WKDF

WKDF was first licensed, as WNFO-FM, in 1962 to the Hickory Broadcasting Corporation.[2] It was the second commercial Nashville station to be assigned to 103.3 MHz, preceded by the original WSM-FM, which occupied this frequency from 1947 until its deletion in 1951.

Despite several FM stations already operating in Nashville at the time, receivers were not yet in widespread use, and the relatively few listeners were not enough to attract advertisers. It left the air sometime around 1965, with WKDA, then one of the two Top 40-formatted stations in the market, taking over and restarting it on January 1, 1967 as WKDA-FM.[3]

WKDF logo, 2001-2012

In January 1970, WKDA-FM began playing album-oriented rock, aimed especially at Nashville's large college student population, first at night only, and, then, beginning in March concurrent with a format change of the AM to country, full-time, for about a year and a half. Afterward, in the daytime, the station employed a mix of rock and Top 40 music, while switching to hard and progressive rock at night, during most of the 1970s and early 1980s. As the FM format grew, it soon became the dominant station of the two, which eventually separated. For some years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, "KDF" (as it was popularly known after its callsign officially changed to WKDF in 1976) was the dominant station as determined by the number of listeners reported by Arbitron, in the Nashville market, due, again, to its vast popularity among younger listeners. The only true competition the station had in the rock market was the Vanderbilt University student station, WRVU, which played alternative and college forms of rock not considered commercially acceptable in that day and time (WRVU has since discontinued broadcasting on an analog radio signal, but is available over the Internet).[4]

WKDF logo, 2012-2014, before switching to Nash FM

After nearly 30 years of programming rock, however, WKDF reformatted to country music on April 1, 1999, after continued ratings losses to competitor FM outlets. Originally going by the moniker "Music City 103.3", it reverted to using its call letters in branding beginning in 2001. In recent years, the playlist has featured a mixture of contemporary and classic country.[5]

In September 2011, WKDF came under Cumulus ownership (as a result of the Cumulus acquisition of Citadel), and thus, is now a sister station to fellow Nashville country outlet WSM-FM.[6][7]

WKDF logo, 2014-2020, as Nash FM

On February 3, 2014 WKDF, along with nine other Cumulus-owned country music stations, made the switch to the "Nash FM" branding that had been employed previously only by New York City outlet WNSH.[8]

On May 14, 2020 WKDF rebranded as "103.3 Country".[9]

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

• History of WKDA/WKDF by a former employee