction's KSTM-FM.

All of the Spanish-language programming moved to KVVA-FM, which was bought by Z-Spanish Network, a predecessor to Entravision Communications Corporation.

The AM frequency, however, was purchased by Pulitzer Broadcasting Company, which acquired it with intentions on moving play-by-play sports contracts from 620 KTAR (then a news/talk outlet) to 860.

Over time, KMVP added more national sports talk (including ESPN Radio) and less local programs.

Along with KTAR, ownership passed from Pulitzer to Hearst-Argyle, then Emmis Communications, and then Bonneville International,[12] a subsidiary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In August, after remediating interference concerns, newly bought translator K270BZ, which prior to going dark had been relaying KKFR from South Mountain, re-emerged to be fed by KNAI.