KPNX (channel 12) is a television station licensed to Mesa, Arizona, United States, serving the Phoenix area as an affiliate of NBC.

KPNX is also broadcast on satellite station KNAZ-TV (channel 2) in Flagstaff, which formerly was a separate NBC affiliate, and a network of low-power translators across northern and central Arizona.

On November 1, 1952, Harkins Broadcasting, Inc. filed an application to build a new television station on channel 12 in Mesa, Arizona.

[3] At the end of March 1953, the city of Phoenix's parks board approved a South Mountain transmitter, reversing an earlier decision that would have denied television stations not licensed to Phoenix the use of the site and which was protested by television set owners who wanted to be assured reception of all stations from one site.

[6] An NBC affiliate from the outset,[7] the station briefly maintained a Phoenix office which closed just two months after launch.

As early as 1945, KTAR had arranged for exclusive rights to the South Mountain space that would later be used by all of the Phoenix TV stations as a transmitter site—a concession that was overturned in the run-up to KTYL-TV's launch.

[4] When the freeze was lifted in 1952, KTAR declared it would be on the air within three months of a construction permit grant, having already selected a site for and broken ground on a proposed television and radio studio at Central Avenue and Portland Street and contracted for equipment to furnish it.

[13] The channel 3 contest ended in April 1954, when KTAR announced it would buy KTYL-TV for $250,000, a decision that cleared the way for the Arizona Television Company to build KTVK.

[14] When the sale closed in July 1954, KTYL-TV became KVAR; immediately, KTAR-purchased equipment was added to the studios,[16] which were then moved to Phoenix in 1956 over KTVK's objection;[17] the station was also allowed to identify as "Phoenix/Mesa" in 1958.

[2] In 1960, a new tower and maximum-power transmitter were commissioned;[18] the prior facility was then sold to Arizona State University and used to launch educational station KAET on channel 8 in 1961.

[30] While the FCC barred the common ownership of newspapers and television stations in the same market, Gannett successfully banked on a potential rule change; even as written at the time before being relaxed in 2003, the issue would not have been pressed until KPNX's license came up for renewal in 2006.

[36] KTAR-TV was the Phoenix pioneer of the so-called "happy talk" news format when it reformatted its newscasts under the Action News format in late 1973,[37] with longtime anchor Ray Thompson paired alongside Bob Hughes, weatherman Dewey Hopper (last with Air America Radio affiliate KPHX and a longtime weather forecaster in Sacramento) and sportscaster Ted Brown.

[51] Karl Eller, who owned the company that became Combined Communications, was also one of the original founding owners of the city's first major professional sports team, the NBA's Phoenix Suns.

[54] In 2017, KPNX acquired the rights to preseason games of the Arizona Cardinals and also began airing team-oriented programming.