KOLN/KGIN share common ownership with York-licensed NBC affiliate KSNB-TV (channel 4), which was acquired by Gray in 2013 and simulcasts in high definition on the second digital subchannel of KGIN.

Following Gray's acquisition of Hastings' NBC affiliate KHAS-TV, the station was shut down and its programming (along with separately-produced newscasts out of Hastings) was moved to KSNB's primary channel, which became the primary NBC affiliate for this vast market.

KSNB moved to KHAS' former studio just outside Hastings on US 281, though master control and some internal operations are based at KOLN's facilities.

Gray reacquired KNHL (the former KHAS-TV) from Legacy Broadcasting on March 1, 2019, and made it a KSNB satellite to further resolve its signal issues.

KOLN serves as a master hub for Gray's Nebraska television stations, with the exception of NBC affiliate WOWT (channel 6) in Omaha.

[5] In February 1954, Fetzer purchased Lincoln's other TV station, KFOR-TV, channel 10, which had launched a few months after KOLN.

[6] To avoid running afoul of FCC ownership regulations (and to create a commercial broadcast monopoly for himself in the Lincoln market[7]), Fetzer moved KOLN to channel 10 and donated the channel 12 facilities and the KFOR license to the University of Nebraska for its educational station, KUON-TV.

[8] At the same time, Fetzer obtained FCC permission to boost KOLN's visual effective radiated power to the then-maximum 316 kW,[5] to be broadcast from a new 1,000-foot (300 m) tower 20 miles (32 km) west of Lincoln.

Meanwhile, Fetzer persuaded the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to merge Lincoln with the Hastings–Kearney market in central Nebraska.

Later, future sister station KSNB-TV broke off from NTV and joined with Grand Island-based KTVG-TV to become the Fox affiliate for the western half of the market.

Not only was it the only major-network affiliate shared by the entire market for most of the second half of the 20th century, but it was the only commercial station in Lincoln for 40 years.

[15][16] With the purchase of KNOP-TV, Gray merged KOLN/KGIN, KSNB and KNOP to form the Nebraska News & Weather Networks.

Weather on weekends for KSNB is broadcast from their Lincoln studios in a second green screen facility since KOLN is also on air at the same time, and the same is done for KNOP during the weekday evening newscasts.

The stations' signals are multiplexed: UPN was broadcast on a DT2 subchannel of KOLN and KGIN under the banner UPN Nebraska; the service switched to MyNetworkTV in September 2006 and was locally branded as "MyTV" until being renamed "10–11 Central Nebraska" after the acquisition of KSNB in 2013.

Both stations shut down their analog signals at midnight on February 16, 2009, the day prior to the original date on which full-power television stations in the United States were set to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate (which was later rescheduled for June 12, 2009):[19][20][21] On January 18, 2020, KOLN's transmitter tower near Beaver Crossing collapsed due to an ice storm.

On September 3, 2013, KNPL was re-launched as a semi-satellite of the station, adding local newscasts specific to the North Platte market.