Cumulus Media has decided to surrender the licenses of an Des Moines AM station and its FM translator rather than return them to the air.
KBGG/1700 and K267CY/101.3 went off the air March 28, 2025, and submitted cancellation applications on March 27, 2026. They were facing a one-year deadline to return to the air or lose their licenses under federal law.
The filings did not state why Cumulus had decided to return the stations’ licenses, but the move is the latest in a continuing series of AM stations being taken silent permanently. Previous filings indicated Cumulus had considered the possibility of selling KBGG.
K267CY could not be switched to carry another station because it was granted during the AM Revitalization effort with the stipulation that it could only relay KBGG.
KBGG’s license traces back to 1947 when Capitol City Broadcasting Company signed on KCBC/1390 as the fourth radio station in Des Moines; two more competitors signed on the following year. KCBC also briefly had an FM station on 94.1; DesMoinesBroadcasting.com has an extensive history of the stations.
KCBC first operated without a major network affiliation. It began carrying ABC in the late 1950s and switched to Mutual in the late 1960s, according to Broadcasting Yearbooks. In 1975, it was again an ABC affiliate with a middle-of-the-road format.
The station’s callsign changed to KMRY in the 1980s and then to KKSO in 1990, reflecting the heritage KSO callsign that another station had dropped the previous year. KKSO simulcast KJJY/92.5 before carrying the Minneapolis-based “Radio Aahs” Children’s format in the mid-1990s.
In 1997, KKSO was granted a move to the new expanded band and KBGG/1700 signed on the following year. The KKSO/1390 license was canceled in 2001. (The KKSO callsign is now used by an unrelated Iowa Public Radio station.)
KBGG/1700 carried Headline News in its early years. It then carried a few different Spanish-language formats before switching to Sports Talk as “The Champ,” with some News/Talk programming also carried for a few years. K267CY signed on in 2021.
KBGG had used 10kW day and 1kW night, non-directional. It was one of only a half-dozen stations operating on 1700 nationally.