| City of license | Arlington, Texas |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex |
| Branding | 94.9 KLTY |
| Slogan | "Safe for the Whole Family" |
| Frequency | 94.9 MHz |
| First air date | 1957 as KCLE FM |
| Format | Christian contemporary |
| ERP | 99,000 watts |
| HAAT | 508 meters |
| Class | C |
| Facility ID | 2809 |
| Callsign meaning | "Light" (a Christian reference to Jesus Christ, "The Light of the World") |
| Former callsigns |
KCLE (1957–1969) |
| Owner | Salem Communications (Inspiration Media of Texas, LLC) |
| Sister stations | KSKY, KWRD-FM |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | http://www.klty.com |
KLTY (94.9 FM) is a Christian contemporary music radio station owned by Salem Communications with studios located in Irving, Texas, near Dallas. The format is similar to the "Fish" branded stations Salem owns elsewhere and its slogan is: "Safe for the Whole Family". It is considered the #1 Christian station in the country.
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KLTY was first created by Jon Rivers (as program director) & Scott K. Ginsburg after he purchased KJIM 94.9 Arlington from Jimmy Swaggart Ministries and began playing a mix of contemporary Christian music (CCM) along with the preaching and teaching programs inherited from the Jimmy Swaggart operation. Key to the mass appeal of CCM on KLTY was the engagement of David Pierce as program director/afternoon drive-time announcer and Jon Rivers as morning drive-time announcer. David Pierce chose to drop the preaching/teaching programs in the mornings after several months of the new KLTY format. This version of KLTY lasted only from early August 1985 to late September 1986 when station owner Scott K. Ginsburg changed the call letters to KHYI and changed the format to Top 40 as "Y-95". The transmitter site was not at Cedar Hill but instead transmitted from Lillian, Texas with over 30,000 watts of effective radiated power.
Marcos Rodriguez purchased the music library from Ginsburg and began planning the conversion of 94.1 to all CCM. Unable to make a deal for the KLTY call letters (because they were held by an FM station in Liberty, Missouri) or the services of Rivers (who worked at 102.9 KMGC), he hired Paul Martin, Chuck Gratner, and Mark Elfstrand (Johnson) and launched KOJO at 94.1 FM the following year. Elfstrand now leads the morning drive team at WMBI Chicago.
KOJO was notable for its commitment to being a "full service" radio station, including a solid news commitment. Morning and afternoon drive newscasts were anchored by former KVIL news director Bob Morrison and Calvin Whitman, and later, Dave Tucker. Morrison went on to become news director of Christian station KCBI, while working afternoon drive again at KVIL. He then moved up to a national network news management position as News & Sports Director of the USA Radio Network, based in Dallas (until USA was sold & moved to Memphis). Morrison's current BroadcastNewsSource.com provides daily features copy and audio sound bites for use by hundreds of radio stations (in newscasts, news/talk shows and non-news -- such as entertainment-type Morning Programs -- when they do bits based on the news of the day), with Google Analytics indicating stations from around the world get news & audio from BNS.
Before it became 94.1 KOJO, the frequency was used by then-sister station KESS.
In the spring of 1989, with a free Michael W. Smith concert, Rodriguez and his then-GM Mark Hulme relaunched the station with Jon Rivers (joined by Tucker doing news) and the KLTY call letters at 94.1.[1] Rivers became the vice president of programming and held that position through August 2001.
The early KLTY sales department was run by Pete Thomson from 1990 to 1996. Thomson was, until late 2008, the GM of Salem's Dallas area stations KWRD-FM ("The Word") and KSKY. He had also been a morning DJ at KLTY successor, KHYI, as "Sonny in the Morning". He came to KHYI from KAFM/KZPS 92.5.
KLTY was on 100.7 MHz from January 2000 to December 2000, and was owned by Sunburst until it was sold to Salem. Salem swapped the Christian talk format that had been on 94.9 for nearly two and a half years known as "The Word", and placed the popular KLTY on a 94.9 signal while "The Word" went to 100.7. This placed the KLTY callsign back on its original frequency.[2]
The vice president and general manager of 94.9 FM KLTY is John L. Peroyea, who joined the team in July 1999. KLTY now transmits with 100,000 watts ERP from Cedar Hill, Texas.
The 94.9 frequency has a rich history, long predating the current format and ownership. KCLE was established in 1949 in Cleburne, Texas, by owners Jim Gordon and George Marti at 94.3 FM and 1120 AM. Marti was later the inventor of microwave transmitters (known as "Marti Units.") Employees included notables such as Russ Bloxom (later news anchor at WBAP/KXAS-TV,) Don Harris (personality at WBAP-AM) and Mike Ambrose (later with KLIF-AM, and a San Diego TV weatherman for 28 years.) The station moved to 94.9 in 1957.
In 1969, Gordon and Marti ended their partnership; Marti took the AM station and Gordon, the FM. Gordon flipped the FM to KFAD, with an underground/progressive rock format. Notables included Jon Dillon (now at KZPS), writer Phillip Cook, Dave Thomas, Stuart McRae and Joe Nick Patoski (later the senior editor of Texas Monthly magazine.
On January 1, 1972, Dick Osburn took ownership of the station, and reimaged it as KAMC ("K-Mac") while continuing the underground music format. By 1974, the format flipped to "Progressive Country" when former KFAD talent Stuart McRae convinced Dick Osburn and Program Director Ken Bateman to mix country and rock with a show called "The Country Sunday". It worked so well that the station dropped the underground rock and became the first 24 hour Progressive Country station in America. Stuart McRae had been the first jock when KSCS went Country the year before. KAMC was the only station in Dallas - Ft. Worth to play Outlaw Country artists like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. A notable employee of KAMC was Bill Merrill, who did play-by-play for the Texas Rangers.
On June 19, 1976, with the station now licensed to Arlington, it was sold to Jimmy Swaggart Ministries and became KWJS (the Word of Jimmy Swaggart) and to new KJIM calls in 1984. (The KJIM calls were resurrected from KJIM-870 AM, who used them from 1957-1984.)
After the first incarnation of KLTY (1985-86) and then KHYI (1986-91,) 94.9 was home to KODZ "Oldies 94.9." After one year, it flipped to KSNN "Sunny 95" (1992-96,) then to KEWS - "The First All-News FM Station in America, Made in Texas" (1996-97). Religious talker KWRD was established at 94.9 in early 1997 after a trade with KEWS-FM. As a result of the trade, KDFX-1190 AM became KWRD-FM, while KEWS-FM became KOOO-1190 AM.
A 94.9 KLTY annual Christian festival occurs the weekend before the 4 July somewhere in the Dallas area. Traditionally, it is held at Southfork Ranch.
Notable weekday hosts include Frank Reed on mornings, Bonnie Curry on mid-days, Tony Lopez on afternoons, Andrea "Andi" Jaxson on evenings, and John Hudson on overnights. Other notable on-air staff include morning show news anchor Starlene Stringer and traffic reporter Perri Reavis.
Notable weekend on-air staff include "New Music Cafe" host John Hudson, Sunday morning praise host Ron Taylor, Laurie Lynn, Shawn Bowman, Marc Anderson, and Dave Harrison.
The National Association of Broadcasters has awarded KLTY a Marconi Award for being a "Top Religious Station Of the Year" in 2005, 2007, and again in 2009.[3]
KLTY uses the WLIT 07 package from Reelworld Productions. The jingle below is from KLTY's previous package WLIT 2002.
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