Its initial owner, Twenver Inc., sank under the weight of a weak local advertising market and expensive programming purchases and filed for bankruptcy reorganization within two years of launching the station; Twenver's financial issues caused the station's primary programming attraction, Denver Nuggets basketball, to break ties.

KTVD's operations were consolidated with KUSA, and it added morning and evening newscasts to expand that station's market-leading news presence.

In 1952, the Mountain States Television Company filed for the channel;[2] while the application was pending at the Federal Communications Commission, theatrical producer and major stakeholder Irving Jacobs died of a heart attack.

The remaining owners—the Sigman family, the brothers of Anne Jacobs—held off on construction in hopes that a national network could form and extend affiliation to the proposed KIRV.

[10] The FCC took these two applications as well as those of Alden Communications of Colorado and Oak Television of Denver and designated them for comparative hearing in October 1980.

[11] American Television & Communications had withdrawn by August 1983, when FCC administrative law judge Frederic J. Coufal ruled in favor of Alden's application.

He disqualified Colorado Television, finding it lacked access to a suitable transmitter site, and selected Alden over Oak owing to diversification of media ownership policy.

[12] A principal reason for the Colorado Television disqualification was the withdrawal by KWGN-TV (channel 2) of permission to set up its transmitter facility at that station' site on Lookout Mountain.

[13] Alden Communications of Colorado sold the channel 20 permit—still unbuilt and then bearing the call sign KTZO-TV—to Twenver, Inc., headed by N. Richard Miller, in January 1988.

On top of the station's existing issues with cash flow problems and a large outlay on syndicated programming, this forced Twenver to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization on July 11, 1990.

Two days later, the Nuggets—owed nearly $1 million—and KTVD terminated their agreement,[24] and before the end of the month, general manager Jack Moffitt was fired as a cost-saving move.

The station also experimented with local program production, including a documentary series and a weekly talk show hosted by Denver Broncos players Ed McCaffrey and Rod Smith,[38] as well as high school football telecasts.

[42] Newsweb acquired KTVS (channel 3) in Sterling, Colorado, some 120 miles (190 km) north of Denver, from Benedek Broadcasting in 1999.

[43] On December 15, 2005, Newsweb announced it would sell KTVD to Gannett, owner of Denver's NBC affiliate, KUSA (channel 9).

[45] The deal received FCC approval in June 2006[46] and was shortly followed by an affiliation agreement with MyNetworkTV to replace the closing UPN.

The reason related to myriad siting, permitting, and other challenges that impeded construction of a new digital TV tower on Lookout Mountain for the "Lake Cedar Group" (KCNC, KMGH, KUSA, KTVD) until an act of Congress broke the impasse.

[51] KTVD provided high-power digital service before KUSA, by July 2008,[52] and both stations ceased analog broadcasting on April 16, 2009.