KFAQ

KFAQ
City Tulsa, Oklahoma
Broadcast area Tulsa
Branding Talk Radio 1170 KFAQ
Slogan Standing Up For What's Right
Frequency 1170 kHz (also on HD Radio)
First air date June 23, 1926 (as KVOO)
Format News/Talk
Power 50,000 watts
Class A clear-channel
Facility ID 68329
Transmitter coordinates 36°8′49″N 95°48′27″W / 36.14694°N 95.80750°W / 36.14694; -95.80750Coordinates: 36°8′49″N 95°48′27″W / 36.14694°N 95.80750°W / 36.14694; -95.80750
Callsign meaning Frequently Asked Questions
Former callsigns KVOO (1926-2002)
Affiliations ABC News
Wall Street Journal Radio
Owner E. W. Scripps Company
(Scripps Broadcasting Holdings LLC)
Sister stations KHTT, KVOO-FM, KXBL-FM, KBEZ, KJRH-TV
Webcast www.1170kfaq.com/listen.html
Website www.1170kfaq.com

KFAQ (1170 AM) is a news/talk radio station in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area. It is also a Class A, clear-channel station, owned by E.W. Scripps Company and airs a mix of local and national talk shows. The station is an ABC News Radio affiliate. It airs ABC newscasts along with local news from its own news department. Weather is provided by The Weather Channel. Its studios are located in Midtown Tulsa and the transmitter is located along East 11th Street (Route 66) in an undeveloped area of East Tulsa.

Other Tulsa radio stations owned by Scripps include KVOO-FM and KXBL-FM.

History

Founded by E. H. Rollestone, KFAQ first went on the air on June 23, 1926 as KVOO, the Voice Of Oklahoma. At the time, the 1,000 watt transmission facility was located in Bristow, Oklahoma. Rollestone, a young oil millionaire, had previously founded another station in Bristow known as KFRU, which had already been sold to Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.

KVOO was moved to Tulsa on September 13, 1927 after being partially purchased by William G. Skelly. Skelly later purchased the entire company on June 28, 1928. In 1933, radio legend Paul Harvey began his radio career at KVOO.

From the 1970s until May 2002, the station was also known for its country music heritage, as well as being nationally famous for western swing music, harboring such musicians as Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, Johnnie Lee Wills and disc jockey Billy Parker, who has won awards as country music disc jockey of the year. One of the places in Tulsa made famous by KVOO Radio was the Cain's Ballroom, located on Tulsa's Main Street. Cain's Ballroom was the performing place for Bob Wills, and his show was broadcast on KVOO. In addition, KVOO sponsored The John Chick Show, a full hour of local country music talent on ABC affiliate KTUL-TV until 1979. This program broadcast at 7 a.m., and regularly beat out NBC's Today Show and The CBS Morning News in the local ratings (this was at a time when ABC had no morning news program). When ABC premiered Good Morning America in 1975, KTUL continued to air the Chick program instead, and when Elton Rule, president of ABC, visited KTUL-TV to see why the ABC affiliate was pre-empting Good Morning America, Jimmy C. Leake, owner of KTUL-TV, showed the Tulsa ratings book to Rule, and ABC backed off. KTUL began carrying GMA in 1979, when Chick left the station due to multiple sclerosis.

In 1971 Billy Parker joined KVOO. While at the station, Parker's awards included the Country Music Association Disc Jockey of the Year honor in 1974 and the Academy of Country Music Disc Jockey of the Year awards in 1975, 1977, 1978 and 1984. Parker was inducted into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame in 1992, the Western Swing Hall of Fame in 1993, and scored the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters' Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. The Interstate Road Show was also hosted on the station by veteran country DJ Larry Scott who is also in the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame. The last live country show was broadcast by veteran Tulsa radio personality Bob O'Shea, who first worked at Big Country AM 1170 KVOO in 1979. He later rejoined KVOO AM in August 1999 and retired from radio June 26, 2006 after more than 34 years in radio. He recorded the entire program including commercials for posterity. The last three songs Mr. O'Shea played were "Hello Out There" by Billy Parker, "T-U-L-S-A, Straight Ahead" by Ray Benson & Asleep at the Wheel and "Take Me Back To Tulsa" by Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys in that order.

At midnight on May 15, 2002 KVOO changed to KFAQ with its current news/talk format. Most of the DJ's moved to co-owned KVOO-FM and that station added more classic country, playing a current/classic country playlist. In 2003 co-owned KXBL flipped to classic country playing most of the music KVOO AM played and where Billy Parker is currently hosting a weekly show. KXBL is using the "Big Country" slogan, the slogan KVOO AM used when it was at its height.

The NBC television affiliate in Tulsa, KJRH, went on the air as KVOO-TV on December 5, 1954, and both KVOO-TV and Radio shared the same building for many years. In 1970, KVOO sold off KVOO-TV to Scripps-Howard Broadcasting (now The E.W. Scripps Company), and station's call letters became KTEW, In 1980, KTEW became KJRH, which it remains today.

Journal and Scripps announced on July 30, 2014 that the two companies would merge to create a new broadcast company under the E.W. Scripps Company name that will own the two companies' broadcast properties, including KFAQ. The transaction is slated to be completed in 2015, pending shareholder and regulatory approvals.[1] This deal will reunite KFAQ with KJRH.

References

  1. ↑ "E.W. Scripps, Journal Merging Broadcast Ops". TVNewsCheck. July 30, 2014. Retrieved July 31, 2014.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, March 27, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.