City Gibbon, Nebraska Branding Big Country 97.7 First air date 1970 | Broadcast area Kearney, Nebraska Frequency 97.7 MHz Format Country | |
KMTY (97.7 FM) is a radio station licensed to serve Gibbon, Nebraska, United States. The station is owned by Joseph Vavricek, through licensee Legacy Communications, LLC.
KMTY broadcasts a country music format branded as "Big Country 97.7" to the greater Kearney, Nebraska, area. KMTY previously aired an adult hits music format branded as "Jack FM" and before that a similar adult hits format as "Bob FM". In addition to its music programming, KMTY broadcasts Major League Baseball games as an affiliate of the Kansas City Royals radio network.
The station was assigned the KMTY call sign by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on April 1, 1996.
History
On September 30, 2011, KMTY was granted an FCC construction permit to change the city of license from Holdrege, Nebraska to Gibbon, Nebraska, move to a new transmitter site, increase ERP to 100,000 watts and decrease HAAT to 42 meters.
In May 2013, Armada Media and Legacy Broadcasting traded some stations in Nebraska, with two stations in Holdrege (KUVR/1380 and KMTY/97.7) going to Legacy and eight others in the Scottsbluff and North Platte markets [KZTL/93.5 (Paxton-North Platte) and KRNP/100.7 (Sutherland-North Platte) KOAQ/690 (Terrytown), KOLT/1320 (Scottsbluff), KMOR/93.3 (Gering), KETT/99.3 (Mitchell), KOZY-FM/101.3 (Bridgeport), KHYY/106.9 (Minatare)] going to Armada Media. The transaction was completed on October 11, 2013, for a purchase price of $800,000.
On June 17, 2013 KMTY changed their format from adult hits (branded as "Jack FM") to country, branded as "Big Country 97.7".
The move from Holdrege to Gibbon was licensed by the FCC on August 25, 2014.