The station began as K46BZ when the Federal Communications Commission issued an original construction permit to Family Media of Ft. Smith to build a low-power television station on UHFchannel 46. In October 1988, Family Media transferred the construction permit to Pharis Broadcasting, who brought the station on the air and obtained its initial license on March 30, 1990. In the mid-1990s, the FCC began to allow low-power stations to have four-letter callsigns, and in September 1995, the station took the call lettersKPBI-LP, for Pharis Broadcasting Inc. Pharis also affiliated the station with the United Paramount Network. In June 1998, claiming displacement, Pharis Broadcasting requested to move the station to VHF channel 10; the FCC granted the request in October 1998. Before finishing the move, Pharis sold KPBI-LP to Equity Broadcasting in a deal finalized in June 2001, along with several other stations . One of those stations was KFDF-LP, at the time operating on channel 32. In September 2001, Equity requested Special Temporary Authority to move KFDF-LP to channel 46, being vacated by KPBI-LP. Then, in October 2001, Equity switched the two stations' call letters – KPBI-LP channel 46 became KFDF-CA channel 10, having upgraded its license to Class A on August 27, 2001, and KFDF-LP channel 32 became KPBI-CA channel 46. Under Equity's ownership, KFDF was controlled remotely via satellite from Equity's headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas, and was relayed in encrypted form via the satellite Galaxy 18. This was true of most of the company's stations. KFDF-CA lost its UPN affiliation in September 2006, when the network and The WB closed and merged to form The CW Television Network. Equity Broadcasting originally announced that the station would affiliate with MyNetworkTV, instead of joining The CW, which had no affiliate in Fort Smith until September 2007, when the network and Cox Communications launched a cable channel to carry the network. However, after KPBI-CA lost its Fox affiliation to KFTA-TV, Equity announced that KPBI-CA would join MyNetworkTV, and KFDF-CA would instead join Retro Television Network once UPN went off the air; KPBI was scheduled to join it once WB goes off the air but joined MyNetworkTV on September 22, 2006. On January 4, 2009, a contract conflict between Equity and Luken Communications, interrupted the programming on many RTN affiliates. As a result, Luken restored a national RTN feed from its headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee, via SES Americom-owned satellite AMC 9, with individual feeds to non-Equity-owned affiliates to follow on a piecemeal basis. As a result, KFDF-CA lost its RTN affiliation immediately, though Luken vows to find a new affiliate for RTN in the area. After failing to find a buyer at a bankruptcy auction, KFDF was sold to Pinnacle Media in August 2009, with Pinnacle assuming control under a local marketing agreement on August 5.
