KCTE (1510 AM) is a

sports Sport is a physical activity or game, often competitive and organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The number of participants in ...

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 ...

licensed A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...

Independence, Missouri Independence is a city in and one of two county seats of Jackson County, Missouri, United States. It is a satellite city of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the largest suburb on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metropolitan area. In 2020 Unite ...

. Union Broadcasting owns two sports stations in the

Kansas City metropolitan area The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more t ...

. Sportsradio

WHB WHB (810 AM) is a commercial radio station in Kansas City, Missouri, airing an all-sports radio format. Its studios are on West 121st Street in Overland Park, Kansas, also the headquarters of its owner, Union Broadcasting. For most of the 19 ...

810 AM The following radio broadcasting, radio stations broadcast on AM broadcasting, AM frequency 810 kHz: 810 AM is a United States clear-channel frequency. KSFO San Francisco and WGY (AM), WGY Schenectady share list of broadcast station classes#A ...

has mostly local shows while KCTE 1510 largely carries national sports talk programs and some overflow live events that WHB can't schedule. KCTE's lineup includes programming from

ESPN Radio ESPN Radio, which is alternatively branded platform-agnostically as ESPN Audio, is an American sports radio network and extension of the ESPN television network. It was launched on January 1, 1992, under the banner "SportsRadio ESPN". The netw ...

, the

Infinity Sports Network Infinity Sports Network is an American sports radio network. It debuted as CBS Sports Radio with hourly sports news updates on September 4, 2012, and with 24/7 programming on January 2, 2013. Infinity Sports Network is programmed by Audacy, In ...

and ''

The Jim Rome Show ''The Jim Rome Show'' is an American sports radio talk show hosted by Jim Rome. It airs live for three hours each weekday from 12pm to 3pm Pacific Time. The show is produced in Los Angeles, syndicated by Westwood One, and can be heard on aff ...

''. The studios are on West 121st Street in

Overland Park Overland Park ( ) is the largest city in Johnson County, Kansas, United States, and the second-most populous city in the state of Kansas. It is one of four principal cities in the Kansas City metropolitan area. As of the 2020 census, the pop ...

. KCTE is a

daytimer A clear-channel station is a North American AM radio station that has the highest level of protection from interference from other stations, particularly from nighttime skywave signals. This classification exists to ensure the viability of cross ...

station. It is powered at 10,000

watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of Power (physics), power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantification (science), quantify the rate of Work ...

s, using a

directional antenna A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna that radiates or receives greater radio wave power in specific directions. Directional antennas can radiate radio waves in beams, when greater concentration of radiation in a certain directio ...

with a two-

tower array A tower array is an arrangement of multiple radio towers which are mast radiators in a phased array. They were originally developed as ground-based tracking radars. Tower arrays can consist of free-standing or guyed towers or a mix of them. Tower ...

. The

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter (often abbreviated as XMTR or TX in technical documents) is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna (radio), antenna with the purpose of sig ...

is on Appleton Avenue at East 28th Street.Radio-Locator.com/KCTE
/REF> But because

1510 AM The following radio stations broadcast on AM frequency 1510 kHz: 1510 AM is a North American (U.S.) clear-channel frequency. WLAC in Nashville, Tennessee, is the dominant Class A station on 1510 AM. KGA Spokane had been a Class A station, ...

is a clear channel frequency reserved for Class A

WLAC WLAC (1510 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial radio, commercial radio station in Nashville, Tennessee, United States of America. Owned by iHeartMedia, it broadcasts a talk radio radio format, format. The radio studio, studios are in Nashvill ...

Nashville Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and List of municipalities in Tennessee, most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County in Middle Tennessee, locat ...

, KCTE must leave the air at night to avoid interference. Programming is heard around the clock on 99-watt

FM translator A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater ( two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tr ...

K233DM at 94.5

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

.Radio-Locator.com/K233DM
/REF>

History

The station

signed on A sign-on (or start-up in Commonwealth countries except Canada) is the beginning of operations for a radio broadcasting, radio or television station, generally at the start of each day. It is the opposite of a sign-off (or closedown in Commonw ...

the air in . The original

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

was KIMO, originally broadcasting with 250 watts on 1010

kilocycle The cycle per second is a once-common English name for the unit of frequency now known as the ''hertz'' (Hz). Cycles per second may be denoted by c.p.s., c/s, or, ambiguously, just "cycles" (Cyc., Cy., C, or c). The term comes from repetitive ph ...

s. It has always been a daytime-only station. It later moved to 1510 kHz. It was acquired in 1962 by Richard Bott and became the first of many

Christian radio Christian radio refers to Christian media radio formats that focus on Christian religious broadcasting or various forms of Christian music. Many such formats and programs include contemporary Christian music, gospel music, sermons, radio dramas, ...

stations in his

Bott Radio Network The Bott Radio Network is a network of Christian radio stations in the United States, broadcasting Christian talk and teaching programs. Programs heard on the Bott Radio Network include ''Love Worth Finding'' with Adrian Rogers, ''In Touch'' wi ...

.''Broadcasting Yearbook 1977'' page C-121. Retrieved May 9, 2025.
/ref> The call letters were changed to KCCV (Kansas City's Christian Voice). In 1990, Bott it moved to a new frequency licensed for 24-hour broadcasting. Over the next several years, 1510 played

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as well as for a radio format playing this music. Since 2 ...

and later

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 ...

. In 1994, new owners acquired the station and debuted KCTE (Spelling KC-Team), Kansas City's first sports talk station. Throughout the 1990s, KCTE grew in popularity, yet was constrained by the daytime-only operation. With the aid of Union Bank president Jerry Green, KCTE purchased the 50,000-watt

and moved its sports operations onto the 810 frequency on October 1, 1999. After stints as a

Latin music Latin music (Portuguese language, Portuguese and ) is a term used by the music industry as a catch-all category for various styles of music from Ibero-America, which encompasses Music of Latin America, Latin America, Music of Spain, Spain, Mu ...

and later an

alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...

station (playing a repeating two-hour tape loop), a

Hot Talk Talk radio is a radio format containing discussion about topical issues and consisting entirely or almost entirely of original spoken word content rather than outside music. They may feature monologues, dialogues between the hosts, Interview (jo ...

format debuted in 2001. KCTE's programming included

Don Imus John Donald Imus Jr. ( ; July 23, 1940 – December 27, 2019), also known as Imus, was an American radio personality, television show host, recording artist, and author. His radio show '' Imus in the Morning'' was aired on various stations and di ...

's morning show,

Dennis Miller Dennis Michael Miller (born November 3, 1953) is an American political commentator, stand-up comedian, talk show host, writer, actor and former sportscaster. Miller was a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series ''Saturday Night Live'' fro ...

's talk show, and local shows hosted by personalities from

KMBC-TV KMBC-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, affiliated with ABC. It is owned by Hearst Television alongside CW affiliate KCWE (channel 29). The two stations share studios on Winchester Avenue in the ...

. The station also carried a large portion of ESPN Radio programming until that moved to sister station 97.3 KCXM. In 2007, KCXM was sold to a Christian broadcaster. ESPN network shows returned to 1510 KCTE, which resumed full-time sports programming.

References

External links

KCTE's Web site
* * {{Daytime-only radio stations in Missouri CTE Sports in Independence, Missouri Sports radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1947 Companies based in Independence, Missouri 1947 establishments in Missouri CTE