On July 24, 1970, Big Country Radio, Inc., owner of KYAK in Anchorage, applied for a construction permit to build a new radio station on 970 kHz in Fairbanks. It was approved on January 13, 1971.[3] The station began broadcasting as KIAK on September 18, 1972. It aired a country music format.[4]
In 1978, Big Country Radio decided to sell its three Alaska radio properties, KIAK, KYAK and KGOT, an FM station in Anchorage. The new owner was Prime Time of Alaska, a company owned by business people in Washington state. The price tag was more than $3 million.[5] Prime Time owned a country music station in Everett, Washington, KWYZ.[6]
Bingham Broadcasting
1983 was an eventful year for KIAK. Prime Time sold the station to Bingham Broadcasting, controlled by a minority owner of a Seattle station. The sales price was $4.5 million.[7] The sale included KIAK's FM construction permit, KQRZ (102.5 FM), which launched that July and originally played Top 40 hits.[8]
At the end of that month, a 28-year-old man threatened to blow up the station if he did not get air time. He was startled to find that the station was actually an automated operation. The man ultimately surrendered.[9] In fact, KIAK had been automated since 1975, using a syndicated format from Drake-Chenault. The automation equipment was dubbed by the station as the "Big Country Machine".[10]
Olympia Broadcasting
Bingham sold all four of its stations in Anchorage and Fairbanks to Olympia Broadcasting at the end of 1985. The price was about $12 million.[11] In January 1990, the country music format on KIAK moved to the former KQRZ, which became KIAK-FM. KIAK 970 AM began to focus more on classic country hits and added several new talk programs.[12]
Olympia filed for Chapter 11bankruptcy protection in June 1990.[13] That set off a lengthy process that included three different abortive sale attempts of the company's four Alaska properties. A deal with Harbor Broadcasting was doomed by a license challenge by the NAACP. While a settlement was reached, the FCC conditioned the sale on the license renewals, and Olympia was anxious to sell the stations to satisfy its creditors.[14]
iHeartMedia
The next sale attempt, to Alpha & Beta Broadcasting, was canceled by the company's receiver in early 1992 due to a conflict between creditor Barclays and lender Greyhound Financial. Greyhound felt that the stations had sold for too little money.[15] In January 1993, the receiver proposed to sell the stations to Community Pacific Broadcasting for $1.2 million.[16] But this was superseded by a $1.45 million offer from Craig McCaw's COMCO Broadcasting.[17] By this time, KIAK had largely become a sports talk outlet.[18]
In 1997, Comco sold its entire station portfolio, including KIAK-AM-FM and KAKQ-FM in Fairbanks, to Capstar Broadcasting Partners. Capstar was a forerunner to present owner iHeartMedia.[19] The call letters were changed from KIAK to KFBX in October 2004.[20] KFBX began to concentrate on airing syndicated talk shows from Premiere Networks, also owned by iHeartMedia.
