History
Early years (1922–1977)
Effective December 1, 1921, the Department of Commerce, which regulated radio at this time, adopted regulations setting aside two wavelengths for use by broadcasting stations: 360 meters (833 kHz) for "entertainment" programs, and 485 meters (619 kHz) for "market and weather" reports. [3]
The station was first licensed on May 16, 1922, as WDAF, to The Kansas City Star , for operation on 360 meters. [4] The WDAF call sign was randomly assigned from a sequential list of available call letters. Currently most stations west of the Mississippi River have call letters beginning with "K". However, WDAF was licensed before the government changed the dividing line between W and K call signs. Prior to the January 1923 establishment of the Mississippi River as the boundary, call letters beginning with "W" were generally assigned to stations east of an irregular line formed by the western state borders from North Dakota south to Texas, with calls beginning with "K" going only to stations in states west of that line. [5]
WDAF made its debut broadcast on June 5, 1922. [6] It bounced around various frequencies, including 750, 730, 680, 820 and 810 kHz. It moved to 610 kHz in 1928, splitting time with station WOQ, before becoming the sole occupant of 610 AM in Kansas City. WDAF carried programs from both the NBC Red Network and the Blue Network until becoming a primary NBC Red affiliate in 1930. [7]
WDAF increased power to 5,000 watts daytime in 1935, and 5,000 watts nighttime in 1939. [8] In 1948, the Star obtained a construction permit to create a WDAF TV station on channel 4. [9] WDAF-TV first broadcast on October 16, 1949. [10]
Following an antitrust lawsuit, the Kansas City Star Company signed a consent decree in November 1957 to sell WDAF-AM-TV. [11] This lawsuit stemmed from "combination advertising and subscription rates for both morning and afternoon newspapers in a 'monopoly' newspaper market," explained Broadcasting magazine on December 9, 1957. [12] The Star Company eventually sold the WDAF stations for $7.6 million to National Theatres Inc. through licensee National-Missouri TV in December 1957. [13] [14] [8] WDAF added Bob "Hoolihan" Wells from KOCY in Oklahoma City in 1959 to host on Saturday mornings. [15]
In 1960, National-Missouri TV sold the WDAF stations to Transcontinent Television Corporation for $9.7 million combined. [16] Transcontinent then launched WDAF-FM on 102.1 MHz in 1961. [17] [18]
Transcontinent sold off many of its TV and radio stations in 1964. WDAF-AM-FM-TV was part of a multi-market, $26.9 million purchase of stations by Taft Broadcasting. [19] On February 19 that year, WDAF AM's broadcast license was transferred to Taft effective April 1. [8] Taft programmed a pop standards format for WDAF, with personalities including Walt Bodine. [20] Beginning December 13, 1964, WDAF expanded its broadcast schedule to 24 hours a day. [21]
Through its WDAF Radio Records label, in June 1965 WDAF released WDAF Radio Presents Kansas City Jazz, a live concert album featuring Count Basie, Clare Fischer, and other jazz musicians. [22] The AM and FM WDAF stations had initially simulcast, but beginning October 11, 1965, WDAF-FM broke away in afternoons to play contemporary pop albums following an FCC order for radio stations to separate at least 50 percent of AM and FM programming. [23]
In February 1966, Billboard named WDAF among the most popular easy listening stations in the U.S. for a 25.3 weekday morning audience share leading the Hooper survey for Kansas City for December 1965 and January 1966. [24] Subsequently in June 1966, Billboard observed that pop standards comprised nearly three quarters of the music on WDAF with the remainder dedicated to current hits. [25]
61 Country (1977–2003)
WDAF flipped to country music in February 1977, calling itself "61 Country". WDAF enjoyed strong ratings as a country station in the 1970s and 1980s as measured by Radio & Records surveys. In October and November 1978, WDAF was the most popular station among listeners aged 25 to 54. [26] In spring 1983, WDAF not only topped the Kansas City ratings but also tied for 17th out of the top 25 morning drive shows nationally and fourth out of the top 25 country stations in AQH share. [27] Taft Broadcasting owned it until 1987, when a hostile takeover put it under Great American Communications ownership. After a financial restructuring, Great American sold WDAF-TV and became known as Citicasters, owning AM 610 and FM 102.1 until 1997.
Entercom bought WDAF (AM) in October 1997. The FM was sold off in June, first to American Radio Systems, then Westinghouse/CBS Radio. (It is currently owned by Steel City Media.) [28] From 1992 to 1995, WDAF also held the Royals broadcast rights. In 2002, the station picked up the rights to University of Missouri football and basketball. David Lawrence, Phil Young, and Ted Cramer were among the longtime personalities on 61 Country, along with newscasters Charles Gray, Frank Haynes, and Caroline Rooney. [7]
610 Sports (2003–2024)
In 2003, Entercom announced it would move WDAF to 106.5 on the FM dial, and would flip AM 610 to sports talk to compete against WHB. [29] At 2 p.m. on September 10, 2003, the station became KCSP, "61 Sports" (later "610 Sports"). Jason Whitlock was among its inaugural local hosts, and The Jim Rome Show would move to KCSP from WHB effective December 8. [30]
By fall 2004, KCSP began overtaking WHB in some ratings surveys, but WHB jumped far ahead by the winter, with some shows beating KCSP by five or more points among men aged 25 to 54. [31]
Kansas Jayhawk sports moved to KCSP in September 2006. Kansas City Royals baseball began airing on KCSP in the 2008 season. In 2012, KCSP dropped The Jim Rome Show in favor of expanding its local programming. [7]
Beginning with the 2020 season, KCSP joined the Kansas City Chiefs radio network to provide live coverage of news conferences with head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Patrick Mahomes, in addition to the weekly Chiefs Kingdom Radio Show; live game coverage would be on sister station WDAF-FM. [32]
96.5 The Fan (KFNZ-FM simulcast)
On August 8, 2024, at 10 a.m., KCSP announced that it would begin simulcasting on FM sister station KRBZ beginning August 15, and rebrand as "96.5 The Fan". The FM side, which adopted the KFNZ-FM callsign, would become the new flagship station for the Kansas City Chiefs (which had been on WDAF-FM) and the Royals with the move. [33] In case of event conflicts, some Royals games would remain solely on 610 AM, which would also take on the KFNZ call sign. [34]