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KMOX-FM

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For the radio station that used this call sign from 1962 to 1982, see KLOU.

KMOX-FM
Simulcast of KMOX, St. Louis
Broadcast areaGreater St. Louis
Frequency104.1 MHz (HD Radio)
Branding104.1 FM KMOX
Programming
FormatNews/talk
NetworkCBS News Radio
Affiliations
Ownership
Owner
History
First air date
October 16, 1967; 57 years ago (1967-10-16) (as WJBM-FM in Jerseyville, Illinois)
Former call signs
  • WJBM-FM (1967–85)
  • WKKX (1985–94)
  • WKBQ-FM (1994–97)
  • WALC (1997–98)
  • WXTM-FM (1998–2000)
  • WMLL (2000–04)
  • WRDA (2004–05)
  • WHHL (2005–25)
Call sign meaning
Missouri Xmas Eve (derived from KMOX, which first signed on the air on Christmas Eve)
Technical information[1]
Licensing authority
FCC
Facility ID74578
ClassC2
ERP50,000 watts
HAAT140 meters (460 ft)
Transmitter coordinates
38°39′07″N 90°17′02″W / 38.652°N 90.284°W / 38.652; -90.284
Links
Public license information
WebcastListen live (via Audacy)
Websitewww.audacy.com/kmox

KMOX-FM (104.1 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Hazelwood, Missouri, and serving the Greater St. Louis area. It broadcasts a news/talk radio format as a simulcast of KMOX (1120 AM) and is owned by Audacy, Inc. The studios and offices are on Olive Street at Tucker Boulevard in downtown St. Louis.

KMOX-FM is a Class C2 station. It has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 50,000 watts, using a directional antenna. The transmitter is within the campus of Crossroads College Preparatory School on DeBaliviere Avenue, just north of Forest Park.[2]

History

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Jerseyville era (1967–85)

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The station signed on in 1967, licensed to Jerseyville, Illinois as WJBM-FM, airing a full service country format as a sister station to WJBM (1480), and a transmitter located north of that community. For its first few years of existence its reach was limited to the same rural area as their AM partner, with any efforts to market to St. Louis were merely coincidental and involved full-market advertising.

Moving into St. Louis (1985–1997)

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The station was sold to Shelly Davis' Gateway Radio Partners in 1985 without the AM station, and its new owners began to target St. Louis and the northern portion of Metro East, continuing to air country music, now as WKKX.[3] Even with a move of its tower site into the Missouri side of the metro in Florissant, the move-in station struggled against entrenched country competition, and "Kix 104" was unsuccessful, with GRP going bankrupt and Zimmer Broadcasting purchasing the station in July 1991, then WKBQ-FM (106.5) in 1993, a move-in station itself.[4]

On January 20, 1994, the programming and call letters of 104.1 FM would be swapped with that of 106.5 FM, and WKBQ-FM, now on 104.1, would become "Q104" and assume 106.5's former Top 40/CHR format. For the next year, the station also continued a simulcast on WKBQ's same-called sister AM station on 1380 AM until that station assumed a talk format.[5][6]

WKBQ-FM became the FM home for St. Louis morning team “Steve & DC” after one of the most significant stories/controversies in St. Louis radio history in the summer of 1993. The popular duo announced on January 6, 1994, that they would return on January 20 to “Q104” at a downtown press conference which received live coverage on television and in local publications.[7][5][6]

Emmis era (1996–2005)

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With the Telecommunications Act of 1996 de-regulating the radio industry and expanding the number of stations that could be owned in one market, Emmis Communications purchased Zimmer Broadcasting for $42.5 million, including WKBQ-FM and WKKX, with immediate changes for both stations coming after the holidays.[8] WKBQ's Top 40/CHR format was dropped for modern AC as WALC, "Alice 104.1" on January 24. 1997, inspired by the successful and similarly named station in San Francisco.[9][10][11][12] Compared to WKKX, which remained under the same format until being sold in 2000 to Bonneville International, the programming on 104.1 was in constant flux as Emmis attempted to find a proper format for the station that would draw ratings. WALC flipped to active rock as "Extreme Radio 104.1" on June 25, 1998, with new WXTM-FM call letters taking effect on July 15, 1998.[13] WXTM was the original St. Louis affiliate of The Howard Stern Show.[14]

On September 24, 2000, at 2 p.m., after playing "Fade to Black" by Metallica, and after Emmis purchased KPNT (and moved Stern to that station), WXTM flipped to 80s music as WMLL, now known as "The Mall" in tribute to the [[St. Louis Gateway Mall].[15][16][17][18][19] The format would later evolve to encompass 90s music, and would be the home of popular morning DJs Steve & DC.

WMLL began stunting with Christmas music on November 20, 2003; on December 25, the stunting changed to a "wheel of formats" by playing music from any given genre, as well as old airchecks from past formats on the frequency.[20][21][22]

At noon on January 8, 2004, the stunting stopped and the station flipped to an adult standards format as WRDA, "Red @ 104.1". The first songs on "Red" were "My Kind of Town" and "The Lady is a Tramp", both by Frank Sinatra.[23][24][25][26][27][28] The station specialized in "Music with Class" as they called it, playing classic standards singers such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bobby Darin, along with more modern 'crooners' such as Rod Stewart and Michael Bublé. The format, unusual for a major-market FM station, had little revenue and listenership and its older demographic immediately made the station non-viable long-term, and after a year and a half, Emmis decided to sell the station to another party.

Radio One/Hot 104.1 era (2005–2021)

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KMOX-FM transmitting tower

Emmis began the process of selling WRDA to Radio One, for $20 million in the latter part of September 2005.[29] The station flipped to urban contemporary format as "Hot 104.1" on October 1, 2005, with Radio One immediately assuming operations of the station under a temporary local marketing agreement.[30][31] The call letters would change to WHHL on November 24, 2005. Radio One would take full possession of the station in 2006, and soon began the process of moving the station towards the central part of the market. By 2008, 104.1's signal was now transmitting from north of Forest Park atop an outbuilding of Crossroads College Preparatory School, and the station was able to justify the move after the approval of a city of license change from Jerseyville to Hazelwood.

KMOX-FM transmitter building

On November 5, 2020, Urban One announced that it would swap WHHL, the intellectual property of WFUN-FM, and two other stations in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. to Entercom, in exchange for its stations in Charlotte, North Carolina. Entercom took over the station under a local marketing agreement on November 23. The swap was consummated on April 20, 2021.[32] Audacy retained the format and personnel of the station unchanged for four years after its acquisition.

Conversion to KMOX simulcast (2025–present)

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On March 6, 2025, as part of a company-wide series of layoffs at Audacy, Inc., the entire "Hot" airstaff was dismissed and the station began to run fully automated, with multiple news outlets reporting that WHHL would soon begin simulcasting KMOX (112); the move would be made ahead of the start of the 2025 season of the St. Louis Cardinals, for whom KMOX is the flagship station, to provide the station a full-power FM simulcast throughout the St. Louis metropolitan area.[33]

The move would be officially confirmed by Audacy on March 10; the station became KMOX-FM on March 24, with the former WHHT/"Hot" format now broadcasting through KEZK-FM (102.5)'s second HD Radio subchannel, which is simulcast in analog from by K254CR (98.7), an FM translator formerly used to simulcast KMOX, de facto making the change in format a programming swap between two stations.[34]

References

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  1. ^ "Facility Technical Data for KMOX-FM". Licensing and Management System. Federal Communications Commission.
  2. ^ Radio-Locator.com/KMOX
  3. ^ Eric Mink, "New Station To Make Big Splash", The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 23, 1985.
  4. ^ "RR-1991-07-12" (PDF). americanradiohistory.com.
  5. ^ a b Stark, Phyllis (January 15, 1994). "Vox Jox". Billboard. Vol. 106, no. 3. p. 64.
  6. ^ a b "RR-1994-01-07" (PDF). americanradiohistory.com.
  7. ^ Linda Eardley and Jerry Berger, "Fired DJs To Go Back On Air Here", The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 4, 1994.
  8. ^ Judith VandeWater, "KSHE's Parent Buys WKKX", The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 2, 1996.
  9. ^ Diane Toroian, "St. Louis loses Top 40 station," The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 25, 1997.
  10. ^ "RR-1997-01-31" (PDF). americanradiohistory.com.
  11. ^ Alice 104.1 Commercial, August 16, 2010, retrieved January 31, 2024
  12. ^ ALICE @ 104.1 St Louis Fall 1997 Composite, retrieved January 31, 2024
  13. ^ "RR-1998-07-03" (PDF). americanradiohistory.com.
  14. ^ Diane Toroian, "Stern makes debut on the St. Louis radio lineup today", The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 24, 1998.
  15. ^ Diane Toroian, "FM changes are in the air", The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 24, 2000.
  16. ^ Diane Toroian, "Ownership changes lead to a reworking of the radio dial here", The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, October 5, 2000.
  17. ^ "RR-2000-09-29" (PDF). americanradiohistory.com.
  18. ^ Roberts, Randall. "Death of a Format". Riverfront Times. Retrieved January 31, 2024.
  19. ^ WMLL "104.1 The Mall" Jerseyville IL/St. Louis - Tony Columbo - May 11 2001, retrieved January 31, 2024
  20. ^ Elizabethe Holland, "Racy radio duo runs afoul of station management, gets the ax", The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 27, 2003.
  21. ^ "St. Louis' 104.1 FM Flips to all Christmas Music, all the Time... -- re> ST. LOUIS, Nov. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --". Archived from the original on December 11, 2012.
  22. ^ "Too Soon - St. Louis Journalism Review | HighBeam Research". September 10, 2016. Archived from the original on September 10, 2016. Retrieved January 31, 2024.
  23. ^ Diane Toroian Keaggy, "FM radio switches format to "martini music"", The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 11, 2004.
  24. ^ Lance (January 8, 2004). ""104.1 The Mall" WMLL flips from 80's to Standards "Red 104.1" WRDA". Format Change Archive. Retrieved January 31, 2024.
  25. ^ "St. Louis Stories". www.bizjournals.com. May 1, 2004. Retrieved January 31, 2024.
  26. ^ "RR-2004-01-16" (PDF). americanradiohistory.com.
  27. ^ Research, Edison (January 21, 2004). "First Look: "Modern Standards" Red 104/St.Louis". Edison Research. Retrieved January 31, 2024.
  28. ^ Red 104.1 Radio Station Commercial [2004, St. Louis, Missouri], retrieved January 31, 2024
  29. ^ Martin Van Der Werf, "Get the Red out", The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 27, 2005.
  30. ^ "Emmis Announces Sale of St. Louis' "Red" to Radio One". Emmis Corporation. January 1, 1970. Retrieved January 31, 2024.
  31. ^ Lance (October 1, 2005). "WRDA Becomes Hot 104.1". Format Change Archive. Retrieved January 31, 2024.
  32. ^ "Entercom To Swap Charlotte Stations To Radio One For WPHI, WTEM and St. Louis Duo". RadioInsight. November 5, 2020. Retrieved November 14, 2020.
  33. ^ "Entire Airstaff Exits Hot 104.1 St. Louis Ahead Of Expected Flip". RadioInsight. March 6, 2025. Retrieved March 6, 2025.
  34. ^ KMOX Makes Addition of 104.1 Simulcast Official
  • "1". Retrieved February 27, 2008.
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