KKGQ

KKGQ (92.3 FM) is a 95 kW radio station operating in Wichita, and licensed to Newton, Kansas. KKGQ's studios are located in downtown Wichita on Main Street, while its transmitter is located on the south side of Newton.

History

What is now KKGQ started as KJRG-FM in 1959. It was a sister station to Newton-licensed KJRG and had its studios there; both stations were owned by George Basil Anderson. After spending its first 4 years at 92.1 FM, KJRG-FM relocated to its current dial position in 1963. For nearly 4 decades, the station aired a Beautiful music/Easy listening format. In 1975, KJRG-FM changed call letters to KOEZ. Despite the somewhat antiquated format, the station was consistently in the top 10 of the Wichita market's radio ratings in the latter half of the 1980s through the 1990s. After being purchased by Journal in 1999 and focused its audience to Wichita (as well as moving studios there), on January 15, 2000, they flipped to an Adult Contemporary format as "Mix 92.3" and would later evolve to Adult Top 40.^[1] The station would change call letters to KMXW on October 27, 2000. The ratings quickly tanked. The station was the Wichita affiliate of the Dallas-based morning show Kidd Kraddick in the Morning (which moved to KFBZ in December 2005). In the fall of 2002, the station flipped to "92-3 the Zone" with an automated Modern AC/Modern Rock format. One year later, the station would revert to Hot AC as "The New 92-3." In September 2004, KMXW flipped to a gold-based Rhythmic Adult Contemporary format as "Magic 92.3". None of these attempts garnered any ratings success. On January 16, 2007, KMXW flipped to classic country as "Classic Country 92.3". The call letters were changed to KFTI-FM. Almost instantly, the station jumped back into the top 10 in the ratings.

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.^[2] KFTI-FM, 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). With the merger, the grandfathered ownership clause that Journal had was voided, forcing a sale of one of the Journal stations to meet ownership limits.^[3][4]

On October 10, 2014, Journal announced that the station will be sold to Wichita-based Envision, a non-profit blind advocacy group, under their newly formed broadcasting division, for a price of $1.55 million.^[5] Journal also announced that the format and KFTI call letters will be moved back to 1070 AM after a ​4 ¹⁄₂-year absence; at midnight on October 22, KLIO dropped ESPN Deportes for a simulcast of KFTI-FM. The simulcast continued until the approval of the sale on December 12, 2014. Envision applied to change KFTI-FM's call letters to KKGQ upon the closing of the sale.^[6] Although Envision is a non-profit organization, the station will continue to operate with a commercial license. In addition, Envision registered several website domains with "Q" in the address, including Q92TheBeat.com, Q92TheBeat.net and Q92TheBeat.org, as well as anonymous domains for Q92Wichita.com, Q923Wichita.com, 923QFM.com and 923TheQ.com that were registered when the sale was announced (Q92Wichita.com would be picked as the official domain).^[7]

At Midnight on December 13, 2014, KKGQ broke from the simulcast, and began stunting with music from blind musicians, as well as construction sound effects and greeting messages from Envision employees. At 6 a.m. on the 15th, the station shifted its stunting to Christmas music, now using the moniker "Santa Q92." At 6 a.m. on December 26, the stunting shifted towards playing a wide variety of music from multiple genres (while leaving hints of a possible contemporary music direction based on the stunting), now utilizing the station's intended moniker "Q92." At a press conference on December 30, KKGQ announced that Brett Harris and Tracy Cassidy (formerly of KRBB) will host mornings beginning January 5.

At Midnight on January 1, 2015, KKGQ began airing a 6-hour program of smooth jazz music titled "The Oasis", which aired in overnights for a brief period. (The "Oasis" name is based on a former Wichita station of the same name). At 6 a.m., the station officially flipped back to Rhythmic AC, branded as "Q92 The Beat", and used the slogan "The Best Mix 90s to Now." The second go-around with the format had a playlist focused on pop and rhythmic hits from the 1990s to the current day (as well as some current pop-rock songs for balance) instead of the 1970s and 1980s focus its "Magic" predecessor had. Over the course of 2015, the station added more Hot AC material to the playlist, with the complete shift to the format completed on October 1 (most of the Rhythmic AC material had been moved to the evening hours), though the station did retain a rhythmic lean overall.

By February 2017, KKGQ changed their slogan to "Today's Best Mix & Throwbacks", dropped much of the rhythmic component of their playlist, and dropped the "Beat" portion of their slogan, rebranding as just "Q92."

On April 5, 2017, Envision announced that they would merge their broadcasting division with Manhattan, Kansas-based Rocking M Media, who were also in the process of acquiring KIBB and KVWF from Connoisseur Media. As part of the deal, Rocking M will relocate KIBB/KVWF's studios into Envision's current space in downtown Wichita, as well as integrating Envision's education programs for the visually impaired into its operations in all of their Central and Western Kansas stations. Rocking M took over KKGQ via a local marketing agreement on April 10, with the sale officially completed on September 22 at a price of $2.5 million.^[8] In addition, Brett and Tracy would be let go from the station on April 19, and the station rebranded as "Q92.3."

During its tenure as "Q", ratings were in the upper 0s—mid-1 shares of the Wichita market, and often ranked as the lowest rated commercial station in the market. In the Spring 2017 ratings period, KKGQ held a 0.7 share of the market, whereas closest competitor KFBZ held a 3.6 share, and mainstream AC rival KRBB held a 4.7 share. Because of this, on September 5, 2017, at Midnight, after playing "Centuries" by Fall Out Boy, KKGQ flipped to country, branded as "Kansas Country 92.3." The first song on "Kansas Country" was "Austin" by Pat Green.^[9]

References

External links

• Station website

• Query the FCC's FM station database for KKGQ
• Radio-Locator information on KKGQ
• Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for KKGQ

Coordinates: 38°01′12″N 97°23′06″W / 38.020°N 97.385°W / 38.020; -97.385