WKXG was an AM radio station broadcasting on the assigned frequency of

1540 Year 1540 ( MDXL) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events January–June * January 6 – King Henry VIII marries Anne of Cleves, his fourth Queen consort; the ma ...

kilohertz 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 h ...

and licensed to

Greenwood, Mississippi Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta region, approximately 96 miles north of the state capital, Jackson, and 130 miles south of the riverp ...

, United States. WKXG operated as a noncommercial educational station and last aired a

gospel music Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music, and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is com ...

format known as Gospel 1540. Its final owner was Eternity Media Group. WKXG was put on the air in 1987 after proceedings to license a successor to WSWG (1540 AM), whose license was canceled in 1981 and which thereafter was operated on an interim basis until 1984. Oriented toward the black community for its entire history, it was shut down by its commercial owners in 2009 as a money loser and thereafter was operated as a noncommercial station for several years. The

Federal Communications Commission 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 jurisdiction ...

canceled the license in 2021, finding that the station had not operated with authorized facilities for at least a year.

History

WKXG came into being as the result of the FCC denying the renewal of license of WSWG AM and WSWG-FM 99.1, owned by Charles Saunders, in 1980 over racial discrimination issues and misrepresentations made to the

(FCC). After the denial, an interim operation, the Leflore-Dixie Employee Venture, owned by WSWG's eight staffers, was set up to run both stations until the commission determined permanent owners for both frequencies, though a falling out in 1982 led to a new interim operator. The AM and FM were awarded in 1984 in a split decision, with the AM station going to Leflore-Dixie (the successor to the employee venture) and the FM to Ron Grantham. However, in 1986, Edmonds Rigdon Broadcasting acquired both stations from their owners. The AM station, taking the call sign WKXG, returned to air August 17, 1987, airing an

urban contemporary Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, hip hop, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban contem ...

music format to reach an underserved audience: the black community in majority-black

Leflore County Leflore County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2010 census, the population was 32,317. The county seat is Greenwood. The county is named for Choctaw leader Greenwood LeFlore, who signed a treaty to cede his peo ...

. The next year, the Mississippi Network, a

Jackson, Mississippi Jackson, officially the City of Jackson, is the Capital city, capital of and the List of municipalities in Mississippi, most populous city in the U.S. state of Mississippi. The city is also one of two county seats of Hinds County, Mississippi, ...

-based syndicator of news and agriculture programming to radio stations around the state controlled by Steve Davenport, purchased WKXG and WSWG from Edmonds. WKXG, which eventually transitioned to a

format, did not make money, and during the

Great Recession The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...

in 2009, Telesouth Communications (the renamed Mississippi Network) opted to shut the station altogether. In 2010, after another 11 months of silence, Telesouth Communications donated the WKXG facility to Joy Christian Communications, a non-profit organization. Three years later, the station was taken over by Roots Town Radio of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

and changed from religious programming to an

Americana music Americana (also known as American roots music) is an amalgam of American music formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the musical ethos of the United States, specifically those sounds that are emerged from the ...

format. However, instead of Roots Town, Eternity Media Group acquired the station in 2013 and programmed it with a gospel format. The station's operational record under Eternity was sporadic. In 2019, the FCC dismissed an application that sought to move the station to 1550 kHz from a new city of license,

Bolton, Mississippi Bolton is a town in Hinds County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 567 at the 2010 census, down from 629 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area. Geography Bolton is in north-central Hinds County, ...

. Starting in 2020, the efforts of another radio station owner in the market would bring to light operation in violation of FCC rules that led the commission to cancel the license. Larry Fuss, owner of Delta Radio Network, alleged that the station was off the air for long periods—one of more than a year, which would spur automatic license cancellation under Section 312(g) of the

Telecommunications Act of 1996 The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is a United States federal law enacted by the 104th United States Congress on January 3, 1996, and signed into law on February 8, 1996, by President Bill Clinton. It primarily amended Chapter 5 of Title 47 of t ...

—and only operated by "taking turns" in an unauthorized fashion with one of Eternity's other stations, WGRM (1240 AM). These allegations led the FCC to send a letter of inquiry to Eternity in April 2021 as to the station's operating status since the start of 2019. A failure to sufficiently answer that letter and another related to an Eternity-owned FM station in the state led the FCC to cancel the licenses on October 18, 2021, finding that the last possible date the station may have operated was August 1, 2020.

References

External links

FCC Station Search Details: DWKXG
(Facility ID: 65008) {{Greenville-Greenwood Radio KXG Radio stations established in 1987 1987 establishments in Mississippi Radio stations disestablished in 2020 2020 disestablishments in Mississippi Defunct radio stations in the United States KXG