[2][11] Doralcar Associates of Chicago acquired KFQC in 1958; the firm was owned by Alex Clark, a real estate company owner, and WGN announcer Howard Dorsey.
[18] Robert's widow Oneita sold KWNT three years later to Hallstrom Communications, then in the process of selling WRAM at Galesburg, Illinois; the new owner stated he would not change the format.
[21] After Hallstrom sold KXRK to Timothy P. Anderson for $350,000 in October 1984,[22] The standards format was abandoned in March 1985 when the station switched to adult contemporary and new call letters KTSS (known on air as "KT-Sixteen"), citing a lack of advertiser support and a wider potential audience.
[24] While airing this format, the station took part in a project to promote the plight of the area's homeless during which program director Terry Haywood spent 10 days living on the streets.
In mid-1987, KTSS filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization; when the station was to shut down on August 14, a Friday, the DJs opted to work without pay for a weekend and host a fundraising drive to make up a $7,000 shortfall.
[27] The fundraiser drew less than half that sum, but enough money was raised to keep KTSS going while new financing was sought; Haywood also blamed advertisers reticent to buy air time on a station with a primarily Black audience.
[35] Christian Family Media reached a deal to sell KFQC to Richard "Andy" Andresen, long a contract engineer at various radio stations in the Quad Cities, in late 1993.
Andresen had developed and sold radio automation equipment, giving him the cash to make the acquisition; he immediately began programming the station while the sale was pending, returning it to a standards format.
The FCC approved the sale in February 1994, and construction began in Davenport on studios in shopping center space once used for driver's license examinations, with Andresen doing much of the work himself to save money.
However, in advance of the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the likely media consolidation it would lead to, Andresen opted to exit the station ownership business and focus on engineering work and marketing his automation products.