KIBM (1490 AM) is an

oldies Oldies is a term for musical genres such as pop music, rock and roll, doo-wop, surf music (broadly characterized as classic rock and pop rock) from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as we ...

formatted

broadcast Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum ( radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began ...

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

licensed to

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest cit ...

, serving the Omaha/

Council Bluffs Council Bluffs is a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States. The city is the most populous in Southwest Iowa, and is the third largest and a primary city of the Omaha-Council Bluffs Metropolitan Area. It is lo ...

area. KIBM is owned and operated by Steven Seline, through licensee Walnut Radio, LLC. KIBM's transmitter is located near South 32nd Avenue and Vinton Street in the Hanscom Park neighborhood near

Downtown Omaha Downtown Omaha is the central business, government and social core of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area, U.S. state of Nebraska. The boundaries are Omaha, Nebraska, Omaha's 20th Street on the west to the Missouri River on the east and ...

History

KOBM signed on in 1942 as KBON. It changed to KLNG on July 1, 1970. By early 1977, KLNG identified as "Newsradio 149". However, on June 1 of that year, KLNG became KYNN and took on a

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

format. On April 9, 1985, at 6 a.m., the station flipped to

as KEDS. Due to poor ratings, on July 2, 1987, KEDS dropped the oldies format and began simulcasting

KEZO-FM KEZO-FM (92.3 FM) is a commercial radio station in Omaha, Nebraska. It is owned by SummitMedia. KEZO airs an active rock radio format. KEZO's studios are located on Mercy Road in Omaha's Aksarben Village, and the station's transmitter is off No ...

. The simulcast would last until the early 1990s, when KEZO flipped to

sports talk Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often- boisterous on-ai ...

(the first station of its kind in the Omaha market), and would adopt the KOSR call letters in March 1996. The sports format would last until April 25, 2005, when then-sister station KOMJ (590 AM) swapped formats, with 1490 adopting KOMJ's adult standards format and call letters.

Journal Broadcast Group Journal Media Group (formerly Journal Communications) was a Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based newspaper publishing company. The company's roots were first established in 1882 as the owner of its namesake, the ''Milwaukee Journal'', and expanded into br ...

sold the station to Cochise Radio Partners in 2007, and the intention was for KOMJ's studios to be relocated.. But on August 1, 2013, an

FCC The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdictio ...

agent attempted to inspect the studios of KOMJ. The on-file address, 10714 Mockingbird Drive, is the studio for Journal's television station,

KMTV-TV KMTV-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Omaha, Nebraska, United States, affiliated with CBS. Owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, the station has studios on Mockingbird Drive in southwest Omaha, and its transmitter is located on a "tower ...

and their then-radio sisters, and had never been changed, despite Cochise's full relocation of the station; Journal did not lease a studio out to Cochise as part of the sale. Less than a year later, in March 2014, the FCC fined Cochise $17,000, citing with KOMJ's failure to maintain access to their

public file A public file (or public inspection file) is a collection of documents required by a broadcasting authority to be maintained by all broadcast stations under its jurisdiction. Such a file is required by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) i ...

(which Journal also did not have on hand) as part of the studio address violation. On October 17, 2014, Cochise announced the sale of KOMJ to Walnut Radio, LLC for $450,000. The sale between Cochise and Walnut closed on January 2, 2015. Five days later, the station dropped the middle of the road music from its format for adult standards,

classic hits Classic hits is a radio format which generally includes songs from the top 40 music charts from the late 1960s to the early 2000s, with music from the 1980s serving as the core of the format. Music that was popularized by MTV in the early 1980s ...

, and oldies. At exactly 6:00 p.m. on January 7, "Boomer 1490" (a nod to Baby Boomers, its core demographic) was officially launched with a live listening party at Gorat's Steakhouse in Omaha. The first song played under the new Boomer format was "

Good Vibrations "Good Vibrations" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love. It was released as a single on October 10, 1966 and was an immediate critical and commercial hit, topping record ...

" by

The Beach Boys The Beach Boys are an American Rock music, rock band that formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian Wilson, Brian, Dennis Wilson, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and frie ...

. In June of that year, long time radio legend Dave Wingert became the new Morning Show host. In May 2016, an FM translator was added on 104.1 FM, giving the station an AM/FM combo. The station is now known as "Boomer Radio." The call letters were changed to KOBM on December 11, 2018. On April 1, 2019, the station changed call letters to KIBM, with the KOBM call letters moving to 1420 AM (the former KOTK). Legal ID for the "Boomer Radio" network
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Translator

In addition to the main station, KIBM is relayed by two FM translators in the core Omaha metro and suburbs.

References

External links

Boomer 104.1 and 1490 Online
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FCC History Cards for KIBM
{{Oldies Radio Stations in Nebraska 1942 establishments in Nebraska Oldies radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1942 IBM