WBAP: Now On 93.3, For Some Of You
WBAP 820 Fort Worth's News/Talk Makes A Return To FM
At the start of the year, on January 3, news/talk WBAP 820 “NewsTalk 820 WBAP” Fort Worth made its return back to FM via a simulcast on co-owned KLIF-FM 93.3 Haltom City TX, which dropped its 1990s/2000s “Hot 93-3” format.
As a fulltime 50 kw AM facility on the low end of the dial, WBAP has a massive daytime signal and, covering 38 states, an enormous nighttime signal. For its new FM simulcast, not so much. KLIF-FM is a class C2 facility that has been constrained by FCC spacing rules to other stations that means it cannot easily be upgraded.
Although, in market and over most of the population WBAP is targeting, it will provide a FM signal. The radio nerd in me kind of chuckles that for a large chunk of Texas and Oklahoma that can receive WBAP full time and hear that is is “now on FM at 93.3,” tuning over to 93.3 will find either no station or another station — Tejano KBGT 93.3 Buffalo Gap TX/Abilene, Spanish hits KGSR 93.3 “Latino 93.3” Cedar Park TX/Austin, for a couple.
A closer look at KLIF-FM’s city grade coverage in market:
This is the second time the news/talk format has been simulcast on FM. From 2010-2013, it was simulcast on the former oldies KPMZ 96.7 “Platinum 96.7” Flower Mound TX, a rimshot that upgraded and moved into the market in the later 1990s (formally a class A facility licensed to Sherman as KIKM-FM). Owner Cumulus changed the then-WBAP-FM to a simulcast of co-owned sports KTCK 1310 “Sports Radio 1310 the Ticket” Dallas in 2013.
As KTCK has less power and operates at the other end of the dial, its AM signal is more limited. KTCK has had other relays at various points — KKLF 1700 Richardson TX (spun off from now-deleted KDSX 950 Denison) and the now-defunct KTDK 104.1 Sanger TX (a lesser facility moved in that was formally KWSM 104.1 Sherman). So, the 96.7 facility made a nicer pairing for KTCK.
In market, the contours look like:
