KTTZ-TV is an open-circuit non-commercial educational television station licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

KCOS and KTTZ would remain the only PBS member stations in the West Texas region north of I-20 until KPBT-TV was established in Odessa in 1986, followed by KACV-TV in Amarillo in 1988.

On August 12, 2019, TTU announced it would purchase and take over the operations of El Paso's KCOS for a token amount of $1,000, in order to preserve the market's access to PBS.

All local personnel in El Paso will remain in place under the new ownership, with Texas Tech becoming the licensee and manager of that station, in addition to its existing Lubbock operations.

[4] The station's signal is multiplexed: KTTZ-TV (as KTXT-TV) shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 5, at 4:30 p.m. on February 5, 2009, four months before most full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate on June 12.