Class C Frequency 101.3 MHz Area Wichita | First air date 1972 HAAT 347 meters City of license Wichita Branding Today's KFDI-FM 101.3 | |
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Slogan Wichita's Country Favorites | ||
March 13 1990 hesston ks tornado outbreak on kfdi fm
KFDI-FM is a 100 kW radio station operating in Wichita, Kansas. Identifying as "Today's KFDI-FM 101.3, Wichita's Country Favorites," the station runs a contemporary country music format. KFDI has a strong emphasis on news, weather, and traffic with the largest news radio team in Kansas and the only one staffed 24/7/365. The station is owned by the E.W. Scripps Company. Its studios are located just north of Wichita and the transmitter is located outside Colwich, Kansas.
Contents
DJs
Current weekday D.J.s are JJ Hayes and Tiny Burger, Carol Hughes, and Bobby Knight. Weekend D.J.s include Roxanne Stuart and Scott Piper.
News team
The news team includes News Producer George Lawson, Assignment Editor Wil Day, morning drive anchor and reporter Jake Bowles, morning traffic reporter and anchor Jacob Weston, and reporters and anchors Matthew Harding, Robinson Enz, and Ryan Arnold.
History
KFDI-FM has been playing country music since about 1972. Until 2002, the KFDI calls were also on sister station 1070 AM (now KFTI; the AM station first went on the air in 1962). Numerous influential disc jockeys and programmers have worked at the stations through the years, including Pat James, Beverlee Brannigan, Dan Tooker, Rick Regan, Ol' Mike Oatman, Gary Hightower (formerly on XM Satellite Radio's Willie's Place channel 13 as "Catfish"), Terry Burford, Dugg Collins, Johnny Western, Buddy Nichols, Orin Friesen, Scott Piper, Jerry "Attaboy" Adams, Andy "O" (Mike Oatman's son), "Willie Wheelchair", Larry Scott, Dave Donahue,"Lovable" Larry Stonecipher, "Gentle" Ben Ingram (now at KWLS-FM, "US 107.9"), and many more. Oatman, Burford, Collins, Western, Scott and Donahue are members of the Country Music Disc Jockey's Hall of Fame. Friesen was named the International Bluegrass Music Association's very first Bluegrass Broadcaster of the Year in 1990. He also produced the IBMA awards show from 1990 to 2000.
The stations were purchased by Journal Broadcast Group in 1999. Prior to that they were owned by Great Empire Broadcasting (GEB), headquartered in Wichita. GEB was owned by Mike Oatman and Mike Lynch. (Lynch is also in the Country Music Disc Jockey's Hall of Fame in the Broadcasting Executives section.) At its peak, GEB was the largest chain of country music stations in the United States. Other country stations in the group were KVOO/1170 & KVOO-FM/98.5 in Tulsa, WOW/590 & WOW-FM/94.1 in Omaha, KTTS/1260 & KTTS-FM 94.7 in Springfield, MO. At one time they had also owned stations in Denver, Co.(KRBQ AM/FM) and Shreveport, La. (KWKH, home of the "Louisiana Hayride") All of the stations went by the "Radio Ranch" moniker and were full service country music stations. Local news, weather and traffic were emphasized. Lost pet reports were also aired on the stations.
On July 30, 2014, it was announced that The E.W. Scripps Company would acquire Journal Communications in an all-stock transaction. The combined firm will retain their broadcast properties and spin off their print assets as Journal Media Group. KFDI-FM, their sister radio stations in the Wichita area and 2 TV stations were not included in the merge; in September, Journal filed to transfer these stations to Journal/Scripps Divestiture Trust (with Kiel Media Group as trustee).