The call letters were changed to KFTK on September 16, 2016. In 2012, Mark Kern challenged the license renewals of KFTK and its sister stations, alleging that Robert Romanik, a convicted felon who is also known as the "Grim Reaper of Radio", was controlling the stations in violation of FCC rules that prohibit felons from owning broadcast stations and had been involved in creating the local marketing agreement between Emmis and EMT to operate the 1490 frequency. On June 5, 2019, the Federal Communications Commission designated all four EMT stations' licenses for hearing, finding that Romanik had established EMT and provided all the funding to acquire its stations even though he was not a party to any FCC applications. On March 20, 2020, the station's license was deleted by the Federal Communications Commission; K254CR was concurrently reassigned to rebroadcast KFTK-FM.