Another Shreveport-based company, International Broadcasting Corp. (a consortium that owned local radio station KWKH [1130 AM and 94.5 FM; the latter is now KRUF] and was managed by William H. Bronson, Robert Ewing Jr., Wilson Ewing, Henry R. Clay and Toulmin Brown, the latter of whom was an assistant secretary principal to Shreveport Times parent Times Publishing Co.), filed its own application for the permit on July 3.

[4] On June 16, 1954, FCC Hearing Examiner Basil Cooper issued an initial decision looking to grant the construction permit application for channel 3 to KTBS Inc.

[5][6][7] The KWKH application was denied due to critical deficiencies under FCC's diversification of media of communications policy, citing its ownership of two clear channel radio stations (KWKH-AM and KTHS [now KAAY] in Little Rock, Arkansas) and its parent's ownership of three newspapers (the Times, and the Monroe Morning World and The News-Star in Monroe) in neighboring states would produce a concentration of broadcast and newspaper facilities by a single company, but noted that the Times's joint printing agreement with the Shreveport Journal produced "no disservice to the public interest" due to the lack of a forced combination in print advertising.

(A petition by KWKH to reconsider the grant of the channel 3 permit to KTBS Inc. was denied in May 1955, with the FCC admonishing KWKH for "repetitious[...], reckless and unsupported" charges in its petition that a KTBS principal witness committed perjury, and its "assertions and insinuations" that the agency did not give "fair, impartial" consideration to the evidence submitted; a subsequent appeal by International Broadcasting/KWKH seeking to overturn the grant, was denied by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana in March 1956.

The radio stations were sold off in the late 1950s, but the Wrays (who are also the owners of a car dealership franchise in Shreveport) have retained channel 3 to this day.

KCMC owner Camden News Publishing Co. – which, in 1960, received permission to move the station's transmitter to a site 2.3 miles (3.7 km) south-southwest of Vivian, in a move that would consolidate Shreveport and Texarkana into a single television market – was in the process of expanding its service area to encompass and its primary operations to serve the Shreveport area.

[20] In January 1999, KTBS, LLC assumed partial operational responsibilities for Pax TV owned-and-operated station KPXJ (channel 21) under a joint sales agreement (JSA) with its owner at the time, Paxson Communications (now Ion Media Networks).

ABC shows preempted or otherwise interrupted by such content may either be rebroadcast on tape delay over KTBS' main channel in place of regular overnight programs.

Station personnel also gives viewers who subscribe to AT&T U-verse, DirecTV, Dish Network and other pay television providers within the KTBS viewing area that do not carry KTBS-DT2 the option of watching the affected shows on ABC's desktop and mobile streaming platforms or its cable/satellite video-on-demand service the day after their initial airing.

For many years, one of the most watched Sunday programs on KTBS has been The First Word, broadcasts of the morning worship services at the large First Baptist Church of Bossier City that began airing on channel 3 in June 1983.

In addition to the station's main studios on Kings Highway, KTBS operates a news bureau located on Jefferson Avenue in Texarkana, Arkansas.

KTBS may simulcast its long-form severe weather coverage on KTBS-DT2 and/or KPXJ in the event that a tornado warning is issued for any county in its Ark-La-Tex viewing area.

In September 2000, in conjunction with the joint sales agreement that Paxson had signed with KTBS-TV, KPXJ began airing tape delayed rebroadcasts of that station's 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts Monday through Fridays at 5:30 and 10:30 p.m. (the latter beginning shortly before that program's live broadcast ended on channel 3).

)[38] The station's signal is multiplexed: As part of the deployment of ATSC 3.0 (NextGen TV) in Shreveport on June 28, KPXJ was converted to 3.0 service, airing subchannels 3.1 through 3.3 and 21.1.

As part of the SAFER Act, KTBS-TV kept its analog signal on the air until June 26 to inform viewers of the digital television transition through a loop of public service announcements from the National Association of Broadcasters.