City Lakewood, Colorado Slogan Denver's Sports Radio | Branding 1600 ESPN Denver Repeater(s) 104.3-2 KKFN-HD2 | |
Broadcast area Denver-Lakewood-Boulder Frequency 1600 kHz (also on HD Radio) | ||
KEPN (1600 AM) is an all-sports radio station licensed to Lakewood, Colorado and serving the Denver, Colorado area. It is owned by Bonneville International Corporation with studios located in Greenwood Village, and the transmitter in Lakewood.
History
The 1600 kHz frequency was originally assigned the call letters KLAK in 1955. The station played country and Western music. In 1966, they signed on a new transmitter and also began broadcasting on the FM band at 107.7 MHz. The FM station is now KQKS (now at 107.5), also owned by Lincoln Financial Media (now owned by Entercom). According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), other call signs for this station have been KRXY, KWMX, and KYGO (the first two being simulcasts of their FM counterparts on 107.5). (KYGO-AM was a mainstream country station, though, despite the call letter similarity, was separately programmed from their FM sister station.
In 1999, KYGO-AM flipped to classic country as "16Kicks", KCKK. The station's programming was a simulcast of KCKK-FM. Once the FM flipped to smooth jazz in 2000, the classic country format moved exclusively to 1600. The format would later be moved to another station in the market, which had been KYOL. (KCKK is now an adult hits station, branded as the "Rock".)
On January 1, 2007, 1600 AM became the local affiliate of ESPN Radio for the Denver area and the Front Range, with a call letter change to KEPN. The ESPN affiliation would be moved to KJAC in September 2012, with KEPN adopting the Fox Sports Radio affiliation.
On December 8, 2014, Entercom announced it would purchase Lincoln Financial Group's entire 15-station lineup in a $106.5 million deal, and would operate the outlets under a LMA deal. On December 22, 2014, Entercom announced that it would retain KEPN and its current format. The FCC approved the deal on June 26, 2015. However, on July 14, 2015, the Department of Justice forced Entercom to spin off KEPN, KOSI, KKFN and KYGO-FM to Bonneville International in exchange for Bonneville's KSWD in Los Angeles to meet ownership limits. Both Bonneville and Entercom began operating their new clusters via Time Brokerage Agreements on July 17, 2015 until the transaction was consummated on November 24, 2015.
On January 4, 2016, KEPN reaffiliated with ESPN Radio after a three-year absence, carrying the network full-time with KKFN simulcasting during overnights. The move falls in line with Bonneville having an AM/FM Sports radio combination airing ESPN Radio on AM and local programming on FM.