department to provide additional weather coverage during the late afternoon for that year's spring severe weather season; with that move, channel 43 carried a morning block of music videos from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. and a mix of syndicated talk and religious programs from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. After the station discontinued the daytime local news format in September 1981, KAUT began filling daytime slots with older feature film westerns—most of which had starred Autry—on a temporary basis, and also added some drama series, sitcoms and animated series to its schedule. Concurrent with the cancellations of the local music programs TMC 43 and Oklahoma Country Live, the station overhauled its lineup in September 1982, and expanded its schedule to 17 hours per day. At that time, channel 43 began offering a simulcast of the Financial News Network (which would merge with CNBC in 1989) each weekday from 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and, after the removal of VEU programming, from 9:30 to 10:00 p.m. The rest of the weekday schedule during this timeframe featured cartoons in the mid-afternoon, and a mix of "traditional family shows" from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. After channel 43 dropped VEU programming on October 17, nighttime hours began to be filled by classic series as well as the syndicated national evening newscast Independent Network News (which was distributed by eventual KAUT owner Tribune Broadcasting, and was dropped by channel 43 around the time of the program's September 1986 relaunch as USA Tonight). The following year, FNN programming was dropped and replaced by additional comedy and drama series, while movies began airing in prime time. In 1984, cartoons were added to the station's morning lineup and an expanded inventory of sitcoms was added during the evening. KAUT ceased carrying FNN programming in 1985, as a result of the channel discontinuing its over-the-air affiliations to operate strictly as a cable-exclusive service. On February 28, 1985, Golden West—whose assets had been technically been for sale under a divestiture order from the California state government since shortly after the May 1980 death of Autry's wife, Ina Mae—sold KAUT to Atlanta-based Rollins Communications (owned by O. Wayne Rollins, co-founder of pest control services company Rollins Inc.) for $5.5 million. The sale received FCC approval on April 10, and was finalized two months later on June 11. Subsequently, on June 12, 1986, Des Moines, Iowa-based Heritage Broadcasting acquired a controlling interest