KKSY-FM (96.5

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

, "96.5 Kiss Country") is a 100,000 watt

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 ...

Cedar Rapids, Iowa Cedar Rapids () is the second-largest city in Iowa, United States and is the county seat of Linn County, Iowa, Linn County. The city lies on both banks of the Cedar River (Iowa River), Cedar River, north of Iowa City, Iowa, Iowa City and north ...

. It is 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, ...

formatted station owned by

iHeartMedia, Inc. iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...

History

KKSY-FM signed on February 27, 1963, as WMT-FM at 96.5 FM with an easy listening, jazz and

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

format. There were 90-minute classical music segments in the morning and evening with regular programs of jazz and music from Broadway musicals. Some of those early announcers were Keith Webster, Bill Dutcher, Don John Ross, Bill Grubbe, and Jim Wicks as well as other WMT announcers who took the helm of hosting on FM. In the early days, programming was totally separate from WMT radio but in the late 1960s, WMT-FM started simulcasting the 15-minute newscasts of WMT AM 600 several times a day. In the 1970s, it became a full-time "

beautiful music Beautiful music (sometimes abbreviated as BM, B/EZ or BM/EZ for "beautiful music/easy listening") is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in North American radio from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Easy listening, elevator musi ...

" station before adopting an

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

format in 1982, which occurred around the time when many beautiful music stations went to soft rock or more contemporary format. WMT-FM tried competing against KCRG until 1984 when KCRG-AM flipped its format to adult standards. WMT-FM became Cedar Rapids' only AC station for another few years, and was the dominant AC station for the Cedar Rapids market. The amount of adult contemporary stations in the Cedar Rapids market (excluding Waterloo) was upgraded from one to three when WMT-FM's sister station WMT-AM flipped from

MOR Mor or MOR may refer to: Names and titles * Mór (given name), a list of people named Mór or Mor * Mor (surname), a list of people named Mor or Mór * Mor (honorific), or Mar, in Syriac Radio and television * Middle of the road (music) genre * ...

in 1986, and KCRG-AM returning back to its adult contemporary format after a nearly three-year hiatus in January 1987. Both WMT-AM and KCRG-AM's adult contemporary formats didn't last long. WMT-FM became the only (and dominant) AC station in the Cedar Rapids market after WMT-AM flipped back to MOR in late 1988 and KCRG-AM flipped to

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 ...

in 1989. WMT-FM's studios have been located at Broadcast Park on Collins Road in Cedar Rapids, along with its AM sister station WMT and TV station

KGAN KGAN (channel 2) is a television station licensed to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States, serving Eastern Iowa as an affiliate of CBS and Fox. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, which provides certain services to Dabl affiliate KFXA (channe ...

(the former WMT-TV), since it signed on. Until the 1970s, the studios of WMT radio were located on the fifth floor of the historic Paramount Theatre building in downtown Cedar Rapids. It was one of the few stations with a callsign beginning with W located west of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

. The station was known for its "time warp weekends" and long-standing tradition of being heavily involved in the Cedar Rapids community. The station hosts "Uptown Friday Nights" every Friday night in downtown Cedar Rapids. The station often joins up with WMT for special promotional events, and simulcasts during severe weather conditions. WMT-FM ended its longtime

hot adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet ...

format on December 27, 2011, when Clear Channel transferred the country format from KKSY (95.7 FM); after a temporary simulcast period, 95.7 FM began to simulcast WMT on January 2, 2012 and eventually took the KWMG call letters on January 17, 2012.

References

External links

* {{IHeartMedia KSY-FM Mass media in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Country radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1963 1963 establishments in Iowa IHeartMedia radio stations