KCUB (1290 kHz) is a commercial AM

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 ...

located in

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

. KCUB is owned by Cumulus Media and airs 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 format A radio format or programming format (not to be confused with broadcast programming) describes the overall content broadcast on a radio station. The radio format emerged mainly in the United States in the 1950s, at a time when Radio broadcasting, ...

. Its studios, offices and

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 ...

are co-located on Oracle Road in Tucson, north of downtown. KCUB serves as the flagship radio station for

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it ...

Wildcats

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

games via IMG Sports. KCUB was the former Tucson-area affiliate of the NFL's

Arizona Cardinals The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC West, West division. The ...

(Cardinals games are now heard on KTZR). Its studios and transmitter are co-located on Oracle Road in Tucson, north of downtown. The format includes programming from Infinity Sports Network, including the syndicated '' Jim Rome Show'', as well as local host Rich Herrera, who, in October 2020, began hosting the station's weekday afternoon show.

History

In August 1929, KCUB was founded as KVOA. It was originally on 1260 kilocycles, with 500

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, and owned by the Arizona Broadcasting Company. KVOA was Tucson's second radio station, going on the air three years after KTUC. KVOA was an affiliate of the NBC Red Network and carried its schedule of dramas, comedies, news, sports,

soap opera A soap opera (also called a daytime drama or soap) is a genre of a long-running radio or television Serial (radio and television), serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term ''soap opera'' originat ...

game show A game show (or gameshow) is a genre of broadcast viewing entertainment where contestants compete in a game for rewards. The shows are typically directed by a game show host, host, who explains the rules of the program as well as commentating a ...

s and

big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and ...

broadcasts during the Golden Age of Radio. By the 1940s, power was boosted to 1,000 watts and the station moved to 1290 kHz. In September 1953, the owners put KVOA-TV on the air, also an NBC affiliate. Believing that TV would replace radio, the owners kept the TV station and sold off the radio station in 1958. The new owner, Sherwood R. Gordon, renamed it KCUB but kept the affiliation with NBC. In 1968, the station was sold to Rex Broadcasting, airing a

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

format.Broadcasting Yearbook 1969 p. B-11
/ref> In 2001, KCUB was bought by Citadel Broadcasting, a forerunner of Cumulus, which switched it to its current sports format.

Previous logo

References

External links

FCC History Cards for KCUB
(covering 1929-1981 as KVOA / KCUB)
KCUB official website
{{coord, 32, 16, 37, N, 110, 58, 50, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title CUB Sports radio stations in the United States Cumulus Media radio stations Radio stations established in 1929 1929 establishments in Arizona Infinity Sports Network stations