the hill to Comanche Peak. A tower was built and a new transmitter was installed (one of the last of the RCA TT-25GLs to become operable). The station increased its ERP to 100 kW and increased the height of its transmitter to . BTSC stereo also began with the move to the new site. In 1986, the station was acquired by United Broadcasting, then-owners of KARK-TV in Little Rock, Arkansas and WTOK-TV in Meridian, Mississippi. Columbus, Mississippi-based Imes Broadcasting bought KDBC in 1988 for $33 million after United Broadcasting was taken over by investment firm Merrill Lynch. Imes began to exit the television business in the late 1990s and announced that they would sell KDBC to Pappas Telecasting in September 2000, who intended to convert the station into a charter affiliate of Azteca América, a fledgling Spanish-language network that was co-owned at the time by Mexican network TV Azteca and Pappas. Plans for the affiliation were canceled following an outcry from viewers, advertisers, and station employees, especially over the fact that no other station in El Paso was interested in joining CBS; most crucially, the Azteca América plan to acquire KXTX-TV in Dallas and use it as the hub of the network fell through, prompting Imes to initially pull KDBC off the market. As a result, the station renewed its affiliation contract with CBS. On November 17, 2003, two years later, Pappas agreed to buy KDBC from Imes—which had been desiring to sell the station for some time—for $20 million. Pappas began operating KDBC under a time brokerage agreement that same day, with the sale closing on April 2, 2004. Azteca América and Pappas ended their affiliation relationship in mid-2007. Azteca América has been carried on the fourth digital subchannel of ABC affiliate KVIA-TV since early December 2010. On January 16, 2009, Pappas announced that it would sell several of its television stations, including KDBC, to New World TV Group (later renamed Titan TV Broadcast Group). The sale would be consummated after it received United States bankruptcy court approval. On October 19, 2009, Communications Corporation of America, owner of NBC affiliate KTSM-TV (channel 9), entered into a shared services agreement with Titan TV for KTSM-TV to provide advertising sales and administrative services as well as some news resources for KDBC-TV. Titan retained KDBC's broadcast license, while both stations would nominally employ separate news departments. However, KTSM-TV was heavily criticized for