Long before it carried sports talk, 930 WKY was already making history just by existing. The station traces its roots to a garage behind Earl C. Hull's house in Oklahoma City, where experimental station 5XT first broadcast in 1921 before officially becoming WKY on March 16, 1922, making it the oldest radio station in Oklahoma and one of the first west of the Mississippi River.
Broadcasting From the Top of the Skirvin
WKY's early decades read like a tour of Oklahoma City's own history. The Oklahoma Publishing Company bought the station in 1928, and it joined NBC's Red Network that December, according to a history of the station. From 1936 to 1951, WKY broadcast live from studios built atop the Skirvin Hotel, complete with a Kilgen pipe organ installed in 1936 and nightly live broadcasts from the hotel's Venetian Room. Gene Autry was among the performers who passed through WKY's microphones during that era, according to a retrospective on the station's golden age, back when WKY's reach helped launch Oklahoma's first television station, WKY-TV, in 1949.
A Format That Changed With Every Era
Few stations have cycled through as many identities as WKY. It ran Top 40 in 1958, shifted to country by 1984, tried easy listening in 1990, and moved to talk radio in 1994. Ownership changed hands too, moving from the Oklahoma Publishing Company after 74 years to Citadel Broadcasting in 2002 and then to Cumulus Media in 2011. In between, WKY briefly launched as "JOX 930" sports radio in 2007 before flipping to a Regional Mexican format called "La Indomable" in 2009, then spent February 2017 through September 2019 as a full-time ESPN Deportes Radio affiliate carrying Spanish-language sports coverage, the branding still attached to the station today.
Back to English-Language Sports
When the ESPN Deportes network ceased operations in September 2019, WKY returned to English-language sports talk, now simulcasting sister station WWLS-FM as part of Cumulus's Oklahoma City sports coverage. That puts a station once known for hosting the Venetian Room's live big band broadcasts in the same lineup as modern Oklahoma City Thunder coverage, a century-long journey from experimental garage transmitter to networked sports radio.
Tune In
For a signal that has carried NBC dramas, country hits, Spanish-language sports, and everything in between since 1922, 930 WKY is worth a stream on Radio Shuffle.