First air date 1949 (as WBAP-FM) ERP 99,000 watts Frequency 96.3 MHz Format Country music Branding New Country 96-3 KSCS | Language(s) English HAAT 491 meters City of license Fort Worth Owner Cumulus Media | |
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Broadcast area Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex Audience share 3.6 (January 2017, Nielsen Audio[1]) Area Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex Slogan Texas' Most Country Guaranteed!! | ||
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KSCS (96.3 MHz) is an FM station which serves the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex in Texas. The station transmits a modern country music format on its FM signal. 96.3 KSCS is also the home of 'Hawkeye and Dorsey', currently the longest running morning radio show in the Dallas - Fort Worth area. The show features Terry Dorsey, a member of the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame, and Mark "Hawkeye" Louis. The duo has won numerous awards including Billboard Magazine's Major Market Air Personalities of 1998 and the Academy of Country Music's 2008 Personalities of the Year. The pair teamed up in July 1988. KSCS was named "2009 Major Market Radio Station of the Year" by the Academy of Country Music.
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KSCS is currently owned by Cumulus Media. Also, KSCS, and sister station WBAP are responsible for activation of the North Texas Emergency Alert System when hazardous weather alerts, Disaster area declarations, and child abductions are issued.
The station's studios are located in the Victory Park district in Dallas just north of downtown, and the transmitter site is in Cedar Hill.
History
The station first signed on the air in March 1949 as WBAP-FM on 100.5 FM under the control of Amon G. Carter (later taken over by Carter Publications after Amon's death in 1955). The station moved to 96.3 in 1955. WBAP-FM aired mostly classical music. After the success of sister station WBAP's "Country Gold" format which began in 1970, it was decided to extend the country music brand to FM, and on January 15, 1973, 96.3 was renamed KSCS "Silver Country Stereo". The initial design behind KSCS was to for it be a country station with beautiful music-style formatics, including playing several songs in a row, low-key announcers, and light commercial loads. A year later, Carter Publications sold KSCS to Capital Cities (taken over by ABC in 1985).
As FM radio listening started to increase in Dallas/Fort Worth in the mid-1970s, KSCS benefited from being the only country station on the FM dial. The rise in popularity of country music in the late 1970s led to KSCS becoming a dominant station in the ratings. It also brought competition in the form of KPLX which entered the country music market in 1980.
KSCS was the number-one radio station overall in Dallas/Fort Worth from 1980 to 1982. The station's ratings started to sag after the Urban Cowboy era faded, and with tough competition from KPLX. In 1988, KSCS hired away KPLX's star morning man Terry Dorsey, and with Dorsey's arrival, the ratings started to rise again, just as country music's popularity started to rise again. KSCS again became the number one station overall in Dallas/Fort Worth in 1990, and stayed there for 14 consecutive ratings periods. To this day, that is still the longest winning streak in Dallas/Fort Worth ratings history. KSCS, along with ABC's other non-Radio Disney and ESPN Radio stations, was sold to Citadel Broadcasting in 2007.
In January 2008, KSCS was re-branded as "The Big 96.3"; however, in November 2009, it reverted to its legacy branding in use since the 1980s. On January 4, 2011, at 5 PM, the station once again re-branded as "New Country 96-3 KSCS, Texas' Most Country Guaranteed". Citadel merged with Cumulus Media on September 16, 2011; this made KSCS a sister station to longtime rival KPLX.
As of March 23, 2015, KSCS has added pop crossover songs by Rihanna, Kanye West, Paul McCartney (the artists for "FourFiveSeconds"), Avicii, Ed Sheeran, Ellie Goulding, and a few other top 40 artists with no ties to the "New Country" format. By Fall 2015, KSCS eliminated the pop crossover songs that could be heard throughout the day, once an hour on average. The station returned to its core "New Country" artists.
KSCS HD2
KSCS has launched its HD2 substation in 2008 to broadcast "The Texas Twister", a station broadcasting Texas country music, previously on KTYS 96.7 (now KTCK-FM). After the Cumulus takeover in 2011, the HD broadcasts were briefly discontinued until mid-2012. The HD2 subchannel has been dormant until February 2013 when it is currently simulcasting KLIF News & Information 570 AM.