The station
signed on the air on June 11, 1963. Its original
call sign was WELL-FM and it broadcast at 96.5 MHz. WELL-FM and its
sister station,
WELL (AM),
simulcast their programming for most of the 1960s, but that changed in 1964 when both WELL-FM and WELL became WKFR-FM and AM. The AM station became
Top 40 outlet as "Keener 14", while the FM station moved to 103.3 MHz. And by the late 1960s WKFR-FM had broken from the simulcast of WKFR and was airing an
automated Beautiful Music format, playing quarter hour sweeps of mostly instrumental songs. In 1972, WKFR (AM), changed its call letters to WKNR after that call sign was dropped by
the former WKNR in Detroit but their FM station remained WKFR-FM. By the end of the 1970s WKFR-FM had evolved from
MOR "good music" to an
AC format. Then in 1981 WKFR-FM inherited the now
Top 40/
CHR format from WKNR and has been keeping and retained it ever since. On August 30, 2013, a deal was announced in which
Townsquare Media would acquire 53
Cumulus Media stations, including WKFR-FM. The price tag was $238 million. The deal was part of Cumulus' acquisition of
Dial Global. Both Townsquare and Dial Global were controlled by
Oaktree Capital Management. The sale was consummated on November 14, 2013. == References ==