KHFM was started in November 1954 as a hobby of two teachers at Highland High School, originally broadcasting at 96.3 MHz. KHFM was the first commercial FM station in Albuquerque. The call sign is a combination of the initials for Highland High School and Frequency Modulation, the technical term for FM radio. The teachers set up a corporation known as the CHE Broadcasting Company, with studios on Buena Vista Avenue SE. John D. Hopperton served as General Manager and Paul Leo Britt was the President. In the 1960s, the station moved its studios to Domingo Road NE. It increased its power from 1,700 watts to 3,300 watts. In the 1970s, KHFM joined most of the other Albuquerque FM stations on a high peak outside the city, powered at 20,000 watts, to cover the city, its suburbs and Northern New Mexico. In 1987, ownership passed to New Mexico Classical Radio, Inc.
Change in Ownership
In 1996, KHFM was sold to Citadel Broadcasting. Some listeners were concerned that a large broadcasting company might drop the format, which was happening in other cities around the U.S. Classical is seen as a format attracting a loyal but small and older audience, while most advertisers seek a large and youthful audience. The classical format continued on 96.3 for five years until March 2001. At that point, Citadel decided classical music was not bringing in enough revenue. The company made plans to drop the format in favor of classic rock.
Switching Dial Positions
, the owner of dozens of radio stations in the Southwestern United States including New Mexico, agreed to pick up the format for its Albuquerque station on 95.5 MHz. The call letters and classical music moved down the dial a short distance, from 96.3 to 95.5. The station's city of license was changed from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. Citadel agreed to continue handling sales via a joint sales agreement. KHFM was relayed on FM translator K275AO at 102.9 to improve coverage in the eastern part of the city. This lasted until 2013, when AGM decided to use the translator to broadcast KARS. It later added translators in Ruidoso, Roswell and Taos. In 2008, KHFM won the New Mexico Governors Award for excellence in the arts. At the same time American General Media had laid off several of the station's long-time staff with family members of company ownership taking over programming.
Non-Commercial Status
On June 14, 2017, AGM announced that it would donate KHFM to "KHFM Community Partners," a non-profit organization that planned to convert the station to a non-commercial status and retain the Classical format. It was part of a deal where AGM acquired Univision's entire Albuquerque cluster, but was required by the Federal Communications Commission to spin off four stations to meet ownership limits. Converting KHFM counted as spinning off one of the four stations. The license was modified on September 1, 2017. Previously, KHFM had been one of the few commercial classical stations in the United States. In recent years, commercial classical stations such as WQXR-FMNew York City, KDFCSan Francisco, KING-FMSeattle, WCLVCleveland and KDB-FMSanta Barbara have made similar conversions from commercial to non-commercial status.
