The station began operations on September 15, 1963, as KJFL-TV, a free-standing local independent station owned by Jeter Telecasting;[3] it went off the air after its facilities were destroyed in a February 1964 fire,[4] and the station was sold, rebuilt and returned to the air on September 9, 1965, as KREZ-TV, a satellite of CBS affiliate KREX-TV (channel 5) in Grand Junction, Colorado.[5] KREZ operated as such for nearly 30 years (with many attempts at regional news along the way) before being sold to Davenport, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises and becoming a KRQE satellite in 1995.[6]
In 1998, Lee Enterprises rebranded the combination of KRQE, KREZ-TV, and KBIM-TV as "CBS Southwest" and revamped the Durango and Roswell stations' news services to produce inserts into KRQE's early evening newscasts.[7] Two years later, Lee would exit broadcasting and sell KRQE, KREZ-TV, KBIM-TV, and most of its other television properties to Emmis Communications; in 2005, Emmis, in its own exit from television, sold its New Mexico outlets to LIN TV Corporation.
A deal to sell KREZ to Native American Broadcasting, LLC was reached in April 2011;[8] upon the sale's completion, KREZ was to become a full-scale independent station (with plans for extensive local programming), and change its call letters to KSWZ-TV.[9] However, the sale was never finalized, and KREZ remains a KRQE satellite.
On March 21, 2014, it was announced that Media General would acquire LIN.[10] The merger was completed on December 19.[11] Just over a year later, on January 27, 2016, it was announced that the Nexstar Broadcasting Group would buy Media General for $4.6 billion. After selling then-Fox affiliate KASA-TV to Ramar Communications, KRQE and its satellites became part of "Nexstar Media Group."[12] The sale was completed on January 17, 2017, reuniting KREZ with former parent station KREX.[13]
KREZ-TV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 6, on June 12, 2009, the official date on which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 15,[15] using virtual channel 6.
(*) – indicates station is in one of Colorado's primary TV markets (**) – indicates station is in an out-of-state TV market, but reaches a small portion of Colorado
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