KCFO (970 AM) is a

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa ( ) is the List of municipalities in Oklahoma, second-most-populous city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the List of United States cities by population, 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The po ...

talk

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

. KCFO airs national shows such as

Dave Ramsey David Lawrence Ramsey III (born September 3, 1960) is an American radio personality who offers financial advice. He is the founder and CEO of Ramsey Solutions and a co-host of '' The Ramsey Show'', a nationally syndicated radio program. He ...

, J. Vernon McGee, David Jeremiah, Dennis Prager, Mike Gallagher, and Albert Mohler. The station has been assigned the KCFO call letters by the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

since October 21, 1984.

History

Beginnings on 1570

KAKC 970 first signed on the air on December 24, 1946; it was founded by Sam Avey."Tulsa Hall of Fame 2006 Inductees"
a
Tulsa Historical Society website
(accessed March 25, 2010) Avey was a local businessman and sports promoter, who owned the Tulsa Coliseum. When KAKC first went on the air, it was a day-time only station, called "The Hometown Station," with a focus on serving the Tulsa community, broadcasting local sports, local news, and some music. It began at 1570 on the AM dial. In April 1948, the station got permission to move to 970 AM, and it also received permission to broadcast in the evenings as well as during the day.

The Top 40 era

In the mid-1950s, the station got new ownership and hired Vic Lundberg and Greg Chancellor as announcers.
a
Tulsa TV Memories website
(accessed March 25, 2010) From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, KAKC 970 AM was a

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is a list of the 40 currently most popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "To ...

station in

. Known first as "The Big 97" and later "The Rockin' 97", the station was owned (along with KAKC-FM 92.9) by S. Carl Mark. Both stations used consultant Bill Drake for their programming, with KAKC (AM) being the dominant music station for many years until the mid-1970s when long-time

competitor KELI (now known as KTBZ) and FM upstart KTFX "The Superfox 103" (now KJSR "Star 103.3") cut into their audience.

Simulcast on FM

KAKC-FM 92.9 FM in the 1970s used a Drake-Chenault programmed automated oldies format during the day. From 6 p.m. to midnight, the FM simulcasted with KAKC 970 to make up for the AM's weak 250-watt nighttime signal. In the summer of 1977 KAKC-FM flipped to the then-popular "Beautiful Music" format and changed the call letters to KBEZ-FM. For a brief time in the early 1970s,

Gailard Sartain Gailard Sartain (born September 18, 1946) is a retired American actor who frequently played characters with roots in the South. He was a regular on the country music variety series ''Hee Haw''. He is also known for his roles in three of the Ern ...

and

Gary Busey William Gary Busey (; born June 29, 1944) is an American actor. He portrayed Buddy Holly in ''The Buddy Holly Story'' (1978), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won the National Society of Film Critics Award fo ...

's cult television show ''The Uncanny Film Festival and Camp Meeting'' (re-named ''The Un-filmy Can Festival'' as it was no longer a movie showcase) moved to radio, before the two's acting careers made continuing the show no longer feasible.

Adult standards & gospel (1979–1984)

In January 1979, KAKC shocked the Tulsa radio market by dropping

programming after 21 years for

adult standards Adult standards (also sometimes known as the nostalgia or Big Band format) is a North American radio format heard primarily on AM or class A FM stations. Adult standards started in the 1950s and is aimed at "mature" adults, meaning mainly tho ...

, with rapidly declining ratings as the result. A year later the station was purchased by the owners of KCFO-FM (now KVOO-FM) which changed the format to Southern Gospel music and Christian talk programming. In 1984 the legendary 970 call letters were changed to KCFO.

References

External links

KCFO station website
{{Tulsa Radio Talk radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1946 1946 establishments in Oklahoma CFO