KGGL (93.3 FM, "Eagle 93.3") is a commercial

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission 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 radi ...

Missoula, Montana Missoula ( ; fla, label= Séliš, Nłʔay, lit=Place of the Small Bull Trout, script=Latn; kut, Tuhuⱡnana, script=Latn) is a city in the U.S. state of Montana; it is the county seat of Missoula County. It is located along the Clark Fork Ri ...

, airing a

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, o ...

format. It is owned by

Townsquare Media Townsquare Media, Inc. (formerly Regent Communications until 2010) is an American radio network and media company based in Purchase, New York. The company started in radio and expanded into digital media toward the end of the 2000s, starting wit ...

History

KDXT

On October 15, 1975, Rex Jensen filed with the

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

(FCC) for a construction permit to build a new radio station on 93.3 MHz in Missoula, with transmitter on Big Sky Mountain. The permit was granted on May 25, 1976, with the commission dismissing complaints by several other Missoula broadcasters that the new facility would cause interference to their operations. While the station was intended to launch that fall, equipment delivery and bad weather in the eastern United States prompted the project to be shelved for the winter; KDXT made its debut on April 29, 1977. Having been transferred to the Jensen Broadcasting Company (owned by Rex and his brother Jack), the station started with an automated rock/adult contemporary hybrid format. The Jensens sold the station in February 1979 to a joint venture with Robert E. Ingstad of North Dakota, who became the sole owner in 1980 before KDXT and sister station KGRZ (1450 AM) were sold to Wind Point 1970 Holding Company, which was owned by the S.C. Johnson Company, in 1982. The two stations were then sold to Sunbrook Communications in 1986; during this time, the station dominated the Missoula radio market.

KGGL

Sunbrook sold its radio properties—ten in Montana and a pair in

Wenatchee, Washington Wenatchee ( ) is the county seat and largest city of Chelan County, Washington, United States. The population within the city limits in 2010 was 31,925, and was estimated to have increased to 34,360 as of 2019. Located in the north-central part ...

—to Seattle-based

Fisher Broadcasting Fisher Communications was a media company in the United States. Based in Seattle, Washington, the company primarily owned a number of radio and television stations in the Western United States. It was the last company in the Seattle area to ...

in 1994, with Sunbrook becoming a division of Fisher after the sale was completed. With the contemporary hit format long associated with KDXT in a national slump, Fisher opted to make a major change. It flipped KGGL to country, taking on established country outlet KYSS, in September 1995. This left Missoula without a station in the contemporary hit radio format. The format change was a successful one: the fall 2005 Eastlan radio ratings for Missoula showed KGGL tied with public radio station KUFM and beating third-place KYSS. In a 24-station sale that was only partially completed, Fisher sold many of its small-market radio properties to Cherry Creek Radio in 2006 in order to fund an expansion into Spanish-language television in major Pacific Northwest markets. The 24 stations contributed just one-fourth of the radio division's revenue, with Fisher's three Seattle stations comprising the rest.

References

External links

Official Website
* {{Townsquare Media Radio stations established in 1977 Country radio stations in the United States GGL 1977 establishments in Montana Townsquare Media radio stations