KYAL (1550 AM) is 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 ...

-formatted

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 ...

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa ( ) is the List of municipalities in Oklahoma, second-most-populous city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the List of United States cities by population, 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The po ...

and licensed to serve

Sapulpa, Oklahoma Sapulpa is a city in and the county seat of Creek County, Oklahoma, Creek County, extending partly into Tulsa County, Oklahoma, Tulsa County, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The population was 21,929 at the time of the 2020 United States census, ...

. The station is owned by Michael Perry Stephens. Its studios are located at the

CityPlex Towers CityPlex Towers is a complex of three high-rise office towers located at 81st Street and Lewis Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The complex was originally constructed by Oral Roberts University as City of Faith Medical and Research Center and meant t ...

in South Tulsa.

History

KYAL's format history includes

Urban Contemporary Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban contemporary r ...

as KXOJ in the 1980s targeting Tulsa, later changing its call letters to KBLK as "Power 1550". It was a simulcast of the Urban format from a cable radio station called "Radiovision" that aired on Tulsa Cable's Wanted Ads channel at the time and also bought time on 1550 to broadcast its station. The 1550 signal did not cover Tulsa very well, being that the transmitter was in

and was only 500 watts at the time and was also a daytimer. By the late 1980s–early 1990s, the station upgraded its power to 2,500 watts in the day and 47 watts at night (still not enough to cover all of Tulsa at night), giving the station the permission to broadcast 24 hours with its Urban format. By the early 1990s, the lease was not renewed for Radiovision to broadcast on 1550, and the Urban format was dropped along with Radiovision, shutting down its operation. KBLK flipped to a

religious radio Religious broadcasting, sometimes referred to as faith-based broadcasts, is the dissemination of television and/or radio content that intentionally has religious ideas, religious experience, or religious practice as its core focus. In some coun ...

format and the call letters back to KXOJ, it briefly simulcasted

Contemporary Christian Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from about 1945 to the present. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related t ...

with FM sister station KXOJ-FM and later aired a Southern Gospel format. In 2002, Southern Gospel was dropped for a

format as "ESPN Radio" simulcasting with KWPN in

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Oklahoma, most populous city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat ...

Translators

References

External links

KYAL official websiteRadiovision Article In Billboard Magazine From March 26,1983
* * YAL Sports radio stations in the United States Sapulpa, Oklahoma {{Oklahoma-radio-station-stub