KDSH The station first signed on the air on August 11, 1947. The call sign was originally KDSH with the studios at 311 North 10th Street. It was owned by Boise Valley Broadcasters, a
subsidiary of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. KDSH was originally on 950 kHz, powered at 5,000 watts. It was a
CBS Radio Network affiliate for much of this period. In 1953, Boise Valley Broadcasters put a TV station on the air, Channel 2
KBOI. It was Boise's second TV station after
KIDO-TV (channel 7).
KBOI On February 11, 1955, the stations switched their call letters to KBOI and KBOI-TV. The change in call signs took place, along with the relocation of the television station's city of license from
Meridian to Boise. An FM radio station was added in 1960, 97.9 KBOI-FM (now
KQFC). For the first few years, the AM and FM stations simulcast their programming. As network programming moved from radio to television, KBOI-AM-FM switched to a
full service,
middle of the road (MOR) format of popular music, news and sports. In the late 1960s, KBOI-FM broke away from the simulcast and began playing
beautiful music. In the 1980s, as listeners switched from AM to FM for music listening, KBOI added more talk programming. It eventually completed the change over to all talk.
Cumulus Media In 2005, its owner at the time,
Citadel Broadcasting, switched KBOI's affiliation to
ABC's Information Network, in advance of Citadel's 2007 acquisition of
ABC Radio. Citadel merged with Cumulus Media on September 16, 2011. At the beginning of 2015, Cumulus switched KBOI and most of its other news/talk stations from ABC News to Cumulus-owned
Westwood One News. In 2020, Westwood One News was discontinued and KBOI returned to ABC News affiliation. KBOI was the contracted radio station for
Boise State University Broncos football and
men's basketball from 1973 through early 2008, with Paul J. Schneider as play-by-play announcer. The Broncos returned to KBOI during the
2010 season with Bob Behler serving as the Voice of the Broncos.
FM simulcast On January 3, 2022, KBOI began simulcasting on KTIK-FM (93.1), which concurrently took on the
KBOI-FM call sign. KTIK-FM had previously simulcast the sports format of sister station
KTIK.
Morning show The KBOI morning show, "Idaho's First Morning News/Idaho Talks Live" was anchored by Paul J. Schneider and Chris Walton until December 2018, when Schneider retired from full-time broadcasting after 51 years with KBOI-TV and KBOI Radio. Schneider, an
Illinois native who moved to Idaho as a teen with his parents and brother, was a KBOI Radio morning host from 1976 to 2018. Walton, a native of
Twin Falls, joined the program in 2001, moving from the morning drive show at
Citadel-owned
classic rock station
KKGL-FM. Idaho native Mike Kasper, the former morning drive co-host of Boise station
KCIX, was hired by KBOI following Schneider's retirement. Since January 2019, the KBOI wake up program has been known as "Kasper and Chris". The radio morning show was simulcast on then-local
Fox Television Network station
KTRV-TV from 8am to 10am Monday through Friday from 2003 through 2010. KTRV dropped the program after Boise CBS affiliate television station KBCI-TV changed its call letters back to
KBOI-TV in 2010 (after spending the last 35 years as KBCI-TV) to reflect a renewed partnership with KBOI radio. ==Programming==