Long before Altitude Sports 950 carried Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche broadcasts, the same 950 kHz frequency helped bring The Beatles to Red Rocks Amphitheatre. The station sitting on that dial position today traces back to 1923, and its call letters have changed more times than most listeners realize.
A Frequency With Nine Lives
Denver's 950 AM signal first went on the air in 1923 as KFEL, founded by Gene O'Fallon as the city's second-oldest radio station, according to a history compiled on Wikipedia. The call letters changed to KIMN in 1954 under Standard Examiner Publishing, then cycled through KYGO as a country outlet in 1988, KKFN as sports radio in 1994, and KRWZ as oldies station "Cruisin' Oldies 950" in 2008, before becoming KKSE in 2016. Few Denver frequencies have carried that many distinct on-air identities across one century.
The Night KIMN Brought The Beatles To Red Rocks
Its most famous moment came during the KIMN years, when the station presented The Beatles at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in August 1964, part of the band's first American tour. Red Rocks remains one of the only Beatles concert venues from that tour that still hosts shows today, and the station's role in bringing the band to Colorado gives the frequency a place in rock history that has nothing to do with sports.
Kroenke Buys a Flagship
The station's sports identity took its current shape on March 14, 2016, when Kroenke Sports & Entertainment purchased the 950 signal from Entercom for 3.8 million dollars and relaunched it weeks later as Altitude Sports 950. The station signed on for the first time under its new format on April 8, 2016, timed to coincide with the Colorado Rockies' home opener, with a lineup built around Josh Dover's morning show, former Denver Nugget Scott Hastings, and former Denver Bronco Tom Nalen, under programming director James Merilatt, according to reporting from RadioInsight.
One Signal, Four Teams
The relaunch made KKSE the flagship station for four Kroenke-owned franchises at once: the NBA's Denver Nuggets, the NHL's Colorado Avalanche, MLS's Colorado Rapids, and the National Lacrosse League's Colorado Mammoth. Few sports radio signals anywhere in the country carry that many professional franchises under one ownership group, giving Denver listeners a single dial position for basketball, hockey, soccer and lacrosse coverage.
From Sports Talk To Betting And Back
The format kept evolving after that. Kroenke moved its Altitude sports talk programming to 92.5 FM in 2018, then briefly ran 950 as a 24/7 sports wagering channel with VSiN in late 2021, before the station settled into carrying Fox Sports Radio programming, with local team coverage now simulcast on sister station KKSE-FM. A century after it first signed on as KFEL, the frequency is still finding new ways to fill Denver's airwaves.