On August 29, 2005, Northeast Kansas Broadcast Services, which had previously sold KTPK to JMJ Broadcasting Co. for $5.7 million earlier that year, sold KTKA-TV to Lawrence-based Free State Communications—an indirect subsidiary of the World Company, publisher of the "Lawrence Journal-World" and then-owner of Lawrence cable television provider Sunflower Broadband—for $6.2 million. Among those who considered buying KTKA included Bill Kurtis (who began his career in television journalism as a reporter for competitor WIBW-TV in the 1960s), who at the time of Northeast Kansas Broadcast Services' sale of the station, was considering purchasing a broadcast television outlet in Topeka; Kurtis, upon further consideration, decided against purchasing channel 49. On July 26, 2008, Free State Communications announced that it was putting KTKA up for sale; the company reversed course in October of that year, pulling KTKA from the sale block, unable to find any buyers.