 KNIC-DT's history traces back to the March 1991 sign-on of K17BY, a low-power television station that San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia) was issued a construction permit to build on March 23, 1988; operating on UHF channel 17, Clear Channel sold the station in March 1991 to Nicolas Communications.In November 1997, the station changed its calls to KNIC-LP (in reference to its owners); Nicolas Communications sold KNIC-CA in November 2001 (the station received approval to upgrade its license to Class A status that same month) to Univision Communications, a sale that was completed in January 2002; that month, it became a charter affiliate of Univision's secondary network, TeleFutura (which relaunched as UniMás on January 7, 2013).Univision had applied for a license to build a full-power television station in 2000 on UHF channel 52 in Blanco; after the Federal Communications Commission awarded Univision the license at auction, Univision requested that the FCC move the allocation to UHF channel 17; the request was granted in February 2003.