KRKE

KRKE (94.5 FM & 1550 AM) is an American radio station based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It broadcasts a 1980s hits music format with an emphasis on the new wave genre. The station is branded as "KRKE 94.5 The 80's Channel" and is owned by Vanguard Media LLC. The station is streamed online along with its talk radio sister station KIVA (1600 AM) and New Adult Contemporary station KOAZ (1510 AM & 103.7 FM). Its studios are located in Northeast Albuquerque (a mile north of Central Avenue) and the transmitter tower is in the city's Old Town district northwest of downtown.

FM Broadcast

In early May 2011, KRKE (then on 1600 AM) began using an FM translator K298BK to rebroadcast the format at 99 watts in stereo on 107.5 FM and rebranding as "Cool 107.5". The station had previously been called "Real Oldies 1600". They had also changed their website to cool1075.com. The translator is owned by the Educational Media Foundation.

This change brought the station to better compete with KABG 98.5 which serves as an Oldies/Classic Hits format, mainly playing music from the 60's, 70's& 80's. For the first year or so the station continued to focus on the traditional 1960's based oldies format it had aired since 2005 as an AM-only station but since mid-2012 it began to shift more to classic hits like KABG and most other FM oldies stations.

A construction permit was granted to this station on April 18, 2012 to move to the 94.5 frequency and increase power to the class maximum of 250 watts. On February 14, 2013 the station moved to new frequency re-branding as "The Greatest Hits KOOL 94.5" as well as completing a shift in the format to playing music from the 1970s and '80s competing directly with KABG. KOOL 94.5 was promoted as "Clutter-Free", featuring a music-intensive presentation without programming elements such as personality announcers, news, weather and traffic reports. KRKE however generated low ratings and since July 2013 faced additional competition from KABQ-FM 104.7 which features a 1970's centric version of the format. In early 2014 the format had been shifting to focus more on music from the 1980s. On May 12 of that year, at 12:00pm, 1550 and 94.5 re-branded as "94-5 The 80's Channel" with an all-80s pop/new wave format making it the first time this format has aired in the Albuquerque market since KKOB-FM dropped the format in late 2002. The last song on Kool 94.5 was Hold On by Wilson Phillips, and the first song on 94.5 The 80's Channel was Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles.

History

For many years, the AM station broadcast on the 1520 AM frequency. It mostly carried programming that was broadcast on the 107.9 FM frequency. However, the station could only be heard during daytime hours due to night time interference from KOMA (now KOKC) out of Oklahoma City. In 1995, it broke off from 107.9 simulcasting and began to run children's programming from Radio AAHS as KDZZ, but it would return to simulcasting after less than two years.

"Joy" logo

In 2000, the AM station was sold to Vanguard and moved to the 1550 frequency under the call letters KKJY, which allowed for the station to increase its daytime power and initiate nighttime operation. It began broadcasting an adult standards format to fill a void left after KIVA 1310 AM had dropped the format for talk. It picked up the KKJY call sign that had once belonged locally to 100.3 FM, which had a long running easy listening format until 1994. It was branded as "Joy AM".

In 2006 the station's format shifted to soft AC. On July 25, 2008, it again changed its call sign to KQNM and called itself "Soft Favorites 1550". On May 18, 2009, it changed to KIVA^[1] while moving the KQNM call sign to 1100 kHz in Milan, New Mexico. The KIVA format was changed to talk radio June 15, 2009. On August 28, 2012, the station swapped dial positions with KIVA moving the talk format and KIVA callsign to 1600 and KRKE moving from 1600 to 1550.

KRKE began its oldies format on 1600 in early 2005 after stunting with an all Elvis format for a couple of weeks at the end of 2004.

References

External links

• Query the FCC's AM station database for KRKE
• Radio-Locator Information on KRKE
• Query Nielsen Audio's AM station database for KRKE
• FCC History Cards for KRKE