Channel 5 signed on the air as KYES in 1990 as an independent before joining UPN in 1995. It also had a secondary affiliation with The WB until that network launched The WB 100+ Station Group in 1998 in order to shift to cable-only distribution in smaller markets. In January 2006 it was announced that the WB and UPN were to merge operations in September 2006 to form The CW. The station was expected to become a CW affiliate, but on April 24 it was announced that The CW would be carried on a digital subchannel of ABC's Anchorage affiliate KIMO (channel 13, now KYUR). KYES instead became an affiliate of MyNetworkTV and one of only two in Alaska (former sister station K17HC in Juneau was the other); KFXF, the Fox affiliate in Fairbanks, declined an offer to air it as a secondary affiliation. The "-TV" suffix was added in 2007.