KNKX (88.5 MHz) is a

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

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 to

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, southwest of Bellevue, Washington, Bellevue, northeast of the state capital, Olympia ...

, United States. A member of

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

(NPR), it airs a

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

and

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the te ...

format for the

Seattle metropolitan area The Seattle metropolitan area is an urban conglomeration in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington that comprises Seattle, its surrounding Satellite city, satellites and suburbs. The United States Census Bureau defines the Seattle–T ...

. The station is owned by Pacific Public Media, a community-based non-profit organization. It operates from studios in downtown Seattle and downtown Tacoma. KNKX broadcasts from West Tiger Mountain in the Issaquah Alps with a power of 68,000

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. The station originally debuted in 1966 as KPLU-FM, owned by Parkland-based Pacific Lutheran University (PLU). It became a community licensee in 2016 after a proposed sale to the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

, owner of fellow NPR station

KUOW-FM KUOW-FM (94.9 MHz) is a National Public Radio member station in Seattle, Washington. It is the largest of the three full-fledged NPR member stations in the Seattle and Tacoma media market, with two Tacoma-based stations, KNKX and KVTI being t ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, resulted in opposition from station listeners. KNKX runs jazz programs middays, evenings and overnight, and carries a variety of NPR programs in other dayparts, including ''

All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...

'', ''

Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 a ...

'', '' Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!'' and ''

Fresh Air ''Fresh Air'' is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's hosts are Terry Gross and Tonya Mosl ...

''. The locally produced '' BirdNote'' airs every morning.

History

KNKX was the brainchild of Chris Knudzen, a regent of PLU from Burlington who, in 1951, donated the then-under construction Eastvold Chapel (now the Karen Hille Phillips Center for the Performing Arts) with a

radio studio A recording studio is a specialized facility for recording and mixing of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enough to record a single sin ...

to the university under the desire of having it host a radio station. While the studio was used extensively, it took 15 years for the station to debut; the station formally signed on the air as KPLU-FM on November 16, 1966, with the inaugural broadcast featuring a short speech from President Robert Mortvedt and interviews with local community leaders. It was primarily run by university students and played jazz,

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...

and other music not usually heard on commercial radio stations. Originally, it broadcast from a tower on campus that was only 140 feet tall, effectively limiting its coverage area to Tacoma and adjacent suburbs. Over time, the station added news programs from NPR to its schedule. It improved its coverage area, both by increasing its power and relocating to a tower that is

Height Above Average Terrain Height above average terrain (HAAT), or (less popularly) effective height above average terrain (EHAAT), is the vertical position of an antenna site above the surrounding landscape. HAAT is used extensively in FM radio and television, as it is ...

, allowing it to challenge established NPR member KUOW. For listeners outside the Tacoma-Seattle area, it set up eleven

translators Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

and

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultaneously) ...

stations.

On November 12, 2015, Pacific Lutheran University announced its intention to sell the station to the

, owner of KUOW. The planned sale to UW triggered public outcry from KPLU's listener base, who feared KPLU's unique programming would be sacrificed if it became a

sister station In broadcasting, sister stations or sister channels are radio or television stations operated by the same company, either by direct ownership or through a management agreement. Radio sister stations will often have different formats, and somet ...

to KUOW. On November 23, the KPLU advisory board voted unanimously to oppose the sale. The board sought to negotiate with a community-based non-profit group, Friends of 88.5, to raise $7,000,000 to buy the radio station and its network of translators and rebroadcasters from the university, keeping it independent. By May 26, 2016, some 20,000 supporters met the goal. Friends of 88.5 began negotiating with PLU to purchase the station. On August 12, 2016, it was announced that the station would adopt the new

call letters 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 Identifier, unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be fo ...

KNKX, pronounced like "Connects", which was chosen among several other choices by the station's listening audience. The new call sign went into effect when the station officially changed hands from PLU to Friends of 88.5 on August 30, 2016; the change was made as the station could not keep the KPLU callsign (as it was university property) during the sale negotiations. In October 2018, it was announced that KNKX would move their Tacoma studio to downtown Tacoma, at 930 Broadway. On August 29, 2019, the first live broadcast from their new home was aired by Dick Stein. The station hosted a grand opening celebration on September 7, 2019. KNKX announced plans to relocate its Seattle studio to the Madore Building, part of

Pike Place Market Pike Place Market is a Marketplaces#Types, public market in Seattle, Washington, United States. It opened on August 17, 1907, and is one of the oldest continuously operated public farmers' markets in the United States. Overlooking the Elliott B ...

, in March 2022. A grand opening and public open house is scheduled for August 26, 2023. The larger space, on the fifth floor of the Madore Building, was obtained with a 10-year lease and include five studios.

Translators

KNKX is also carried on the following satellite and broadcast translator stations to improve reception of the station: The West Seattle translator serves portions of Seattle that are shielded by hilly terrain from the main KNKX signal. It was at 88.1 FM until 2012.

References

External links

* {{NPR Washington NKX NPR member stations Jazz radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1966 1966 establishments in Washington (state)

History

Translators

See also

References

External links