KWBM

The station first signed on the air on January 26, 2001; it originally served as the market's affiliate of The WB.

Prior to the station's sign-on, southwestern Missouri residents could only receive WB network programs on cable and satellite through Chicago-based superstation WGN, which carried WB programming nationally from the network's launch on January 11, 1995; the network was unavailable in the market between the period when WGN dropped WB programming in October 1999[2][3] and KWBM launched.

On December 8, 2008, Equity Media Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection; it then began to sell off its television station properties.

Because it was granted an original construction permit after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) finalized the DTV allotment plan on April 21, 1997,[10] the station did not receive a companion channel for its digital signal.

The termination of KWBM's analog signal resulted in the station being dropped from satellite providers Dish Network and DirecTV, due to the lack of unique local programming from the main Daystar national feed, and a revocation of the station's retransmission consent agreement after the sale from Equity to Daystar.