The station serves as the primary Emergency Alert System station for the state of Kansas along with sister stationKTPK. WIBW-FM, along with co-owned WIBW and one-time sister station WIBW-TV, are unusual in having call signs beginning with a "W", while all other stations in Kansas have "K" call signs. The reason is that the AM station was originally established in Indiana in 1925, a state in W territory. WIBW kept its call letters when it moved to Topeka, which it has kept to this day. In addition, the Federal Communications Commission allows co-owned FM and TV stations to share the same call sign, even if the call letters do not conform to current policy for that state.
History
Rock and Top 40 days
On September 1, 1961, WIBW-FM signed on the air at 97.3 MHz.[5] It was owned by the Topeka Broadcasting Association, a subsidiary of Stauffer Publications. The company also owned WIBW (580 AM) and WIBW-TV, along with a daily newspaper, The Topeka Capital-Journal. At first, WIBW-FM simulcast the AM station, though in the late 1960s, the FCC was encouraging AM-FM radio stations to offer different programming. WIBW-FM switched to an album rock format known as "Rock 97 and "The Rock of Kansas".
Over time, the rock hits format moved in the direction of Top 40, promoted as "97fm".[6] The FM studio was across the hall from the control room which managed both the AM station and the Kansas City Royals radio network when WIBW held the baseball team's broadcast rights.[7]
Country music
In 1990, WIBW-FM flipped to country music.[8] The station became known for a bright red remote truck which looked like a boombox.[9]
The WIBW-AM-FM-TV studios for decades were located at 5600 SW 6th in West Topeka. That building received heavy damage from a fire on January 5, 2012.[10]
Until 2002, WIBW-FM was located at 97.3 MHz. The station moved its frequency to 94.5 MHz to make way for a new move-in station in Kansas City.
St. Jude's Hospital and other events
Each year, WIBW-FM holds a radiothon where all proceeds go to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. It is usually run on a Thursday and Friday in February, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., at a Hy-Vee supermarket at 29th and Wanamaker in Topeka. DJs do there programs from the store. Interviews are conducted with "ambassador families" during the broadcast, telling how they benefited from the St. Jude's Hospital.
WIBW-FM also sponsors the annual Country Stampede Music Festival, where all proceeds go to benefit St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.[11]
^A folk etymology has developed ("What's In a Name? Radio Knows" (AP, Kansas City) by Jim Bagby, Manhattan (Kansas) Mercury, June 27, 1985, p. 7.) that when Arthur Capper bought the station in 1929, he chose the WIBW call letters to match a supposed original owner of "Indiana Broadcast Works". However, WIBW had actually been assigned this call sign, randomly from a sequential list, when it was first licensed three years and a half years before Capper purchased it. There is also no evidence that an entity named "Indiana Broadcast Works" ever existed.
