KVEO signed on in December 1981. Before then, the area had been one of the few in the country without a full-time NBC affiliate; the area's original NBC affiliate, Weslaco's KRGV-TV (channel 5), had become a full-time ABC affiliate in 1976. In the interim, CBS affiliate KGBT-TV (channel 4) carried NBC programming on a secondary basis. KVEO added a secondary affiliation with UPN in 1996, replacing previous secondary affiliate KRGV-TV; in 1999, the station lost UPN to XHRIO-TV in Matamoros.