KHKA (1500 AM) is a commercial

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 ...

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

, branded as CBS 1500. The station is owned by Blow Up, LLC and it broadcasts 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, ...

, mostly from Infinity Sports Network. It also carries some news programs from KHON-TV and CBS Radio News. KHKA is an official radio partner of the University of Hawaiʻi Rainbow Warriors sports and carries local high school sports, as well as

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners and nicknamed the Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member ...

football games and

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

games. KHKA is powered at 5,000

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 non-directional antenna. 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 off Nimitz Highway in Honolulu, near Kakauiki Village. KHKA is also heard on 99-watt FM translator K272GC at 102.3 MHz. It retransmits on Oceanic Spectrum digital channel 885 for the entire state of Hawaii.

History

The station signed on the air on . The original call sign was KUMU. In 1967, it added an FM sister station. KUMU-FM 94.7 MHz. For much of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, the two stations aired a beautiful music format. They played quarter-hour sweeps of mostly instrumental

cover version In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...

s of popular adult hits as well as Broadway and Hollywood show tunes. In the 1990s, to appeal to a younger audience, the stations added more soft vocals and reduced the instrumental music. In the early 2000s, KUMU had an adult standards format. A few years later, it flipped to

sports talk Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sport, sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often-low comed ...

as a network affiliate of Sporting News Radio. In 2010, KUMU once again became a simulcast of KUMU-FM, airing its Rhythmic Adult Contemporary format. On August 2, 2010, Ohana Broadcast Company, LLC, sold KUMU 1500 to Blow Up, LLC, for $250,000. On September 30, 2010, the call sign was changed to KHKA and it returned to a sports talk format. In April 2013, KHKA rebranded as NBC Sports Radio 1500 AM. On January 1, 2019, KHKA became an affiliate of CBS Sports Radio as a result of NBC Sports Radio discontinuing its full-time network programming. By May 2020, KHKA rebranded as "CBS 1500" as it added programming from CBS News Radio and ''

Hawaii News Now ''Hawaii News Now'' (also abbreviated as ''HNN'') is a news department shared by three television stations in Honolulu, Hawaii: CBS affiliate KGMB (channel 5), NBC affiliate KHNL (channel 13), and Telemundo affiliate KFVE (channel 6). The ...

'' to the lineup while retaining CBS Sports Radio programs.

References

External links

FCC History Cards for KHKACBS 1500 website
{{coord, 21, 20, 10, N, 157, 53, 33, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title Infinity Sports Network stations HKA Sports radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1963 1963 establishments in Hawaii