On December 6, 1981, KTVE rejoined NBC while KLAA became an ABC affiliate (that station changed its call letters to KARD one year later), clearing the entire network schedule except for two local daytime programs and "Saturday Night Live". The first program the station aired as a full-time NBC affiliate was an NFL game between the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins. Originally, the station wanted to return to being a primary NBC affiliate with secondary ABC affiliation, yet there were contractual issues preventing such. In 1983, Gray moved KTVE's main studio to Kilpatrick Blvd in Monroe; it only retained a satellite studio in El Dorado with only a few staff members, including a video journalist. This led to many complaints from Arkansas viewers that KTVE only featured stories from the Louisiana side of the market. In the late 1990s, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) forced KTVE to adopt a split-anchor format as a condition of renewing its license. During the weekday morning and weekday 5:00 p.m. newscasts, one anchor was stationed in Monroe, while another was stationed in El Dorado. This condition is no longer enforced by the FCC, although KTVE does still report news from El Dorado. In 1996, Piedmont Television acquired KTVE from Gray Communications (Gray would later return to the Monroe/El Dorado market in 2014 when it purchased rival station KNOE from Hoak Media).