KNTU (88.1 FM) is the

campus A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a college campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls, student centers or dining halls, and park-like se ...

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 ...

of the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. The signal of the station covers much of the

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

and

Fort Worth Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

Metroplex A metroplex is a conurbation with more than one principal anchor city of near equal importance. Metroplex may refer to: * Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, a conurbation in Texas, U.S. *Eastgate Metroplex, a professional/retail complex in Tulsa, O ...

of North Texas with an alternative rock format. Any University of North Texas student is welcome to work at the station. KNTU also produces the UNT

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

and men's basketball broadcast feeds for th
Mean Green Sports Network
a radio property of Learfield, but no longer airs the games on 88.1 FM. UNT

women's A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female humans regardl ...

basketball will move to streaming only on Learfield'
Varsity App
beginning with the 2022-23 season.

History

KNTU was founded in 1969 in part by Bill Mercer, former voice of the

Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisi ...

, North Texas Mean Green, and a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame. Originally on the 88.5 FM frequency, the station officially went on the air on October 31, 1969. Along with music, Mean Green football game broadcasts were soon added, with Mercer providing play-by-play coverage and UNT students usually serving as his color commentators. The station switched to a jazz format in 1981, while continuing to host public affairs shows and North Texas athletic events. While KNTU had no direct competitors, it shared audiences with 106.1 from 1987 to 1992 and 107.5 from 1992 to 2006 (both with the KOAI callsigns) as

smooth jazz Smooth jazz is a genre of commercially-oriented crossover jazz and easy listening music that became dominant in the mid 1970s to the early 1990s. History Smooth jazz is a commercially oriented, crossover jazz which came to prominence in the 19 ...

-formatted stations branded "The Oasis." On July 29, 2022, KNTU switched to an alternative rock format,"88.1 indie," reflecting the station's independent status with a playlist of alternative rock artists. The first song was " Icky Thump" by the White Stripes. The jazz format continues to stream online. KNTU also announced its intent to launch its

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. It generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used ...

signal in late 2022/early 2023 and add the jazz format to 88.1 HD2. The latest format flip puts KNTU in competition with North Texas Public Broadcasting's Adult album alternative-formatted KKXT (91.7),

iHeartMedia 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 ...

-owned

KDGE KDGE () is a commercial radio station licensed to both Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas. It is owned and operated by iHeartMedia, and broadcasts a mainstream adult contemporary radio format, switching to Christmas music for much of November and Decem ...

(102.1 The Edge HD2), and Audacy-owned KVIL (Alt 103.7).

Programming

In addition to its alternative format, KNTU broadcasts "North Texas In Focus," a public affairs show on Sunday at 6 a.m.

Signal

Unlike most of the area's FM stations (like competitor KVIL) which transmit their signals from

Cedar Hill Cedar may refer to: Trees and plants *''Cedrus'', common English name cedar, an Old-World genus of coniferous trees in the plant family Pinaceae *Cedar (plant), a list of trees and plants known as cedar Places United States * Cedar, Arizona * ...

, KNTU transmits its signal from north Denton on land owned by UNT which was a Nike Missile Base. Therefore, KNTU's signal is much stronger in the Northern parts of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex as well as the cities of Denton, Decatur,

McKinney McKinney is a city in and the county seat of Collin County, Texas. It is Collin County's third-largest city, after Plano, Texas, Plano and Frisco, Texas, Frisco. A suburb of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, McKinney is about north of Dallas. ...

, and Gainesville, but is considerably weaker in Dallas, Fort Worth, and areas south of the Metroplex. The station installed a new antenna during the first week of November 2022.

Notable former KNTU students

George Dunham George William Dunham (born June 28, 1965); is an American radio personality and member of the '' Musers'' in Dallas, Texas. Dunham co-hosts the show with long-time friend and college roommate Craig Miller, along with their co-host Gordon Keith ...

( KTCK The Ticket) * Craig Miller (KTCK The Ticket) * Sean Bass (Sports Director, KTCK The Ticket) *

Mark Followill Mark Followill is an American sports announcer, currently for Fox Sports, covering basketball, soccer and football. Career Early in his career, Followill worked in various positions at KTCK The Ticket in Dallas including as host of ''The Ende ...

(PxP

Dallas Mavericks The Dallas Mavericks (often referred to as the Mavs) are an American professional basketball team based in Dallas. The Mavericks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference (NBA), Western Conferenc ...

FC Dallas FC Dallas is an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The club competes as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference in Major League Soccer (MLS). The franchise be ...

) *

Dave Barnett David Lane Barnett (born April 27, 1958) is a play-by-play broadcaster who calls Big 12 baseball games on Fox Sports 1, college basketball on American Sports Network, and football and men's basketball for the University of North Texas (UNT). He h ...

(PxP

San Antonio Spurs The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio. The Spurs compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference (NBA), Western Conference Southwest Division ( ...

, Texas Rangers) *

Craig Way Craig Way (left) interviews Texas basketball coach Rick Barnes in 2009. Craig Stephen Way (born 1960) is the current play-by-play announcer for the Texas Longhorns sports network. He does live radio play-by-play coverage for all major Texas Lon ...

(Voice of the Texas Longhorns) * Tommy Bonk (

LA Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

writer who coined the phrase " Phi Slama Jama")

Previous logo

References

External links

KNTU websiteUniversity of North Texas Department of Media Arts
*
DFW Radio/TV History
{{Modern Rock Radio Stations in Texas University of North Texas NTU NTU Radio stations established in 1969 1969 establishments in Texas Radio and TV Alternative rock radio stations in the United States