ownership In March 1975, Marsh Media, a company owned by Stanley Marsh 3, sued Walton in Texas district court for breach of contract. In 1967, Walton had sold the Marsh family KVII-TV, the ABC affiliate in Amarillo, and the right of first refusal to purchase several other Walton stations. The Marsh family contended that, even though they had the right to be the lender of first choice, a transfer of stock to Helen B. Walton and the placement of Walton stock as collateral with a bank violated their contract. In October, Marsh exercised its option to purchase KELP-TV and KAVE-TV from Walton for $3,075,000, separating KELP television from the radio station. Marsh took control in April 1976, and a new KVIA-TV call sign was adopted on May 1. Walton and Marsh each supported efforts to establish a public television station in El Paso, KCOS, on the originally assigned educational channel 7. KVIA-TV and KCOS shared a tower, and Marsh granted half-ownership in a new combined antenna to broadcast channels 7 and 13. Delays had previously been experienced when channel 13 was sold, as the agreement had to be renegotiated. The agreement also contained a clause by which, if both parties and the FCC agreed, KVIA and KCOS could swap channel designations, moving KCOS to channel 13 and KVIA-TV to channel 7. The FCC approved of this in June 1981, and the change took effect on July 10. Reasons cited for the move included placing KVIA-TV between the other two network affiliates—as McLendon had sought to do in 1955—as well as aligning KVIA-TV with the various ABC owned-and-operated stations—and KVII-TV—that also broadcast on channel 7. Marsh Media also experimented with more local autonomy for KAVE-TV in Carlsbad. Marsh invested a reported $1 million to set up a local operation in the city to originate regional news coverage for southeastern New Mexico. On September 2, 1982, KAVE-TV began airing its own evening newscast. However, Marsh admitted that it had overestimated the regional economy when it conducted a round of layoffs at KAVE-TV the next year, reducing its full-time staff from 22 to 16. That year, the station switched from broadcasting on Mountain Time to Central Time, which at the time was used by the other southeastern New Mexico TV stations, KBIM-TV and KSWS-TV. This had the effect of moving the Carlsbad newscasts to 5:30 and 9 p.m. However, Marsh folded the local