KNXR signed on the air on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1965; 59 years ago (1965-12-24). The station had a beautiful music format and had its studios in the Rochester Holiday Inn. KNXR played quarter hour sweeps of mostly instrumental cover versions of popular songs, as well as Broadway and Hollywood show tunes. It also featured John Doremus' program Patterns in Music, weeknights from 7 to 10 pm.[6] Over time, more soft vocals were added to the playlist although the station remained largely instrumental until January 31, 2015.
The station's first hour was rebroadcast on Christmas Eve 2015 to mark the 50th anniversary of the station's first radio broadcast. While operating as an easy listening station, KNXR had a devoted following, on the strongest FM signal in Rochester.[7] It often made the Arbitron ratings for the Minneapolis-St. Paulradio market, 85 miles away.
Ownership Change
In October 2014, longtime owner Thomas H. Jones announced he would sell KNXR for $1.1 million to Hometown Broadcasting, which owned KQAQ and KQPR in Albert Lea (the former has since been sold to Real Presence Radio, while the latter has been sold to D&Z Media). The sale closed on January 30, 2015, and KNXR went silent at 1 a.m. the following day. On February 24, 2015, after a couple of hours of stunting with the local audio feed from NOAA Weather Radio, KNXR flipped to a Hot Adult Contemporary format, branded as "97.5 Pulse FM".[8][9] Jones retained the station's vast Easy Listening music library, and some of the personality programming, in an online streaming station at 97five.net.
Despite the station's ratings improving, the "Pulse FM" format was short lived. In December 2015, Hometown Broadcasting announced it would sell KNXR for $3.2 million to Lynn Ketelsen and John Linder's Blooming Prairie Farm Radio (owners of KOWZ (now KFOW) and KOWZ-FM in Blooming Prairie).[10] The sale was completed on February 29, 2016.
Classic Hits
On March 4, 97.5 began stunting with a loop of "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" by Rolf Harris, along with recorded announcements that a "new radio station is coming to Rochester." The station promoted its new format, ready to launch on March 7.[11]
