State’s Oldest Radio Station Switches To Spanish

WKY-AM 930, Oklahoma’s first radio station, switched Monday to Spanish language programming.

The station dropped its news/talk format and began simulcasting Spanish station KINB-FM 105.3, also owned by Citadel Communications.

“We looked at our profile at KINB (La Indomable), and at the growing population for Latinos in Oklahoma City, and realized the success we could reach between our La Indomable listeners and our advertisers,” Citadel Oklahoma City operations manager Chris Baker said in an e-mail Monday.

“Merging KINB and WKY now gives us one of the biggest regional Mexican signals in the Southwest. Today, we received calls from listeners in Ada, Enid, and Chickasha, to name a few communities around the metro who can now listen to La Indomable.”

WKY, reportedly the first radio station west of the Mississippi River, had been a news/talk station since it was acquired by Citadel from The Oklahoma Publishing Co. in December 2002. OPUBCO bought the station in 1928.

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KINB broadcasts from Kingfisher with a signal of less than 1,000 watts. Skip Stow, market manager at KTUZ-FM 106.7, known as “La Zeta” and owned by Tyler Broadcasting, said KINB had a hard time reaching the south side of Oklahoma City, where so many Hispanics live.

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Nancy Galvan, who owns KZUE in El Reno, the metro area’s first Spanish-language station, also welcomed the competition and said it would not affect her station because of its unique format of traditional music and news.

“La Tremenda and La Indomable, they’re the same. No news,” Galvan said. “Every hour, I have the news.”

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