KOAM-TV debuted on December 13, 1953, at 5:22 p.m., as a joint venture of The Joplin Globe newspaper and E. Victor Baxter and Lester Cox, proprietors of KOAM radio (860 AM, the present KKOW), with Baxter and Cox maintaining a majority interest. Baxter and Cox would eventually buy out the Globe's minority ownership in the station.