KKCL-FM (98.1 FM, "Awesome 98!") is a

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 ...

broadcasting a

classic hits Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 198 ...

format. Licensed to

Lorenzo, Texas Lorenzo is a city in Crosby County, Texas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 1,147, down from 1,372 in 2000. It is part of the Lubbock Metropolitan Statistical Area. Geography Lorenzo is located in western Crosby Cou ...

and serving

Lubbock, Texas Lubbock ( ) is the 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of government of Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the nort ...

, United States, the station is currently under ownership of

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 ...

. Its studios and transmitter are located in south Lubbock. Two applications were filed for the channel that is now used by KKCL. A class A on 98.3 was allocated to

Ralls, Texas Ralls is a city in Crosby County, Texas, United States. It was named after John Robinson Ralls, who with the help of W.E. McLaughlin, laid out the townsite in July 1911. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 1,944, down from 2,252 at the ...

. One filed for a class A in Ralls and the winner "KB Radio" (partnership of Bryan King and Steve Bumpous) filed for a new station in Lorenzo, Texas, which went on as KVOQ in 1984. The station ran round the clock from a studio and tower near the Lubbock (Idalou) Speedway racetrack. Then-regulations allowed a channel in the FCC table of allotments to be used in the listed city or in an unlisted city within a range of 10–15 miles depending on class of station. BK arranged to move the station to a new site and adjacent channel for an upgraded signal on 98.1. This new construction permit was sold to Anthony Brandon in 1986, and studios moved to Park Tower at 28th and Avenue Q in Lubbock. The station was variously

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet ...

easy listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, ...

, and finally oldies (with

Rush Limbaugh Rush Hudson Limbaugh III ( ; January 12, 1951 – February 17, 2021) was an American conservative political commentator who was the host of '' The Rush Limbaugh Show'', which first aired in 1984 and was nationally syndicated on AM and FM r ...

) which finally put it on the map. Lew Dee and Diana served as morning show hosts in the 1990s through February 2002. At that point, Lew Dew & Diana and Johnny May left Clear Channel Lubbock for RAMAR Communications. In the Spring of 2002 they started AC station 104.3 Stars FM. The format for the next nine years ended up bouncing around back and forth between 104.3 and 97.3 before being jettisoned for the 97.3 YES FM branding in September 2011. Rush Limbaugh was moved off of KKCL to sister-station KFYO in 1999. From 1999 through the end of 2000, KFYO tape-delayed Rush Limbaugh from 1p-4p to air a Noon Ag Hour with Jim Stewart. Rush Limbaugh was moved to a live clearance (11a-2p) on KFYO in January 2001. Other West Texas talk stations, 710 KGNC and 1090 KKYN (now KVOP in Plainview) soon followed suit within a few years. KKCL was sold to the Hicks family interests in the Fall of 1996 that eventually rolled up into

Clear Channel Communications iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...

. Clear Channel sold the station to Gap Broadcasting in 2007; what eventually became Gap Central Broadcasting (following the formation of

GapWest Broadcasting Gap Broadcasting Group was a group of companies that owned around 116 broadcast stations (including 1 low-power television station and 5 low-power stations) in 23 radio markets in northwestern and central southern United States in the late 2000s. ...

) was folded into

on August 13, 2010. One of the last links to the Lew Dee & Diana days of KOOL was severed in November 2014 when Landon King was let go from Townsquare Media- Lubbock. For the last seven years King was at KOOL he was Program Director and Morning Show Host. Before that he was the Afternoon Drive DJ since the late 1990s. On December 29, 2015, KKCL rebranded as "Awesome 98!", with a slight shift to 1970s/1980s music, along with some 1990s and 2000s music. Current line up: Weekdays: Music in the Morning, Sarah Sullivan (10am-3pm), Jan Miller (3pm-7pm) & "The Night Shift" with Craig Allen (7pm-12am) Sundays: "America's Greatest Hits" with Scott Shannon (6pm-10pm)

References

External links

KKCL-FM official website
{{coord, 33.518, N, 101.857, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title KCL Radio stations established in 1984 Townsquare Media radio stations Classic rock radio stations in the United States