1997, KBIG-FM owner Bonneville International conducted a nationwide six-station swap with Chancellor Communications valued at $740 million; in exchange for KBIG-FM, Bonneville obtained country music-formatted KZLA (93.9 FM). In 1998, Chancellor relaunched its new station as "The New K-BIG 104", replaced most of its airstaff, and switched back to a mainstream AC format. During this time, KBIG-FM briefly became the Los Angeles area affiliate to the nationally syndicated love-song show Delilah. In 1999, Chancellor acquired KOST and KFI from Cox Radio. The same year, Chancellor and Capstar had merged, forming AMFM, Inc. With AMFM now owning KOST, management moved KBIG-FM to a hot AC format with a lean on 1980s gold, uptempo AC currents, and rhythmic pop. In 2000, AMFM was purchased by Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia). David "Chachi" Denes, age 28, became KBIG-FM's program director in 2003. On July 18, 2005, KBIG-FM made sweeping changes to its presentation by reducing commercial time and airing 30-minute music blocks, dropped jingles and the top of the hour IDs (i.e., "... It's four o'clock in the West ..." would no longer be heard), and tweaked their playlist by dropping current hits in favor of recurrents from the 1980s and 1990s, with most of the music leaning towards a rhythmic approach. DJs also began to read out the individual letters of the station's ID, "K-B-I-G", instead of "K-Big" (although briefly in mid-2007, the "K-Big 104" slogan would sometimes be used). In addition to the station's Boogie Nights program weeknights, in July 2006, KBIG added the dance mix show Thump Radio on weekend late nights. Despite speculation that the station would shift to a dance format, management insisted that there were no changes in the works at the time. On August 17, 2006, KBIG-FM picked up new competition as Emmis Communications changed longtime country station KZLA to rhythmic adult contemporary as "Movin' 93.9 KMVN". The move gave Los Angeles two stations with a rhythmic-sounding direction aimed at adults, even though KBIG-FM technically aired a hot AC format. In 2007, Emmis launched a $5 million marketing campaign which had little effect on KBIG-FM; that company's chief financial officer Pat Walsh said it was the "single largest marketing program in Emmis history". Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan seemed unsure of KMVN, saying rhythmic AC Movin' "may or may not be right", but after a shaky start in its first two Arbitron ratings books, KMVN did move