KNTY

KNTY (103.5 MHz, Real Country 103.5) is a commercial FM radio station in Sacramento, California. The station broadcasts a classic country radio format and is owned by Entravision Communications. Its radio studios and offices are located in North Sacramento.

KNTY has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 6,000 watts. The transmitter is on S Street near 23rd Street in Sacramento. KNTY formerly had an HD Radio channel, but it has abandoned digital transmissions, as well as RDS title/artist PAD data.

History

As KBMB "103.5 The Bomb"

In 1996, the station signed on with a Regional Mexican format as KRYR. Then, in November 1997, the call sign changed to KBMB and switched to an Urban Contemporary format as ''103.5 Da Bomb'', with the moniker "Better Mo' Better Music." The station was originally owned by Diamond Broadcasting, which, in turn, was controlled by license holder Paula Nelson, making KBMB Sacramento's second African American-owned and operated station behind KQBR-FM, which was launched four years earlier.

While the format debuted during the wave of current-driven hip-hop and R&B stations that sprang up nationally in the late 1990s, KBMB's music direction also consisted of soul, blues, funk, old school, gospel, reggae and pop titles (in rare occasions). Initially, the station was an affiliate of the satellite-fed "Touch" format from ABC Radio, a contract pursued and finally secured by the station's first operations director Thomas Turner. With the aid of promos, liners and drops produced by Bob Jones, the programming also served the largely ignored hip hop music community in Sacramento, as other stations such as KSFM, a leader in the market as a Rhythmic CHR, did not fully embrace hip hop music.

Reflecting the market's demographics (7% of the Sacramento radio market is African American), KBMB relied primarily on white females 18–34 for its ratings and commercial appeal. It was marketed as a Rhythmic CHR in 1998 as a way to target beyond the core audience and to attract more mainstream advertisers to the station, while still maintaining an unofficial urban format through its ABC Network affiliation and its own music selection. It was the home of the syndicated ''Doug Banks Morning Show'', making KBMB one of few urban stations on the West Coast to carry a syndicated morning show. It also carried the ''Tom Joyner Morning Show'' for a short period upon the station's debut, but actually had both on for a while, after moving Banks to middays, mainly due to the latter personality airing in the afternoon drive in Central and Eastern time zones. When Banks opted to move his show to the mornings in 2000 opposite Tom Joyner (whose show was aimed at the urban adult contemporary audience), KBMB moved Banks to the 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. morning slot. Despite the tape delay, Banks had built a strong following among Sacramento listeners.

In its early days, KBMB once had personalities like former Program Directors Randy "Jayare" Johnson (who hosted locally oriented hip hop shows "the Basement" and "Ground Zero", and is now a member of the hip hop group Beataroundabush) and Ibrahim "E-Bro" Darden (now current program director at WQHT in New York), and Deshawn "D-Funk" Robertson, host of the highest rated afternoon drive time show in the station's history, "The Afternoon Flava Show" (Robertson is currently a professional stand-up comedian). From its inception, the station competed fiercely for ratings with heritage competitor KSFM for the very lucrative 18–34 female demographic. The station was committed to Sacramento community causes, as well as its inclusion of urban-leaning artists that traditionally were seldom heard on Sacramento radio. Though competing with an undersized signal which was originally 3 kW but later upped to 6 kW, the upstart station gave heritage KSFM (50 kW) a run for its money in the ratings. It even gained competition from KHYL in 2001 upon that station's format change to rhythmic oldies. In addition, in its early years, KBMB did grab a handful of listeners from KQBR, which shifted its format from smooth jazz to urban AC.

But in 2004, after years of litigation between the station's majority owner, Paula Nelson and Bustos Media, the station was forcibly sold to Entravision Communications, a predominantly Spanish language corporate entity. Johnson, Nelson, and all other managers were terminated, and the management team of the local Entravision cluster assumed the reins, despite the abysmal ratings at Entravision's existing properties. Almost immediately, the format was constrained in a failed attempt to compete with KSFM and pop rival KDND more directly. At the time this happened, KBMB was the last remaining Black-owned station on the air after KQBR was sold in 1998 to Entravision in a similar fate; that station is now KXSE.

After Entravision acquired KBMB, the new owners systematically went about disassembling the predominantly African American airstaff. The sentiments expressed by Entravision head of radio programming Jeff Lieberman were that the station was just too ethnic to compete in Sacramento, despite the station's history of ratings success with a predominantly African American staff and audience. A pronounced push to make the station more Hispanic-oriented began with the hiring of a nearly all Hispanic American air staff and the infusion of Spanish into the station's imaging, with the station gravitating to a rhythmic format. Entravision was not interested in retaining Doug Banks or Tom Joyner, so both shows were dropped for good in October 2004. Both syndicated personalities were replaced with a locally based morning show, but KBMB returned to a syndicated morning show with '' Big Boy's Neighborhood'' eventually, and added R-Dub's ''Sunday Night Slow Jams'', along with its weeknight component. Only the Sunday morning gospel program "The Gospel Express" was retained in the format tweak.

As KHHM, "HOT 103.5"

On January 11, 2010, after months of dismal ratings, KBMB dropped "The Bomb," rebranded as "Hot 103.5", and terminated Nikia Moore, the last of its daily African American air talents. With the rebrand, the station also shifted from a hip hop-focused approach to a broader contemporary hit direction that includes primarily pop crossovers that would not have been played in the past. In addition, ''Big Boy's Neighborhood'', with mornings running jockless for a time while a more Latin-friendly morning show was sought.

On June 25, 2010, KBMB changed call letters to KHHM to match the "Hot 103.5" moniker. The move coincides with launch of the station's "103 Days of Summer" campaign. In February 2011, KHHM morphed to contemporary hit radio with a Rhythmic lean at first, but would move further into a more Mainstream direction with the addition of artists like The Script, Selena Gomez & The Scene, Coldplay, Christina Perri and Andy Grammer