KUPL (98.7 FM) is a

commercial Commercial may refer to: * (adjective for) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and services ** (adjective for) trade, the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money * a dose of advertising ...

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 ...

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

. The station is owned by

Alpha Media Alpha Media LLC is a radio broadcasting company based in Portland, Oregon, and led by Bob Proffitt. The group does business under the Alpha Media name. It was formed from the merger of Alpha Broadcasting, L&L Broadcasting, and Main Line Broadc ...

and airs a

country music Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...

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, ...

, known as "98.7 The Bull." KUPL's studios and offices are located in

Downtown Portland Downtown Portland is the central business district of Portland, Oregon, United States. It is on the west bank of the Willamette River in the northeastern corner of the southwest section of the city and where most of the city's high-rise buildi ...

on SW 5th Avenue. 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 in Portland's West Hills, on SW Barnes Road.

History

KPOJ-FM/KPOK-FM

On June 6, 1948, the station

signed on A sign-on (or start-up in Commonwealth countries except Canada) is the beginning of operations for a radio broadcasting, radio or television station, generally at the start of each day. It is the opposite of a sign-off (or closedown in Commonw ...

as KPOJ-FM at 98.7 MHz. It was owned and operated by ''

The Oregon Journal ''The Oregon Journal'' was Portland, Oregon's daily afternoon newspaper from 1902 to 1982. The ''Journal'' was founded in Portland by C. S. "Sam" Jackson, publisher of Pendleton, Oregon's ''East Oregonian'' newspaper, after a group of Portla ...

''. It was powered at 44,000 watts and mostly

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) ...

co-owned AM 1330

KPOJ KPOJ (620 AM broadcasting, AM) is a commercial radio, commercial radio station in Portland, Oregon. It airs a sports radio radio format, format and is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. KPOJ airs two local sports shows on weekdays, ''Rip City Mornin ...

, a

network affiliate In the broadcasting industry (particularly in North America, and even more in the United States), a network affiliate or affiliated station is a local broadcaster, owned by a company other than the owner of the network, which carries some or a ...

of the

Mutual Broadcasting System The Mutual Broadcasting System (commonly referred to simply as Mutual; sometimes referred to as MBS, Mutual Radio or the Mutual Radio Network) was an American commercial radio network in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the Golden Age of Radio, ...

and the

Don Lee Network The Don Lee Network, sometimes called the Don Lee Broadcasting System, was an American regional network of radio stations in the old-time radio era. Origin Don Lee made a fortune as the exclusive West Coast distributor of Cadillac automobiles. ...

. It moved one spot lower on the FM dial, to 98.5 MHz, on March 27, 1964. On August 15, 1968, KPOJ-FM changed its

call sign 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 unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

to KPOK-FM. It played

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as well as for a radio format playing this music. Since 2 ...

and called itself "The Golden Sound." On June 18, 1973, KPOK-FM changed its format from oldies to beautiful music as "98-FM". On July 11, 1973, the call letters switched to KUPL-FM while AM 1330 aired

, also using the KUPL call sign. The beautiful music on 98.5 lasted more than a decade.

Switch to Country

In 1982, KUPL-AM-FM were acquired by the Scripps Howard Broadcasting. On March 16, 1984, after 10 years as an

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

station, KUPL-FM dropped the format and joined its AM counterpart as a country music station. KUPL-AM had also previously broadcast easy listening since the late 1970s. In 1981, KUPL-AM became a "

Music of Your Life Music of Your Life is an American syndicated music radio format featuring adult standards music. First created by recording executive Al Ham in 1978, the format achieved popularity in the 1980s among AM radio stations in the United States and Ca ...

" affiliate, continuing with an easy listening format until 1984. The moniker for KUPL-FM was "K98, Continuous Hit Country." Later the station would be known as "Couple 98" by pronouncing the call letters KUPL. In 1996, the stations changed hands again, now owned by American Radio Systems. On September 4, 1997, KUPL-FM moved back from 98.5 MHz to 98.7 MHz, its original frequency. Over the course of the next decade the station would rebrand various times including ''98.7 KUPL'' and ''New Country 98-7 KUPL''. In 1995, the AM station was sold for $2 million to

Crawford Broadcasting Crawford Media Group is a family-owned media company based in Denver, Colorado.Contact information
https://crawford ...

, who switched it to a

Christian radio Christian radio refers to Christian media radio formats that focus on Christian religious broadcasting or various forms of Christian music. Many such formats and programs include contemporary Christian music, gospel music, sermons, radio dramas, ...

format as KKPZ. In 1998, KUPL-FM was acquired by CBS Radio.

Sale to Alpha Media

In August 2009, CBS sold its Portland cluster to newly formed

. Radio vet Scott Mahalick was hired to program KUPL-FM. On September 16, 2010, the "-FM"

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

was removed from the station's callsign. In March 2011, the station began using the slogan "98-7 KUPL, #1 For The Most New Country." On January 10, 2013 at midnight, the station dropped the "98-7 KUPL" branding for "98-7 The Bull." It only uses the actual callsign during legal

station identification Station identification (ident, network ID, channel ID or bumper (broadcasting), bumper) is the practice of radio and television stations and broadcast network, networks identifying themselves on-air, typically by means of a call sign or brand na ...

References

External links