WKYL (102.1 FM) is a

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 radi ...

broadcasting a unique

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 1980 ...

format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...

consisting of

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

and

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former descri ...

from the 1960s,

1970s File:1970s decade montage.jpg, Clockwise from top left: U.S. President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office following the Watergate scandal in 1974; The United States was still involved in the Vietnam War ...

, and

1980s File:1980s replacement montage02.PNG, 420px, From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, ''Columbia'', lifts off in 1981; US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ease tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the ...

. Licensed to Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, the station primarily serves areas of the

Bluegrass region The Bluegrass region is a geographic region in the U.S. state of Kentucky. It makes up the central and northern part of the state, roughly bounded by the cities of Frankfort, Paris, Richmond and Stanford. The Bluegrass region is characteriz ...

of Central Kentucky, including the Lexington metropolitan area. WKYL is currently owned by CapCity Communications and licensed under Southern Belle, LLC.

History

From its sign-on in 1993 until July 1, 2011, the station programmed a popular

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 ...

format fed via satellite from the ''Broadcast Architecture'' Smooth Jazz Network. In 2011, Davenport Broadcasting, the station's previous owner, entered into a local marketing agreement with

Eastern Kentucky University Eastern Kentucky University (Eastern or EKU) is a public university in Richmond, Kentucky. As a regional comprehensive institution, EKU also maintains branch campuses in Corbin, Hazard, Lancaster, and Manchester and offers over 40 online u ...

to allow WEKU to program a Classical music format on WKYL to complement the Public Radio format broadcast on WEKU. On December 16, 2019, WKYL ended its relationship with Eastern Kentucky University after the latter announced just days earlier that it would be moving its classical music programming to online-only distribution; EKU explained that it was no longer financially able to program a second terrestrial broadcast station. Consequently, Davenport entered into a new time brokerage agreement with Frankfort-based CapCity Communications, resulting in a format change to Classic Hits for WKYL as a simulcast of WFRT. The two stations operate under the branding "Passport Radio 103-7 & 102-1".WKYL Stamps Its Passport
Radioinsight - December 17, 2019 Davenport Broadcasting closed on its sale of the station to CapCity Communications in early 2020.

Popular culture

WKYL-TV was the call sign of the fictional TV station featured in MGM's last movie released in 1959, "The Gazebo". WKYL is the call sign displayed above the entrance to a New York City radio station in the 1959 HarBel Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer release The World, The Flesh and The Devil. The movie, filmed in black and white, stars Harry Belafonte, Inger Stevens and Mel Ferrer and deals with the relationship between three survivors in a world destroyed by nuclear holocaust. WKYL is also the call sign of the fictional TV station of Terminal City featured in "Dial 1119", another MGM movie released in 1950.

References

External links

* KYL Classic hits radio stations in the United States Anderson County, Kentucky {{Kentucky-radio-station-stub