From 99.5 KRIC through "KD 97" On March 1, 1948, the station began broadcasting on 99.5 MHz as
KRIC and continued on that frequency through the early 1950s. Interference to
Beaumont viewers trying to watch KGUL-TV in
Galveston (now
KHOU-TV in Houston), since its March 22, 1953 sign-on, caused the FCC to swap frequencies with this facility and one allocated to
Lake Charles, Louisiana. That changed KRIC's operating frequency to 97.5 FM in order to alleviate the interference to KGUL-TV's signal. The Lake Charles 99.5 station continues to operate as well, and is currently
country KNGT, having first signed on in November 1965 as KPLC. The KRIC
call sign was changed to
KAYD several years later to match its then AM counterpart 1450
KAYC. As KAYD, 97.5 was the long-time FM country music outlet in the Golden Triangle, going by the branding "KD 97". In December 2001, a new 2,000-foot tower was built near
Winnie, Texas so that the station could target the more lucrative Houston
radio market. It was as at this point that the country format of "KD 97" was moved to
KAYD-FM 101.7 as "KD101." Meanwhile, 97.5 began
stunting, initially with
Christmas music, and afterward, a week-long loop of airing empowerment-themed music and speeches from
African-American artists and figures.
As KRWP On January 3, 2002, the station officially began targeting the Houston market by flipping to an
Urban Contemporary format as
Power 97.5 under the temporary call letters
KKTT but gave
KRPW as its on-air identification. (The station was unable to get the call sign in time for the
sign on and acquired the KRWP call letters several weeks later.) KRWP also continued to serve the Beaumont area, while primarily targeting Houston. The station, renamed KRWP (
Po
We
R spelled backwards) had modest success in the early months of 2002. However, it faced stiff competition from longtime Houston
hip-hop music stations 97.9
KBXX and 104.9
KPTY-FM as well as
Rhythmic Contemporary station
KTHT. KRWP later skewed to an
Urban Adult Contemporary format with the intent of challenging the market's heritage R&B station,
Majic 102.1. However, KRWP never came close to KMJQ in the ratings due to the location of the transmitter, which resulted in a lack of decent coverage for the market. KRWP was transmitting from a site 50 miles east of Houston in
Chambers County. KRWP was home to the
syndicated Doug Banks in the Mornings, even through the format altering in 2003.
Switch to Rock 97.5 In late 2004, there were plans for KRWP to switch frequencies to 103.7 FM, or otherwise launch a simulcast with another station with the objective of providing better coverage in Houston. At the same time, Houston's heritage
album-oriented rock (AOR) station, 101.1
KLOL, dumped its rock format after 34 years, flipping to a
Hurban (Hispanic Urban) format. On January 27, 2005, under new management, KRWP switched to an AOR format, switching its call sign to
KIOL as "Rock 97.5." The format change was headed by former KLOL personality Jim Pruett and program director Pat Fant, in response to the outcry from misplaced KLOL listeners. The first song played on "Rock 97.5" was "
For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)" by
AC/DC.
KIOL moves to 103.7; FM Newschannel debuts 103.7 signed back on the air May 23, 2005, after being purchased by
Cumulus Media, and subsequently moved its transmitting site from
Willis to Devers, including a major facility upgrade to full
Class C status. Cumulus began simulcasting "Rock 97.5" KIOL on the new 103.7 KUST signal for testing purposes and to familiarize listeners with the new frequency. The simulcast lasted for the next 8 days. On May 31, 2005, at 6 a.m., 97.5 KIOL broke the simulcast and launched Houston's third attempt at an FM news/talk station, as
KFNC "FM News Channel 97-5." (102.1 KLYX—now KMJQ—was the first in 1975 as an affiliate of
NBC Radio's now-defunct 24-hour
NBC News and Information Service; 97.1
KKTL was the second FM News/Talk station, and is now
classic country.) Adopting a
News/
Talk radio format, the station consisted of former KLOL morning personalities Jim Pruett and Brian Shannon (the voice of Eddie "The Boner" Sanchez), who reunited to host the afternoon talk show "Back Talk", which was later moved to mornings. Other KLOL alumni on board for the station's news department were Laurie Kendrick and Martha Martinez. Non-KLOL personalities included former KILT newsman Jim Carolla, former KRBE and "NewsRadio 740" staffer Michael Shiloh as morning host/anchor, former "Newsradio 740" reporter and editor Belinda Babinec, former
KPRC-TV sports director Craig Roberts, A.W. Pantoja,
Clark Howard,
Phil Hendrie, and Charles McPhee. Despite the station's call letters suggesting an affiliation with
Fox News Channel, the station has never been an affiliate of the network's related
Fox News Radio service (
KPRC (AM) serves as the network's Houston affiliate; that service by coincidence launched a day after KFNC's launch).
Sports format KFNC went through format tweaks and house cleaning, and the "FM News Channel" moniker was dropped around spring of 2006. The station became "Supertalk 97.5." However, the station's ratings failed to keep the talk format afloat. KFNC switched to its current
sports radio format, officially launching in mid-January 2007. KFNC's on-air branding,
ESPN 97.5 The Ticket, was similar to that of a co-owned AM sports station in Dallas,
KTCK. KFNC affiliated with
ESPN Radio, which previously heard on
Clear Channel's
KBME 790 AM. KBME affiliated with
Fox Sports Radio. In 2007, Cumulus Media moved KFNC to its new Houston headquarters, along with
sister station 103.7
KIOL in the Chase Building at 9801 Westheimer Road in Houston. That facility already housed 104.1
KRBE since the mid-1980s. As part of a prepackaged bankruptcy filing, the lenders took over the license of four Cumulus Media Partners stations; two in the Kansas City metro area (
KCHZ and
KMJK) and the two rimshot signals in the Houston metro, KHJK and KFNC, in November 2011. Station broker Larry Patrick emerged as the majority owner of the stations and set out to sell the stations to recover the value for the lenders. While Cumulus lost the licenses in bankruptcy, it continued to program the stations under a
Local marketing agreement (LMA). Cumulus had the opportunity to buy the stations back, but ultimately the highest bidder for KFNC was David Gow, owner of sports-formatted
AM 1560 KGOW and the highest bidder for KHJK was the
Educational Media Foundation, a Christian broadcaster. KFNC remained affiliated with ESPN Radio following the sale to Gow and no major programming changes occurred. On November 23, 2025, during the broadcast of a
NFL game, the station was hijacked by an unidentified individual that played the song "Nigger Hatin' Me" by 1960s-era white supremacist country singer
Johnny Rebel,
Emergency Alert System tones, and liners promoting the hacker's supposed social media accounts. ==KFNC HD-2/K231CN; "Sports Map 94.1"==