Evergreen Media Corporation purchased KKBQ from the Pacific and Southern Company (a subsidiary of Gannett Corporation) in April 1997, as Gannett was divesting itself of all of its radio stations. At that time, Arbitron ranked KKBQ as the seventh most popular station in Houston. It was estimated that KKBQ was priced around $100 million, making it the single highest-priced radio station sold in Houston to that point. Shortly after the acquisition, Evergreen merged with Chancellor Broadcasting to become Chancellor Media Corporation. In October 1999, Clear Channel Communications purchased Chancellor (then known as AMFM, Inc.), thus gaining control of KKBQ. As part of a required divestiture to meet federal ownership regulations, Clear Channel sold KKBQ to Cox Radio in March 2000. Cox vowed to have KKBQ run fewer advertisements.