| Broadcast area | Kansas City metropolitan area |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 1140kHz |
| Branding | KCXL 1140 AM, 102.9 FM & 104.7 FM |
| Programming | |
| Format | |
| Affiliations | GCN Radio Sputnik TruNews |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Pete Schartel (Alpine Broadcasting) |
| KCTO | |
| History | |
First air date | February 12, 1967; 58 years ago (1967-02-12) |
Former call signs |
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| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 1162 |
| Class | D |
| Power |
|
Transmitter coordinates | 39°14′17″N94°24′0″W / 39.23806°N 94.40000°W /39.23806; -94.40000 |
| Translator(s) |
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| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Webcast | Listen Live Alternative Live Stream |
| Website | kcxl.com |
KCXL (1140AM) is acommercialradio stationlicensed toLiberty, Missouri, and serving theKansas City metropolitan area. It features aconservative talk andbrokered programmingformat and is owned by Alpine Broadcasting. Since 2020, KCXL has been noted for its broadcast of the English-language service ofRadio Sputnik, funded by theRussian government. Sputnik is heard six hours a day during the week and twelve hours on Saturdays and Sundays.
By day, KCXL is powered at 4,000watts, using anon-directional antenna. But to protect other stations on1140 AM from interference, at night it reduces power to only 6 watts. The AMtransmitter andradio studios are on South La Frenz Road in Liberty.[2] Programming is also heard on twoFM translators licensed toKansas City: K275BQ (102.9FM) and K284CH (104.7FM).
On September 7, 1966, Clay Broadcasters, Inc., a consortium of six local businessmen, obtained aconstruction permit from theFederal Communications Commission (FCC) to build a new 500-watt,daytime-only station in Liberty.[3] KBIL—representing "Clay Broadcasting in Liberty"[4]—went on the air February 12, 1967, with a country music format.[5] The station was acquired by Mack Sanders's S & M Investments, which owned outlets in other Plains states, in 1971.[6] Sanders retained what he called a "Proud Country" format, focusing on a traditional mix of country music.[7]
S & M proposed to the FCC that 106.5 MHz be inserted at Liberty with changes to the frequencies of three other stations in the region. Construction of the FM took place in 1978. Simultaneously with the launch of the FM station, KBIL and the unbuilt FM were sold to Strauss Broadcasting Corporation for $1.28 million, with the stations becoming KFIX andKFIX-FM.[8] Joe Abernathy, the general manager who ran the KFIX stations (and hiredRush Limbaugh under the name "Jeff Christie" as a late-night host on the FM side), was blamed by Strauss for financial mismanagement of the pair. Morning host Mike Murphy could not join for five months due to contractual obligations, and early issues with the FM signal kept listeners away.[9]
The stations were then sold to Southwest Radio Enterprises, a division of Southwest Florida Enterprises; it was the firm's first broadcasting purchase. Southwest named Dean Goodman, later the owner ofGoodRadio.TV, as CEO.[10] The FM was renamed KSAS;[11] the next year, it was the AM's turn for a revamp, becomingoldies under the call sign KLDY.[12] The call letters were changed to KKCI in 1982 when Golden East Broadcasting purchased KLDY and KSAS and converted both stations to a simulcast.[13]
Golden East put the AM station on the market and found a buyer in 1984: Elbert Anderson, the black owner of a localCoca-Cola bottling company. New studios were built on 63rd Street to handle the majority of the programming, and the station became KCXL with anurban contemporary format, the third local radio station for Kansas City's African-American community.[13] A satellite studio was built in 1989 inThe Landing shopping center.[14]
However, because the signal was limited to the suburban Northland, it eventually fell short competing with longtime FM urban stationKPRS. The station subsisted on the sale of air time to churches and on selling advertising around their programs. A dip in advertising revenue would prove to be too much for the station to bear. It wentsilent on March 4, 1992.[15] KCXL was then sued by theSmall Business Administration (SBA) for defaulting on a 1984 loan it had received to finance the purchase. No payments had been made since 1989.[16]
The SBA took possession of KCXL's assets and put them up for sale. Two years later, the SBA had a buyer: Pete Schartel, a resident of nearbyIndependence, Missouri. He returned the station to the air.[17][18] On November 21, 1994, the station signed on with anoldies format.[19]
Since Schartel took over, the station has aired a myriad of programs under its talk format, most of them on aleased basis. For a time, sports stationWHB leased KCXL at night for overflow sports programming. KCXL also had an overnightdance music format brokered to Surge Radio between 2016 and 2017. KCXL's general mix of programming was described by a 2020 article inThe New York Times as "a cast of far-right conspiracy theorists, evangelical pastors and anti-Semites", including the radio program from far-right conspiracy theory outletTruNews and far-right nationalistAlex Jones.[20]
My wife and I really did discuss whether we should pull this programming. If I did, we'd be doing exactly what we're - the primary thing that we criticize - well, the old Soviet Union for sure, and other communist regimes of doing, where they don't allow free speech.
In atime brokerage agreement withRM Broadcasting, KCXL began airingRadio Sputnik six hours a day beginning on January 1, 2020.[22][23][24][25] The time brokerage agreement pays KCXL $100,217 per year,[26] and Schartel later acknowledged he signed it largely for financial reasons.[27] Funded and directed by the Russian government,[25] the U.S. Department of State has declared that Russian media outletsSputnik andRT (Russia Today) are "critical elements in Russia's disinformation and propaganda ecosystem."[28]
In the wake of the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the airing of Sputnik content on KCXL and other U.S. radio stations came under fire, with theNational Association of Broadcasters calling on stations to cease airing such programming. However, in a March 2022 interview, Jonne Santoli-Schartel, the station manager, stated that even though she disapproves of the invasion of Ukraine, KCXL has no plans to discontinue its broadcast of Sputnik output, stating, "If we can't express our viewpoints anymore, and we have cancel culture, and people deleting and people putting pressure on other people to not hear certain programming, then we're in trouble and freedom no longer exists."[29] The editorial board ofThe Kansas City Star criticized this decision as unethical and unpatriotic.[30]