Минеаполис радиостанциясының тарихы: FM96.3 өзгерістері

KMWA (96.3 FM; "Air1") is a non commercial FM radio station licensed to Edina, Minnesota, and serving the Twin Cities area. The station is owned by the Educational Media Foundation, and airs programming from EMF's nationally syndicated "Air1" radio format featuring Christian Worship Music. KMWA's transmitter is located in New Hope.

The frequency was originally licensed as KQXA by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on August 15, 1991. In August 1993, the station signed on as KARP, playing a wide mix of classic rock, oldies, country music and farm reports. The station's transmitter was initially located west of Le Sueur. To increase the value of the station, KARP's owners decided to seek FCC permission to increase power and move their transmitter closer to the Minneapolis St. Paul metro area. The transmitter was moved farther north and east to a location south of Hutchinson, and power was increased from 50,000 watts to 100,000 watts, giving the station a city grade signal over much of the west metro area. The move also resulted in WJMC FM (96.3) in Rice Lake, Wisconsin downgrading from 100 kW to 50 kW, changing its frequency to 96.1 FM, and moving its transmitter north. The actions were approved by the FCC in September 1999.

In February 2000, KARP was purchased by a group consisting of local investors Kandu Communications and Cincinnati, Ohio based Blue Chip Broadcasting, with the aim of bringing a full power quasi urban formatted music FM station to Minnesota for the first time. The station moved its transmitter to a new site near Watertown later that month. The transfer in ownership to Blue Chip Broadcasting took place just after Noon on May 18, 2000. The station played all requests during the morning hours, with goodbyes from the DJs and other staff. Morning hosts John Carrigan and John Mons gave a final farewell, followed by "Happy Trails." They also announced that the KARP call sign and format would be moving to KKJR (106.9 FM) in Hutchinson, on June 1. Following KARP's departure from 96.3 FM, the station began stunting, repeating a short list of songs from Prince and Janet Jackson. The new "B96" (KTTB) debuted on May 31, 2000. In May 2001, Blue Chip sold the station to Radio One, a company that specializes in urban formats. However, Radio One allowed KTTB to maintain its rhythmic formatted playlist (although the station leaned towards urban and played some urban exclusive songs that most rhythmic stations normally didn't play).

On June 14, 2007, Northern Lights Broadcasting, owned by the family of Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad, announced the purchase of KTTB from Radio One for $28 million (USD). The deal was approved by the FCC on August 20, 2007. Northern Lights had already stated that it would keep the station's staff and format intact. In September 2008, Northern Lights Broadcasting filed an application to change KTTB's city of license from Glencoe to Edina (the city in which the station's studios were located), move its transmitter to the tower in St. Louis Park used by AM stations WWTC and KYCR, and decrease its power (from 100,000 to 24,000 watts) and antenna height. Northern Lights purchased 1310 AM KRBI in St. Peter in late July, and changed its call sign to KGLB. It plans to change KGLB's city of license to Glencoe (which has no other radio stations licensed to it) to maintain local service to Glencoe. The deal was not approved, but Northern Lights' application to change KTTB's city of license to Edina, move the transmitter to New Hope, and decrease its power (from 100,000 to 19,000 watts) was approved, and KTTB began transmitting from New Hope on August 20, 2009. The move strengthened KTTB's signal in urbanized portions of the Minneapolis St. Paul metropolitan area. The lower power, however, meant the station lost coverage in the nearby smaller markets of Mankato and St. Cloud, where it also had significant listenership.

At Noon on January 6, 2010, Northern Lights rebranded the station as "96.3 Now" and changed call letters to KHTC, officially dropping the urban lean at the station, while retaining the rhythmic format. The final song on "B96" was "Say My Name" by Destiny's Child, while the first song on "Now" was Miley Cyrus' "Party in the U. S. A.". The move put KHTC in an even closer rivalry to mainstream Top 40 (CHR) station KDWB FM. According to radio promos, the station also featured Commercial Free Mondays. While they were moving closer towards KDWB's format, KHTC's Program Director Sam Elliott insisted that "96.3 Now" would continue to have a Rhythmic flavor, will be more "Dance oriented" than KDWB, will not play any songs that are too "Disney Pop", and will not add any pop/rock artists (like Nickelback). KHTC remained a reporter in Nielsen BDS' Rhythmic Airplay Panel as well as on Mediabase's Rhythmic Chart because of its rhythmic direction and playlist, and therefore did not meet the criteria to be included on their mainstream Top 40/CHR reporting panels.

On December 29, 2011, Northern Lights announced that KHTC would drop the rhythmic format and "Now" branding on January 1, 2012, and shift to a modern adult contemporary format, branded as "96.3 K Twin." At Midnight on January 1 (after "In Paris" by Jay Z and Kanye West), the station officially flipped to the new format, with "Misery" by Minneapolis band Soul Asylum being the first song being played, followed by "Beautiful Day" by U2 and "Learn to Fly" by Foo Fighters. The "K Twin" playlist featured, according to Northern Lights' preview of the change, "today’s guitar based, pop alternative music" and similar, gold based hits from 1985 onward. By October 2013, KTWN FM transformed again, shifting away from Hot AC into more of a gold based AAA direction with the addition of artists such as The Beatles, Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Led Zeppelin. However, KTWN FM occasionally threw in some 1990s songs from bands like Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band, Counting Crows, and Gin Blossoms. During its entire existence as "K Twin", ratings for the station were anemic, usually below a 2 share of the market (with an average of a 1.7 share per ratings period). With the hybrid mix of baseball and music, the station stayed steady at a mere 1.0 share over the past three monthly ratings periods of 2014. In addition, the station has had a constant turnover in airstaff since launch, such as 96.3 veteran Tony Fly being let go in mid 2012.

In December 2014, morning host Eric Perkins (who was the final airstaff member remaining from the station's initial launch) and afternoon host Curt Copeland left the station, as rumors abounded that 96.3 was about to undergo a major overhaul of its format, as nine new web domains were registered for the station. Morning show co hosts Mark Rider and Rena Sarigianopoulos remained in place. The station enlisted Minneapolis branding agency Fellow to assist in the transition of the brand. At Midnight on January 1, 2015, 3 years to the hour after "K Twin" debuted, after playing a set of songs with the word "go" in the title, as well as a block of "end" themed songs (culminating with "Closing Time" by Minneapolis band Semisonic), KTWN FM began stunting with a Siri like text to speech voice quoting various movie and pop culture quotes, as well as a countdown to 3 p. m. on January 5. At that time, the station flipped to alternative rock as Go 96.3, launching with 10,000 songs in a row, starting with "Long Way Down" by Robert DeLong. The station continued to be the home affiliate for the Twins until the 2017 season, when Twins broadcasts returned to WCCO. (The Twins had previously been on WCCO radio since their first season in Minnesota in 1961 until the end of the 2006 season.) About a month after the station's launch, the station added a full time airstaff. The initial lineup of airstaff included Barb Abney, Brian "BT" Turner, Jason Nagel, and the duo of Thorn and Linnea Mohn. On April 6, 2015, the station launched GoTV, an in booth music and video content streaming source. With the Pohlads' purchase of KNOF in September 2015, KTWN FM was speculated to move to the newly acquired frequency, in order to take advantage of a larger coverage area. This comes as they have registered the domains Go953. com, Go953MN. com and GoNorthMN. com. Instead, a current based rhythmic contemporary format, under the "Go 95.3" moniker, launched on that frequency at 3 p. m. on January 5, one year to the minute after KTWN launched the "Go" format. Soon after that station's launch, Northern Lights would rebrand as Go Media (though Northern Lights would remain the name of the stations' official licensee). On January 1, 2017, KTWN FM changed its call letters to KQGO to match the "Go" branding. In July 2020, morning show hosts Ben Holsen and Dana Wessel were let go from KQGO due to the financial impact resulting from the COVID 19 pandemic. They were replaced by Jordan Alamat, KQGO's music director and night show host at the time.

On December 1, 2020, Go Media announced that they would sell KQGO and KZGO (the former KNOF) to the Educational Media Foundation for $2.45 million. With the announcement of the sale, the stations immediately dismissed all on air staff and shifted to a jockless presentation, which it continued with until the sale officially closed. However, this would cause some problems with operation during said time; by the start of 2021, the station's online stream would abruptly stop operation and never start back up again, and there would be long stretches of only music, with little to no liners or identification, and some songs occasionally being played again after the first playing ended. The FCC officially approved the sale on March 26, 2021, and was consummated on April 12. At 9:06 a. m. on April 13, after playing "Trouble's Coming" by Royal Blood, then the first seconds of "All About You" by The Knocks, the signal was abruptly cut off and the station temporarily went silent; around 11 a. m. that day, the station returned to the air and flipped to the contemporary worship music network Air 1 under the new callsign KMWA.