its local news ratings and had become a serious and successful challenger to KAKE, the metro-area leader, by 1986. By 1988, it had dislodged KAKE from first place in a majority of time slots. In addition, Beach and Schmidt had acquired KTVC, the last television station in western Kansas not owned by a Wichita-area station, in 1988. The turnaround attracted the interest of Michigan-based Smith Broadcasting, who made an unexpected and unsolicited $45 million purchase offer for KBS that Beach and Schmidt accepted that same year. Among Smith's first actions were to appoint part-owner Sandy DiPasquale, who later became the CEO of Newport Television, as president and general manager and to change the call letters on the western and central Kansas stations to designations that incorporated "KBS". DiPasquale became the majority owner in 1992 as Smith sold his interests in KBS to buy other broadcast properties. Spartan Communications of Spartanburg, South Carolina, purchased KBS from DiPasquale in 1994 for $58 million. Spartan merged with Media General in 2000. Schurz and Gray ownership On April 6, 2006, Media General announced that it would sell KWCH, its satellites, and four other stations as a result of its purchase of four former NBC owned-and-operated-stations (WVTM-TV in Birmingham, Alabama, WCMH in Columbus, Ohio, WNCN in Goldsboro, North Carolina and WJAR-TV in Providence, Rhode Island). South Bend, Indiana-based Schurz Communications eventually emerged as the winner and took over on September 25, at which time Schurz formed a new subsidiary known as "Sunflower Broadcasting, Inc.," which became the licensee for its Wichita media market broadcasting properties. In July 2007, KSCW became a sister station to KWCH after Schurz bought the station through a failing station waiver. In 2009, Schurz further expanded its operations by entering into an agreement with Entravision Communications, which was preparing to launch Univision affiliate KDCU-DT, to provide local advertising sales, technical functions, and transmitter tower space, which would continue until Entravision eventually brought operations in-house. Schurz announced on September 14, 2015, that it would exit from broadcasting and sell its entire broadcasting division, including KWCH (and its satellites), KSCW-DT, and the JSA with KDCU-DT, to Gray Television for approximately $442.5 million. Gray already owned KAKE, which it divested to Lockwood Broadcast Group in order to retain the higher-rated KWCH. The FCC approved the sale on February 12, 2016, and the sale was completed on February 16. News operation Prior to 1983, KTVH