In 1993, KHNL began to advertise itself as Fox 13 Hawaii, despite the fact that the station had been a Fox affiliate since the network launched in 1986.
On January 1, 1996, KHNL swapped affiliations with KHON-TV (channel 2), becoming the NBC affiliate for Hawaii's market as part of a group affiliation deal with SF Broadcasting who purchased four stations (including KHON-TV) from Burnham Broadcasting and become Fox affiliates; KHNL then became known on-air as "NBC Hawaii News 8" (still on channel 13).
2004–2009
Variant used from 2008 to 2009, when the station began broadcasting its newscasts in high definition.
On October 26, 2009, KHNL changed its branding from "KHNL NBC 8" to "KHNL" (still NBC) to reflect its cable and satellite channel assignments (Hawaiian Telecom carried on channel 8, DirecTV and Dish Network carried on channel 13).