
KBIG also serves the greater Los Angeles area and features hot adult contemporary music.

KIIS has gone through a lot of growing pains since first signing on in 1961 as KLAC-FM.ĭifferent call letters, different formats, different owners, and different celebrity DJs followed but KIIS has held on as one of the top ten radio channels in the country for a few decades and has found the niche that works for it and its audience. While Ryan Seacrest is the hot DJ of the moment, the station was also home to Rick Dees, a household name in the 1980s and 1990s. KIIS is a commercial radio station that sticks to the top 40 format that’s popular and familiar to most people over 20. They lay claim to Ryan Seacrest and they’re willing to ride his wave of fame as far as they can. KIIS is a huge hit music maker, in tradition with the first radio stations. They’re one of the best-known news channels in the country, as evidenced by their earnings. Many format changes would follow and finally, on March 9, 1969, the station struck what would be gold for them, an all-news format. Interestingly, those were inherited from a police radio station, Tiffin Ohio Police. It was started way back in 1926, but the station didn’t earn its call letters until 1943. But that’s not the beginning of this station’s story, not by a long shot. In April of 2011, the station was bought by the Minnesota-based and family-owned Hubbard Broadcasting. They’re also available through Alexa, HD Radio, and. metro area, in greater Virginia, and in Maryland in Frederick, Chesapeake Bay, and Fredericksburg and all the areas in between.

WTOP stands for Washington’s Top News broadcasts and can be found on multiple channels in the D.C. Note that many of them are not music-based. Today, classic radio stations are few and far between, but they’re still out there and these are some of the top radio stations in the country as they consistently earn a significant amount of money. Top 10 Radio Stations in the United States Before we take a look at ten of the largest radio stations in the country, let’s look at what’s happening to the industry in general. Radio stations aren’t exactly endangered, but their livelihood is nothing like it used to be. An industry that once had virtually no competition except record players, tape cassettes, and eventually CDs is now seeing a huge shakeup and it’s not faring too well. This would become the third time the WNAE call letters were used on FM radio they were also assigned to 102.7 FM from 2007 until 2011 when the signal was co-owned and simulcast Kinzua Country.The field of radio broadcasting has seen a huge shift since the dawn of digital broadcasting. This is the first time the WICU call letters would return to AM radio since 1967 when the owners of WICU-TV owned 1330 AM in Erie.ġ04.3 Kinzua Country also changed its call letters from WKNB to WNAE to preserve their heritage. In early 2020, WNAE changed its call letters to WICU-AM and started simulcasting Erie’s HAPPI 92.7 (WICU-FM), which is also operated by the same company. The stations were sold in 2019 to Lilly Broadcasting, which operates television stations WICU and WSEE. In February 2019, WNAE 1310 AM started simulcasting at 96.7 FM.

In 2006, Kibco Radio sold WRRN, WKNB and WNAE to Radio Partners, LLC. WRRN changed its format to oldies in 2002 then transitioned to classic hits in 2014. WOVU was granted a construction permit to move to 104.3 in November 1994 and changed its call sign to WKNB in July 1995. WKNB 104.3 first went on the air as WOVU 106.9 in March 1993. In 1974, WNAE and WRRN were sold by Northern Allegheny Broadcasting to Kinzua Broadcasting Company.

By the 1970s, the station would increase its power to 26,000 watts and then to 50,000 by the 1980s.įor many years, WRRN was branded as “Easy 92.3,” a beautiful music radio station. WRRN started with an effective radiated power of 3,000 watts. The station would later move to 92.3 and change its call letters to WRRN in April 1951. Northern Allegheny Broadcasting was the original licensee of both stations. WRRN signed on the air in March 1949 as WNAE-FM 92.1, the sister station of WNAE-AM. The licensing process had been halted once the U.S. WNAE 1310 AM signed on the air in March 1947 after World War II had ended, and the FCC started to issue licenses to radio stations again.
