It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV outlet KCOP-TV (channel 13).

The two stations share studios at the Fox Television Center in West Los Angeles; KTTV's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.

It was one of five licenses that were granted simultaneously by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to parties interested in expanding commercial television in Los Angeles.

In 1948, CBS, which owned KNX radio, purchased a 49% interest in the station and assisted in completing its construction in exchange for making channel 11 the network's Los Angeles television outlet.

In May 1950, Times-Mirror purchased the Nassour Studios – a large motion picture facility on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and centralized KTTV's operations there.

KTTV converted the Nassour Studios into a major production house for television, producing programs locally and for the emerging syndication market.

Prior to the move, KTTV operated out of several different facilities, including the former headquarters of Capitol Records (which was later the longtime home of KHJ radio and what is now KCAL-TV) on Melrose Avenue.

[12] In 1958, channel 11 scored an advantage against its rivals when it became the television home of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, which had relocated from Brooklyn, New York, that year.

[13] For the first 11 years and at the request of the team, KTTV's Dodger telecasts were limited to road games against the archrival San Francisco Giants.

[15][16][17] Later that year, Metromedia purchased KLAC (570 AM) and the original KLAC-FM (102.7 FM, now KIIS-FM), giving channel 11 sister stations on the radio dial.

Some of the staff members in the earlier 1970s were John Jones, Sales Manager; George Putnam, news anchorman; Putnam's co-anchor Hal Fishman; Ken Jones, first black on-air TV newsman in L.A.; Tom Kelly, TV sports reporter; Terry Mayo, noontime news; and Rona Barrett, who taped her syndicated gossip report at KTTV, written by assistant Barbara Sternig.

Thanks to its Dodgers broadcasts and round-the-clock programming, KTTV was seen on various cable systems across the Western United States during the 1970s and into the 1980s, as far east as El Paso, Texas.

KTTV and KTLA were seen on most Southern and Central California cable systems, with KHJ-TV and KCOP also getting carried outside Los Angeles to a lesser extent.

In 1973, as part of an agreement signed with four citizen groups and filed with the station's renewal application, KTTV began banning 42 violent animated series, most notably Popeye, Superman, Batman and Aquaman, while applying a "caution to parents" warning to 81 violent live-action series shown before 8:30 p.m., most notably The Outer Limits.

[20] In 1986, Australian newspaper publisher Rupert Murdoch and his company, the News Corporation (which had acquired a controlling ownership interest in the 20th Century Fox film studio the year before), purchased KTTV and the other Metromedia television stations.

By the early 1990s, it began to run afternoon cartoons from the network's Fox Kids block (which debuted in 1990), as well as top-rated off-network sitcoms during the evening hours.

Several television series were filmed at the historic Metromedia Square television studio (which was once home to Norman Lear's Tandem Productions and TAT Communications Company) such as The Jeffersons, Mama's Family, Diff'rent Strokes, One Day at a Time, Soul Train, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Fernwood 2 Night and the groundbreaking sketch comedy In Living Color.

In addition, the report also mentioned "raids" on Habbo, a "national campaign to spoil the new Harry Potter book ending", and threats to "bomb sports stadiums".