[1][5] A year later, on October 15, 1978,[4] the station changed its call letters to KRIZ and began airing an album-oriented rock format.

[5] Two years later, Gary Acker and his Good News Broadcasting Company acquired KRIZ,[4] resulting in a flip to contemporary religious music and other programming from local churches.

[8] On June 1 of that year, the station changed its call letters to KCKN and ditched its religious programming, which had not been very profitable, to adopt a 24-hour country music format; KRIZ, in contrast, only operated from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.[9] A year later, Strother sold the station to Sudbrink Broadcasting of New Mexico for $500,000.

[10] Sudbrink traded KCKN and KBCQ (1020 AM) to National Capital Christian Broadcasting the next year in order to acquire WTLL, a television station it owned in Richmond, Virginia; National Capital Christian then sold the Roswell radio pair to Ardman Communications for $600,000.

[12] In 1990, the group agreed to sell its Roswell stations and WVSR-AM-FM in Charleston, West Virginia, for $5.75 million to ML Media.