In 1963, the station activated a new transmitter located north of Burrton (just east of Hutchinson), operating from the tallest broadcast tower in the state at . Combined with its three satellites, it boosted channel 12's signal to cover almost two-thirds of Kansas. In 1983, the Cowles family began selling off its vast media holdings. KTVH was sold to the Kansas Broadcasting System Corporation, owned by Ross Beach and Bob Schmidt, who already owned KAYS-TV and KLOE-TV. The station's call letters were then changed to KWCH-TV on July 4 of that year (the KTVH call letters are now used by an NBC-affiliated station in Helena, Montana, which adopted the call sign two years after channel 12's call sign switch). In 1988, the network acquired KTVC, which at the time was the last television station in western Kansas not directly owned by a Wichita-area station.