The two stations share studios on 37th Street in northeast Wichita; KSCW-DT's transmitter is located in rural northeastern Reno County (east of Hutchinson).

The station was first licensed on June 8, 1988, under permits from LIN TV filing an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), under the call letters KWCV.

In March 2007, Banks Broadcasting announced that it would sell the station to Schurz Communications, owner of CBS affiliate KWCH (channel 12).

[7] The sale closed on July 20, 2007, after which the FCC granted Schurz a "failing station" waiver to acquire KSCW.

In 2009, KSCW traded transmitter facilities, moving to KWCH's tower just east of Hutchinson in Reno County.

[10] In 2024, KSCW parent company Gray Television reached an agreement to broadcast eight Oklahoma City Thunder games on the station.

In 2010, that station added a half-hour Sunday evening newscast at 7 p.m. to KSCW, titled Eyewitness News Weekend.

On September 12, 2011, KWCH began producing half-hour newscasts at 4 p.m. weekdays and seven nights a week at 9 p.m. for KSCW; the latter production directly competed temporarily with another half-hour nightly newscast on Fox affiliate KSAS-TV that KWCH also produced since January 2004 through a separate news share agreement, which expired on December 31.

On May 25, 2015, KSCW-DT began carrying the sitcom-oriented classic television network Decades (which became Catchy Comedy in 2023) on a newly created second subchannel at official launch date.