The new owners switched to a talk radio format in 1993 but returned to alternative again the next year after the station was sold to Sandusky Newspapers. The alternative revival did not last long before it became "KUPD2" (billed by management as "rock entertainment") for a brief period in 1996, before flipping to sports talk later that year. After the switch to sports, the station played off this handle and started referring to itself as "The Deuce," and the call letters officially shifted to KDUS in 1997. Once its identity as a sports talk station become established, KDUS stopped using "Deuce" in its slogans, and adopted "The Fan AM 1060" as its identifier ("The Fan" for short) and "The Voice of the Fan" as its slogan.