KSBY

From 1957 to 1996, the station was a sister station to KSBW channel 8 in Salinas, which is why the station currently has a similar call sign. From 1957 to 1979, KSBY was largely a semi-satellite of KSBW, with the exception of local commercials, its local newscasts, some syndicated programs, and preempting CBS network shows also carried by KCOY in adjacent Santa Maria, once it began operation in 1964. During this period, the KSBY sales office was located at co-owned Sonic Cable, and its local programming originated at the transmitter site. In 1960, ABC programming was effectively dropped when KSBW lost its affiliation with that network to KNTV in San Jose. Finally, in 1969, KSBY became the sole NBC station for both San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties when they were consolidated into a single market (with Santa Barbara-based KEYT as the ABC affiliate). KSBY and KSBW were acquired by Blair Broadcasting in 1979, at which time KSBY became a free-standing station. The stations were sold to Gillett Communications in 1986.

After Gillett restructured into SCI TV in the early 1990s, it sold KSBY and KSBW to EP Communications in 1994. EP, in turn, sold both stations to Smith Broadcasting in 1995. Almost immediately, KSBY was spun off to SJL Broadcasting in 1996, because Smith Broadcasting already owned rival station KEYT, and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules of the time did not permit duopolies. Even today, common ownership of KEYT and KSBY would be a violation of FCC duopoly rules, which forbid one entity to directly own two of the four largest stations in a single media market.

In September 2002, SJL sold KSBY to the second incarnation of New Vision Television, a company partially related to the most recent incarnation of that company that sold all of its stations to LIN Media in 2012. Evening Post Industries (through its Cordillera Communications subsidiary) acquired the station in 2004.

In 2006, the station was featured in an episode of The Surreal Life, in which the cast of the reality-based series were hired as anchors and reporters for the station's 6:30 p.m. newscast. Ryan Bennett, a one time KSBY sports anchor from 1999–2006, died on May 31, 2006 in Utah in an accident.

Cordillera announced on October 29, 2018 it will sell most of its stations, including KSBY, to the E. W. Scripps Company.[1] The sale was completed on May 1, 2019.[2] This made KSBY a sister station to nearby ABC affiliates KERO-TV in Bakersfield and KGTV in San Diego.

The station's digital signal is multiplexed:

KSBY shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 6, on February 17, 2009, the original target date on which full-power television stations in the United States were to transition from analog to digital broadcasts under a federal mandate (which was later pushed back to June 12, 2009). The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 15.[4][5] Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 6.