Beginning The station began regular operations on September 14, 1949, broadcasting to
Bozeman, Montana, with 250
watts of power on a frequency of 1230
kHz. The station was assigned the KBMN
call sign by the
Federal Communications Commission. Under the ownership of the Penn Engineering Company, KBMN was led by G. Norman Penwell as company president, Gerald E. Tyo as
program director, and Jack Penwell as
chief engineer. The original KBMN
radio studios were located in a building in the northern part of Bozeman next to its original broadcast tower site on North 7th Avenue. The original tower was torn down in 1992 and the studio building now serves as a small
casino. In 1962, the FCC granted the station authorization to increase the strength of its daytime signal to 1,000
watts while keeping the nighttime signal at the previous 250 watts. Penn Engineering sold KBMN outright to William A. Merrick who formed a new company called KBMN, Inc., to serve as the license holder. The station was acquired by Western Media, Inc., in a transaction that was consummated on September 1, 1975. One year later, in June 1990, Leonard Kehl and Tony Kehl, doing business in partnership as Western Media, announced a deal to sell this station to Robert F. Pipinich and Cathryn L. Pipinich, a joint proprietorship. The deal was approved by the FCC on July 26, 1990, and consummated on the same day. Just over one year after that, Robert Pipinich and Cathryn Pipinich agreed in July 1991 to transfer the
broadcast license for KBMN to Buz Cowdrey's Cowdrey Broadcasting Company. The deal was approved by the FCC on August 20, 1991, and the transaction was consummated on August 27, 1991. This change would also be short-lived as in February 1993 the Cowdrey Broadcasting Company contracted to sell this station to Reier Broadcasting Company, Inc. The deal was approved by the FCC on April 28, 1993, and the transaction was consummated on June 21, 1993. After more than 43 years as KBMN, the station was assigned the new call sign KZLO by the FCC on March 22, 1993. The station was assigned the call sign KOBB by the FCC on September 15, 1994. Effective December 6, 2019, the licenses for KOBB and its sister stations were involuntary assigned from Reier Broadcasting Company, Inc. to Richard J. Samson, as Receiver. The licenses for these stations were sold to Desert Mountain Broadcasting Licenses LLC for $300,000 in a deal completed on January 31, 2022. ==References==