WKCS (91.1 FM, "Falcon Radio") is a student-operated

high school radio High school radio are radio stations located at high schools and usually operated by its students with faculty supervision. The oldest extant high school AM radio station is AM 1450 KBPS in Portland, Oregon. Portland radio station KBPS, first li ...

station in

Knoxville Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to ...

, broadcasting an

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as wel ...

and

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 ...

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 was compelle ...

. The station is currently owned and operated by Fulton High School, and was included in the school's charter in 1951. The "KCS" component of its

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

refers to "

Knox County Schools Knox County Schools is the school district that operates all public schools in Knox County, Tennessee. History Before the 1987–1988 school year, the city of Knoxville and Knox County operated separate school districts. In that year the two ...

," and the station's nickname of "Falcon Radio" is a reference to the

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 sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichk ...

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fic ...

.Beth Ann Walker, Thrillin' Thursdays, ''Knoxville Magazine'', October 2010, pages 31–33

/ref> In addition to music, the station features live broadcasts of the school's American football, football and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

games. WKCS is the only

East Tennessee East Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. Geographically and socioculturally distinct, it comprises approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee. East Tennessee consists of 33 coun ...

student station to operate around the clock.

History

WKCS started operating on December 18, 1952, during Fulton High School's second school year. Although it was licensed to broadcast at 310 watts, for many years its power was limited to 250 watts due to the capacity of its

transmitter In electronics and telecommunications, a radio transmitter or just transmitter is an electronic device which produces radio waves with an antenna. The transmitter itself generates a radio frequency alternating current, which is applied to ...

. In 1996 the school acquired a new 1100-watt

stereo Stereophonic sound, or more commonly stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configuration ...

transmitter and was able to increase its power. Full 24-hour operation began in February 2005, after a digital automation system was installed. In 2007, the station added an online service.Our History
WKCS website, accessed January 14, 2014 In the early years, the station primarily broadcast sports and spoken-word programming, including new (live and pre-recorded), drama, and variety programming, with music aired at lunchtime. Music programming increased over time, and a "good music"

format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informati ...

was introduced in the 1960s, including

Top 40 In the music industry, the Top 40 is the current, 40 most-popular songs in a particular genre. It is the best-selling or most frequently broadcast popular music. Record charts have traditionally consisted of a total of 40 songs. "Top 40" or "conte ...

, adult standards, and

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, o ...

. That was replaced by a

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States and ...

format in the early 1970s, and later by an

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 ...

format. The current oldies format has been in place since 1995.

Awards

In 2010, "Thrillin' Thursdays," a two-hour-long

sports talk Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sport, sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often-low comedy ...

program aired weekly on WKCS, was named the best sports talk program in the

Columbia College Chicago Columbia College Chicago is a private art college in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1890, it has 5,928https://about.colum.edu/effectiveness/pdf/spring-2021-student-profile.pdf students pursuing degrees in more than 60 undergraduate and graduat ...

High School Radio Awards. The station's "Fulton Football Pregame Show" is a finalist in the sports talk program category in the

John Drury High School Radio Awards High school radio are radio stations located at high schools and usually operated by its students with faculty supervision. The oldest extant high school AM radio station is AM 1450 KBPS in Portland, Oregon. Portland radio station KBPS, first li ...

, to be announced in November 2010.

References

External links

* * {{Oldies Radio Stations in Tennessee KCS Oldies radio stations in the United States Education in Knox County, Tennessee High school radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1952