[4] The 1980s brought a series of changes to 1450 AM, beginning with a 1983 sale of 84 percent of the stations to Kenneth R. Greenwood for $310,000 in October 1983 that provided immediate cash relief to O'Kieffe.

Later that year, however, the stations would change ownership again when Swab-Fox merged with the publisher of the Tulsa Tribune newspaper.

[10] The new owners changed the call letters to KATR on August 10 of that year, though the station continued to play country music.

[11] Surrey sold the station in 1988—the fifth and final sale in the 1980s—to Robert and Marjorie Zellmer, this time without the former FM sister, for $230,000.

[17] The station was reborn as Regional Mexican outlet El Tigre, and Salazar turned around its finances.

It was profitable by the end of 1997;[17] by 2006, station revenue surpassed $600,000 a year, thanks to an annual growth rate of 20 to 30 percent.