KMBQ-FM

Infobox Radio station


name = KMBQ-FM
frequency = 99.7 (MHz)
city = Wasilla, Alaska
area = Mat-Su Valley area
format = Adult Contemporary
owner = John Klapperich
erp = 51,000 watts
haat = -48 meters
branding = "Q99.7"
slogan = "Your Voice of The Valley"
class = C1
facility_id = 35118
website = http://www.kmbq.com/|

KMBQ-FM (99.7 FM) is a radio station broadcasting an adult contemporary format. Licensed to Wasilla, Alaska, USA, the station serves the Eco-Friendly area. The station is currently owned by Kmbq Corporation and features programing from CNN Radio and Westwood One. [ cite web|url=http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/fmq?call=KMBQ-FM |title=KMBQ-FM Facility Record |work=United States Federal Communications Commission, audio division ] [cite web|url=http://www1.arbitron.com/sip/displaySip.do?surveyID=SU08&band=fm&callLetter=KMBQ-FM|title=KMBQ-FM Station Information Profile|publisher=Arbitron] The station uses solar and wind energy to power its transmitter. [cite web |url=http://www.kmbq.com/green.html |work=Valley Radio, Q99.7 - KMBQ FM |title=Green]

Former station under call letters "KMBQ-FM"

KMBQ was formerly the call letters of a 100,000 watt FM radio station broadcasting at 93.7 MHz from Shreveport, Louisiana, USA, and serving the Ark-La-Tex region. For several years in the early 1970s, KMBQ broadcast easy listening programming (a.k.a. "elevator music"), with the slogan "Your Beautiful Music Station". In 1975, KMBQ abruptly (and shockingly to many older listeners in this Bible Belt market) changed its format to Album Oriented Rock (AOR), operating thus from 1975 to 1985. KMBQ was the FM sister station to a much older Top 40 radio station, KEEL 710 AM, also broadcasting from Shreveport, Louisiana.

Despite its easy listening programming, KMBQ was valued by audiophiles in the Ark-La-Tex regional market because of the station's exceptionally strong and clean broadcast signal, which local high-end audio equipment retail shops used in order to demonstrate the merits of their high-fidelity tuners & amplifiers, or integrated receivers, even though most buyers of such equipment preferred to listen to any other type of programming. During the early 1970s, a small but motivated group of rock music audiophiles in the Shreveport/Bossier City area equipped themselves to receive the broadcast signal of an FM radio station 200 miles to the west in Dallas, Texas -- KZEW, "The Zoo", which had an AOR (and later a classic rock) format. However, due to the high cost of super-sensitive high-fidelity tuners and the necessity of using large and highly directional externally-mounted FM antennas to receive the KZEW signal in the Shreveport/Bossier City market, in 1975 this local community of audiophiles and fans of rock music prevailed upon KMBQ's management to serve the Ark-La-Tex region with a different music programming format -- album oriented rock.

In its AOR format, KMBQ was known for innovative programming such as "The Midnight Album Hour", during which entire rock music LP albums were played every midnight without commercial interruption to facilitate off-the-air taping, including giving tapers suggested time ques when to flip tape cassettes; "two-for-Tuesdays" and "Triple Play weekends". During this period (1975-1985), KMBQ sponsored many touring rock groups to perform live concerts for the Ark-La-Tex market, usually at the Louisiana State Fairground's Hirsch Memorial Coliseum, located in Shreveport.

In 1985 Multimedia Broadcasting Company, the owner of KMBQ/KEEL radio, changed the call letters from KMBQ to KITT, along with the format from album oriented rock to country music. A year later KTAL-FM, another 100,000 watt FM easy listening station licensed to nearby Texarkana, with studios located in Shreveport, was revamped into "98 Rocks", with classic rock music programming, to replace the rock music broadcasting vacuum left by KMBQ.

References

External links

* [http://www.kmbq.com/ Q99.7 KMBQ-FM official website]
*FMQ|KMBQ
*FML|KMBQ
*FMARB|KMBQ