At the time, it was a primary CBS affiliate and sister station to KTNT radio (AM 1400, now KITZ, and FM 97.3, now KIRO-FM).

Parts of the old transmitting equipment were loaned to Portland, Oregon's KGW-TV, due to the damage from the Columbus Day Storm of 1962.

During the late 1960s, the station also occasionally carried NBC prime time programs preempted by Seattle SuperSonics games on KING-TV (channel 5).

As a result, KTNT-TV was sold to the WKY Television System, forerunner of Gaylord Broadcasting (now Ryman Hospitality Properties), in 1974;[7][8] the new ownership changed the station's call letters to KSTW (standing for Seattle–Tacoma, Washington) on March 1.

The station also carried many daytime CBS programs preempted by KIRO-TV (including game shows such as The Joker's Wild and The Price Is Right) during the 1970s.

[10][11] During the late 1980s, KSTW branded on-air as "KSTWashington" and, as it did in the 1960s and 1970s, ran the traditional fare of cartoons, off-network sitcoms, westerns, old movies, and a local 10 p.m. newscast.

In 1993, Gaylord agreed to affiliate KSTW, and its sister stations KTVT in Fort Worth, WVTV in Milwaukee and KHTV in Houston, with the new WB Television Network, at that time projected to launch late in the summer of 1994.

[12] However, delays in the network's launch led to Gaylord suing to void the affiliation agreements in July 1994, which was followed a month later by a breach of contract countersuit by The WB.

[14] CBS agreed, partly because at the time, KSTW was the only non-Big Three station in Seattle with a fully functioning news department.

[15] (Some CBS shows that were preempted by KIRO, such as The Bold and the Beautiful, had already been shown on KSTW starting in the fall of 1994, which was already occurring with KTVT.)

[16] With the CBS affiliation, KSTW was dropped from cable systems in areas of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho, due to the presence of Spokane's KREM-TV.

The station was put up for sale in October 1996, with Gaylord stating in its earnings report that "its financial results have not met expectations.

[21] KSTW began to air UPN programming on June 30, 1997, along with sitcoms, movies, cartoons, a few first-run syndicated shows, and the return of the 10 p.m. newscast it had prior to the CBS switch.

In November 2006, after cost-cutting measures were put in place by CBS, it was announced that KSTW would become a "hosting station", with master control located at the facilities of the company's San Francisco duopoly of KPIX and KBCW.

On May 5, 2023, CBS announced that it would exercise that right and KSTW would cease airing The CW's programming at the end of August and become an independent station.

From 1954 to 1974, KTNT's local children's programs featured a personable host named "Brakeman Bill" McLain.

From 1988 to 1994, the station carried Ranger Charlie's Kids Club, the last children's show in the region to be filmed before a live audience.

[34] During this time, KSTW was among the first stations to use the 11 at 11 branding on its 11 p.m. newscast (as did Gaylord's station in Dallas–Fort Worth, KTVT, using a modified 11 on 11 branding on its 10 p.m. newscast); this format included the top stories and a weather forecast in an 11-minute first segment, with the next segment serving as an in-depth "Northwest News Extra" report.

After dropping traditional newscasts, KSTW aired two specially focused news programs on Sunday mornings: the business-focused program, South Sound Business Report (produced by Business Examiner and also broadcast by Tacoma PBS member station KBTC-TV), as well as Northwest Indian News (produced by local cable channel KANU TV-99), which focuses on the Native Americans in the Northwest.

The callsign and channel number for KSTW were co-opted by The CW to create a fictional representation of the station with a news department for the Seattle-set iZombie (which aired from 2015 to 2019), though not with "CW 11" branding, but retaining the station's callsign font, and a completely different image from that of the real KSTW.

[44] According to an online posting by KSTW, there are no other channels on which this translator can broadcast in digital, resulting in the permanent shutdown of the transmitter.