Cordillera announced on October 29, 2018 it will sell most of its stations, including KRIS and the SSA with KZTV, to the E. W. Scripps Company. The sale was completed on May 1, 2019. Combined with an unrelated side deal resulting from an acquisition involving Raycom Media and Gray Television ongoing at the time of the purchase, it made KRIS a sister station to ABC affiliate KXXV in Waco. It also marked Scripps' return to Corpus Christi, as the company owned the "Caller-Times" from 1997 to 2015.