The station first signed on the air on November 16, 1973.[6] Its call letters were KBJH, and it aired a Christian radio format. The station was started by evangelistBilly James Hargis and his initials were part of the call sign. The station's license was held by the American Christian College, founded by Hargis.
In 1976, the call letters were changed to KCFO-FM. The station called itself "Love 98 FM" and it played Contemporary Christian music. Salem Communications owned KCFO AM-FM at that time. It decided to focus on large and major markets and sold KCFO-FM to the Stuart family in 1987. The Stuarts also owned KVOO 1170 AM, which was a full service country station, with personalities, news and sports. KCFO-FM flipped to a more-music country sound, first as KUSO "US-98.5" and later as "Country 98" KVOO-FM, using the same call letters as the heritage AM station. The Stuart family sold the stations to Great Empire Broadcasting in 1990.
Journal Communications (KVOO-FM's former owner) and The E.W. Scripps Company (owner of Tulsa's NBCnetwork affiliateKJRH-TV) announced on July 30, 2014, that the two companies would merge to create a new broadcast company under the E.W. Scripps Company name. The new firm would own the two companies' broadcast properties, including KVOO-FM.[7]
On June 26, 2018, parent company E.W. Scripps announced that it would sell KVOO, along with its sister stations, KBEZ, KFAQ, KHTT, and KXBL, to Griffin Communications.[8] Griffin began operating the stations under a local marketing agreement (LMA) on July 30, and completed the purchase October 1. The company already owned CBS affiliate KOTV-DT and CW affiliate KQCW-DT.[9]
On December 7, 2020, at Noon, KVOO-FM rebranded as "98.5 The Bull".[10]
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article KVOO-FM, and is written by contributors.
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