Cumulus Media’s KQRS/92.5 (Golden Valley-Minneapolis) has debuted and new lineup after ten days of stunting, retaining its Classic Rock format with newer songs and a promised emphasis on Minnesota artists.
Steve Gorman, former drummer of the Black Crowes, remains in mornings with co-host Ryder. Former “Cities 97” host Paul Fletcher is now also part of the morning show and hosts middays, while former “Current” host Jade Tittle hosts afternoons.
The debut of the refreshed KQ at 6 a.m. April 3 did not come with a pre-produced announcement common for such relaunches, with the station instead continuing to operate as normal and Gorman announcing changes to the station.
“I’ve been in the Twin Cities now for a few years, and believe me when I say the enormous legacy of this station could not have ever have been clearer to me. We believe very sincerely the most respectful way to honor that legacy is to move forward with real energy and new vision about what Rock radio in the Twin Cities will be,” Gorman said.
“I believe Rock music will forever be a very relevant and cultural force. Call me crazy. But only with continued evolution, we can’t sit still,” he added.
The opening hour of the updated KQ included The White Stripes, Tom Petty, Beck, Led Zeppelin, Bush, Third Eye Blind, and Soul Asylum.
Besides its legacy callsign, KQRS retains its longtime balloon logo ubiquitous in the Twin Cities since the 1980s and even seen in the Arnold Schwarzenegger film “Jingle All the Way.”
KQ had dropped its DJ’s on March 24 and ran announcements saying they were “under construction.”
The station switched to a loop of (mostly) Soul Asylum’s 1992 hit “Somebody to Shove” on April Fools Day and also looped R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” for an hour the next day, paying homage to the legendary 1994 format change of “93X” (KRXX-FM) to “93.7 The Edge” (KEGE).
KQRS has been a Classic Rock station for longer than most listeners in the 25-54 demo can remember. It dominated ratings for years but has seen share declines since the departure of longtime morning juggernaut Tom Barnard in 2022. Former morning co-host Brian Zepp was cut in March.
Given its long-established brand and previous dominance in the ratings, even a small format change by KQ would have been a seismic shift for the Minneapolis radio market.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, KQ and its sister stations formed a “Wall of Rock” in the marketplace, with “The Edge” eventually giving way to a return of “93X” (KXXR). Adult Alternative and Alternative Classics formats ran on the trio of signals known first as “Zone 105” and then, after a brief hiatus, “Drive 105” until 2007. (The trio now runs Adult Contemporary as “Love 105.”)
In more recent years, KQ’s Classic Rock playlist has increasingly overlapped with the Variety Hits playlist of Audacy’s “104.1 Jack FM” (KZJK St. Louis Park-Minneapolis) and the Classic Hits playlist of iHeartMedia’s “Kool 108” (KQQL/107.9 Anoka-Minneapolis).
KQ has even faced an in-house barrier to refreshing its Classic Rock playlist, since “93X” features a significant amount of Rock from the `90s.