KKSS signed on with the format on September 16, 1985 after upgrading the signal and acquiring new broadcasting equipment. The station was owned by New Mexico Broadcasting Inc. In 1986 KKSS and AM sister station KAFE 810 were sold to SunGroup Broadcasting for $2.2 million. In 1998 SunGroup had planned to sell KKSS to Trumper Communications which owned the 94.1, 100.3, 104.1 and 107.9 signals in the market for $6 million. However Trumper would later withdraw from the deal and KKSS would then be sold to Simmons Media Group for $5.5 million in November 1998. KKSS had detoured to mainstream Top 40 a few times, mostly when they got new competition (most of them short-lived) and would do so again in early 2001. But that all changed when Univision bought the station in late 2002 from Simmons Media Group and flipped it back to its current Rhythmic Top 40 direction after its former owners tried to make it a mainstream Top 40 again.