KNCN

27°55′24.00″N 97°25′26.00″W / 27.9233333°N 97.4238889°W / 27.9233333; -97.4238889LinksWebcastListen LiveWebsitec101.iheart.com

KNCN (101.3 FM, "C101") is a commercial radio station licensed to Sinton, Texas, and serving the Corpus Christi metropolitan area. It airs an active rock radio format and it is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc. The studios and offices are on Old Brownsville Road near the Corpus Christi International Airport.

KNCN is a Class C1 station. It has an effective radiated power (ERP) of 100,000 watts, the maximum for most stations. The transmitter tower is on FM 3161 at FM 1306 in Taft, a community in San Patricio County.^[1]

History

The station signed on the air on July 1, 1972; 51 years ago (1972-07-01).^[2] Its original call sign was KMIO. It broadcast from a combined studio and tower site north of Corpus Christi Bay and east of Sinton. It used the same tower and power as now, which is a 100,000-watt signal from a 410-foot antenna.

The site had on-air studios, a bathroom, and the transmitter room. The first main transmitter was a Collins 831-G1. In 1976, it switched to a progressive rock format, the first commercial FM rock station in Corpus Christi. That was coupled with a change in call letters to KNCN.

It was sold to Tippie Communications whose shareholders had been involved with KHFI-AM-FM-TV in Austin, with Rollins/Terminix. By the 1980s, it was co-owned with KVLY-FM in Edinburg, Texas. At that point, it moved to a more formatted album rock sound, playing the top tracks from the biggest selling rock albums. In the 2000s, the station switched to the active rock panel per Mediabase.

In later years, sales offices were established in the business center of Corpus Christi. They were once in the "600 Building" downtown, and later had their own building on Leopard Street. Early on, the station received permission from the FCC to use "Sinton-Taft" in its station identification. A bit later, KNCN changed that to "Sinton-Corpus Christi" to identify its city of license.

Morning show hosts have included Greg and LJ, Ray Lytle and Jon Lamb, Tim and Rex “Two Guys in the Morning”. Hannah Storm of ESPN had a brief stint as a C-101 DJ in the early 1980s.

References

External links

• KNCN in the FCC FM station database
• KNCN in Nielsen Audio's FM station database