KYQQ is a radio station operating in Wichita, Kansas, in the United States, and licensed to Arkansas City, Kansas. Calling itself "Radio Lobo 106.5," the station airs a Regional Mexican format and is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company. Its studios are co-located with radio stations KFDI-FM, KICT-FM, KFXJ-FM and KFTI in Wichita. The transmitter is located north of Winfield, Kansas.
History
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Signed on the air in 1979 as KBUZ under owners Gary & Ann Violet. KBUZ was very much a small family business. The Violets literally built the station with their own handsâ€"Gary being a certified radio engineer. He not only did the engineering but actually designed the building and built much of it at Strother Field between Winfield and Arkansas City. Gary and Ann also ran the station along with Gary's mother. The entire family lived in a set of two mobile homes just a few yards south of the station. Under Gary's ownership, the station tried a number of formats including Country, Top-40, and Hot AC. From 1980 through 1982 the station was an eclectic mix of album-oriented rock that attempted to strike a balance in the Wichita radio market between the hard-edged KICT-95 and the more mainstream KEYN. The station was programmed by Bruce Adamek. In 1981, it featured an evening show by Kevin Craig, a noted Wichita announcer whose distinctive voice was best known as the voice of the Dillons Grocery store chain on radio and TV. Later in 1983 Jeff Garrett, did a stint in the evening slot.
In the summer of 1983 Violet was approached by a Wichita night club owner through his primary club DJ Joe Turner, who at the time went by the moniker Captain Disco or Captain D. They proposed adding a Sunday evening black-contemporary format. Violet was initially very skeptical. This was at a time when Michael Jackson had only recently breached the color barrier on MTV, leading to a resurgence of black-influenced music on the Top-40 charts. Prince had just begun to emerge as an artist. The proposed format, even for a few hours on Sunday, would be a striking contrast to the rest of the KBUZ air time. However, Turner and his boss successfully convinced Violet that this insurgence of black contemporary music would move beyond the Wichita black community into the young adult and youth demographic. They also promised a tremendous outpouring of commercial support from the black community.
Still not expecting much, Violet turned the project over to Wes Crenshaw, a weekend and fill-in air staff member who was at the time covering afternoon drive. Crenshaw trained the new staff and oversaw commercial production through the debut of the show. The new format which followed an Urban Contemporary design turned out to be a rousing success in both ratings and revenue, creating the first consistent financial stream for KBUZ out of the coveted Wichita market. The success of the format caught Violet by surprise, but he began to recognize a winning formula. Crenshaw trained a second DJ Rochel "R.W." Wright who was then added to the line up (And later moved up to Program Director for KBUZ). When the next Arbitron came out, KBUZ had jumped dramatically, scoring at or near the top of the ratings in the experimental time slots. Violet came to believe that the urban format was the best shot KBUZ had at attaining commercial success and by 1984, KBUZ changed its format giving Wichita its first full-time Urban station. KBUZ had a large following of listeners with its Urban format despite its poor signal into Wichita and the market not having a very large African American population. Turner had been correct. As the number of successful black musicians grew nationally, the appeal of the Urban format carried far beyond the black community.
Around August 1987, The Violets sold KBUZ to Kelsey Broadcasting Corporation, based out of Orlando, Florida. Kelsey dropped the Urban format and flipped to Adult Contemporary as KWKL "Lite 106.5". KBUZ's audience mostly African Americans were upset over the format change. By this time, the station upgraded its signal to broadcast full coverage over Wichita. KWKL's AC format only lasted a year, then it flipped to Oldies as "Kool 106.5".
On July 3, 1990, KWKL dropped its Oldies format and stunted with David Bowie's "Changes", Bananarama's "I Heard a Rumour" and Glenn Frey's "The Heat is On" repeatedly and a drop between the songs saying "All Good Things Must Come To An End, Out With The Old" referring to the demise of KWKL's Oldies format. On July 5, at Noon, the station flipped the format to Adult Top 40 as KYQQ "Q-106.5", which launched with "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship. It later moved into a Mainstream Top 40 and briefly a Dance/Rhythmic Top-40 competing against former Top 40 107.3 KKRD (Now Alternative KTHR).
On July 17, 1992, unable to compete with Top 40 powerhouse KKRD at the time, KYQQ changed format from Top-40 to Country as "Hot Country 106.5", later back to "Q-106.5" to compete against Country powerhouses KFDI-FM and KZSN. KYQQ had limited success against the two stations. KFDI's owners, Great Empire Broadcasting, purchased KYQQ in 1994. Great Empire sold its stations to Journal Broadcast Group in 1999. The Country format was dropped on March 30, 2002 for its current Spanish format. It first signed on as "La Maquina Musical" and later changed to Radio Lobo.
On March 28, 2009, the KYQQ 1250' broadcast tower collapsed following more than two inches of freezing rain. The station resumed broadcasting the following day from a backup site at reduced power output.
On July 30, 2014, it was announced that The E.W. Scripps Company would acquire Journal Communications in an all-stock transaction. The combined firm will retain their broadcast properties and spin off their print assets as Journal Media Group. KYQQ, their sister radio stations in the Wichita area and 2 TV stations were not included in the merge; in September, Journal filed to transfer these stations to Journal/Scripps Divestiture Trust (with Kiel Media Group as trustee).
References
External links
- Station website
- Query the FCC's FM station database for KYQQ
- Radio-Locator information on KYQQ
- Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for KYQQ
- KSN TV - Ice Brings tower down
