operation in July 1984, with a company spokesman stating that it "did not prove to be economically feasible". In 1987, the station changed its call sign to KVIO-TV; six years later, Marsh sold it to Pulitzer Broadcasting, then-owner of fellow ABC affiliate KOAT-TV in Albuquerque, which changed its call letters to KOCT and converted it into a satellite of KOAT. NPG ownership Marsh Media announced the sale of KVIA-TV to the News-Press & Gazette Company of St. Joseph, Missouri, in August 1994. For NPG, it marked a return to television; the company had previously owned and sold an eight-station group. The $19.9 million transaction closed in January 1995. While KVIA briefly experienced personnel turmoil in 1999 upon the departure of general manager Art Olivas, it rebounded under his replacement, Kevin Lovell, a former weekend sports anchor in the early 1980s who returned to KVIA in 1995 and remained with the station until his 2022 retirement. In 2006, KVIA started a second digital subchannel to carry The CW. Neither of the predecessor networks, UPN or The WB, had been seen over-the-air in the Sun City since 2002, when the local affiliate for both networks, KKWB, was sold and became Spanish-language KTFN. Time Warner Cable did not broadcast the subchannel to its El Paso-area subscribers until April 2007. News operation When Marsh purchased the then-KELP-TV, its local newscasts were in third place in the El Paso market. The company sought to replicate the success it had in Amarillo, where KVII-TV had been turned around from a distant third into one of the nation's highest-rated ABC affiliates and commanded 65% of the local news audience. Jim Pratt was sent from Amarillo to El Paso to lead an overhaul of the KVIA-TV news operation. The Pro News title and "happy talk" format used in Amarillo were brought to El Paso, creating what one El Paso Times columnist called a "volatile menudo" between out-of-town and local personnel. Shortly after, morale hit a highly visible nadir, as channel 13's ratings gains did not match those of the ABC network. During a commercial break in the late newscast on December 31, 1977, Pratt and co-anchor Al Hinojos engaged in a fist fight over scriptwriting duties. When the newscast returned, Hinojos had left the set. Pratt resigned days later and was replaced by Hinojos. Ratings began to improve in the late 1970s. By early 1979, the 6 p.m.