On October 6, 1953, the station, which had by that time acquired the call letters KIVA, sent out a very faint test pattern by accident, but it was received by several people.

[7] Harry C. Butcher, owner of a radio station in Santa Barbara, California, acquired KIVA in 1957 as the station neared bankruptcy, with television program providers and a dance school in El Centro among the creditors and assets exceeding liabilities by $200,000;[8][9] in 1959, Butcher brought in additional investors under the name of Electro Investors.

The FCC approved three additional construction permits for the market, one for KBLU-TV (later KSWT, now KYMA-DT) in July 1962 and two others for stations to serve El Centro on channels 7 and 9 in April 1963.

[18] While the competition did hurt KIVA's profits, conditions were not quite as bleak as Merrill had predicted, and the station continued to operate well after KBLU-TV's sign-on in December 1963.

A third television station, KECC-TV (now KECY-TV), entered the market in December 1968, and KIVA eventually became unable to sustain business.

On January 14, 1970, Merrill announced that KIVA would leave the air at the end of the month, stating that he believed the market would have to grow fivefold to support all three stations.