KFNY (102.9 FM) is a smooth jazz radio station serving the Tacoma and Olympia, Washington area. Owned and operated by the Ocean Station Trust, the station is licensed to Centralia, Washington, and the transmitter site is in Capitol State Forest near Olympia, while its studios are located in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle.
Video KFNY (FM)
History
This station signed on in 1980 as KELA with a country music format. In 1983, the station changed its callsign to KELA-FM, but only held this callsign for less than a month before the calls changed to KMNT. During the 1990s, KMNT was branded as "The Mountain", and served the Centralia/Chehalis area. In 2004, their tower moved to Capitol Peak near Olympia, the station shifted their focus to the South Sound, adopted a new call sign of KNBQ and a new branding: "Q Country 102.9". Its studios were moved to Tacoma as well.
(In the 1980s, the call letters KNBQ were on 97.3 (now KIRO-FM), which at the time broadcast a top-40 format and served Tacoma and the South Sound. Famous DJs included Ric Hansen mid-days and Beau "Rockin'" Roberts at night.)
On November 4, 2011, at 7 a.m., KNBQ started simulcasting sports talk station KJR based in Seattle, becoming "Sports Radio 950 and 102.9 KJR". The station's calls were not changed because its sister station KJR-FM, located on 95.7 FM, already has them. This is a similar move made by KFRC-FM San Francisco, WCFS-FM Chicago, and WSBB-FM Atlanta after those stations began simulcasting KCBS, WBBM and WSB (respectively) due to their sister stations owning the same calls with the -FM suffix having a different format from the AM counterpart and did not want to transfer them over.
On June 14, 2013, at 10 a.m., KNBQ flipped to Adult Top 40 as "102.9 Now," targeting Olympia and the South Sound region. The first song on "Now" was "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga. The KJR simulcast moved to KJR-FM HD2. On June 19, 2013, the station took the KYNW call sign. It is noted that both this station and Dallas/Fort Worth area sister station KDMX shared the same branding and logo. Although KDMX flipped to Adult Top 40 in 2012, it was unsuccessful as it reverted to its Hot AC format. Most of the station's airstaff consisted of voicetracked and syndicated shows from Johnjay & Rich (from sister KZZP Phoenix), On-Air with Ryan Seacrest, Mario Lopez and "The Rendevouz" with Simon Marcel and Kim Iverson. Lori Bradley was the station's only local host, hosting middays from 10am-2pm.
On January 13, 2016, KYNW announced they will be changing formats on January 19 at Noon, and began redirecting listeners to sister station KBKS-FM. At that time, after playing "Hello" by Adele and the first minute of "Counting Stars" by OneRepublic, KYNW's format moved to KBKS (and was modified to a more broad-based Hot AC); at the same time, KYNW flipped to alternative rock as "ALT 102.9." The first (and ultimately last) song on "ALT" was "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana. The move was part of a format shuffle on four of iHeart's Seattle stations, with KBKS's Mainstream Top 40 format moving to 93.3 FM, displacing KUBE's longtime Rhythmic Top 40 format, which would move to KKBW. KKBW's active rock format would be modified to alternative and move to KYNW. On February 5, 2016, KYNW changed its call letters to KFOO, referencing the Seattle-based band Foo Fighters.
On November 1, 2017, iHeart announced that they would acquire KFNQ, KJAQ and KZOK from Entercom as part of its merger with CBS Radio, and divest KFOO and KUBE to the Ocean Station Trust in preparation for their sale to a third-party (which was completed on December 19). As part of the impending divestment, the station swapped callsigns with KFNY in Riverside, California on November 14, 2017. On December 11, 2017, KFNY switched to an unbranded smooth jazz format as an interim format, while KFOO's previous format and branding was moved to an HD Radio subchannel of KJAQ as Alt 96.5 HD2.
Maps KFNY (FM)
HD radio
- 102.9 HD1 carries the analog format from the standard 102.9 FM frequency.
- 102.9 HD2 airs Classic Rock.
References
External links
- Query the FCC's FM station database for KFNY
- Radio-Locator information on KFNY
- Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for KFNY
Source of article : Wikipedia
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