(For a history of the 1240 AM signal, see
KFH.)
Early years KNSS presently operates from one the oldest radio facilities in Kansas. It first
signing on the air on May 26, 1922, although it began experimental broadcasts in March 1922. Its
call sign was originally WEAH. The call letters were randomly assigned from a sequential roster of available call signs. On June 23, 1923, the station was sold to the Wichita Board of Trade. During a period of nearly two years, the Rigby Gray Hotel Company Corporation (operator of the
Lassen Hotel) gradually took over the ownership, with the final sale taking place on April 30, 1925. The hotel company changed the call letters to KFH, standing for "Kansas' Finest Hotel". At 9:45am, February 14, 1926, the first radio broadcast under the call letters KFH was made.
The Wichita Eagle, a local newspaper, purchased 50% of KFH on October 1, 1929. KFH became a
Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) network affiliate on October 8, 1929. KFH carried the CBS line up of dramas, comedies, news, sports, soap operas, game shows and
big band broadcasts during the "
Golden Age of Radio". In the 1930s, it began broadcasting on 1300 kHz with 1,000 watts.
Power boost The
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized an increase in daytime power to 5,000 watts on May 28, 1935. In 1941, with the enactment of the
North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement (NARBA), the station switched to its present-day frequency of 1330 kHz. Ownership remained under the control of the hotel company until June 5, 1963, when the FCC approved the transfer of the station license to Aeschlayer & Reynolds of
Dallas, Texas. The new owner retained the station for less than five and a half years and sold KFH to Phil and
Nancy Kassebaum, operating under the corporate name "KFH Radio, Inc." on November 1, 1968. (Nancy Kassebaum was elected to the
U.S. Senate in 1978.) By this time, KFH shifted to an
easy listening/
beautiful music format.
Country and oldies On September 13, 1978, KFH flipped from its longtime
MOR format to
country; during this time, the station was an affiliate
Wichita Wings soccer games. In 1988, the Kassebaums sold the station to Midcontinent Broadcasting; on October 19 of that year, KFH flipped to a simulcast of new station
KXLK (105.3 FM), then flipped to
oldies the following March. On July 26, 1993, KFH flipped to
news/talk. On July 1, 1994, Midcontinent sold KFH to Pourtales Radio Partnership. Pourtales did not retain ownership very long; the company signed a letter of intent to sell KFH to Triathlon Broadcasting on Friday, March 24, 1995, and completed the sale on June 2, 1995. The station was in turn sold to Entercom (now Audacy) on February 23, 2000.
All talk KFH carried a
talk radio format from 1993 until 2002, when it shifted most of its political talk shows to KNSS, and shifted to a
hot talk format. Also that year, KFH added a
simulcast on 98.7 FM, displacing
smooth jazz KWSJ. The FM station switched its call sign to KFH-FM. On August 30, 2004, KFH and KNSS swapped facilities. The KFH call sign and hot talk format moved to AM 1240; concurrently, KNSS and its news/talk format moved to AM 1330. Entercom wanted to place KNSS on a stronger signal; AM 1330 operates at 5,000 watts around the clock while AM 1240 only operated at 1,000 watts. The station's studios were originally located at North Woodlawn and East 21st in Northeast Wichita. On May 20, 2015, the studios moved to the Ruffin Building at 9111 East Douglas, formerly the
Pizza Hut corporate headquarters. KNSS began
simulcasting on KNSS-FM (98.7) on October 12, 2016. Prior to then, the 98.7 frequency was KFH-FM, a simulcast of KFH. KFH-AM-FM were
network affiliates of
ESPN Radio. KFH continues as a
sports radio station on its own, now with an
FM translator station at 97.5 MHz. ==See also==