KTOK was first licensed, with the sequentially assigned call letters, KGFG. It signed on the air on January 27, 1927, owned by the Full Gospel Church in Oklahoma City. By the 1930s, the station was owned by the Oklahoma Broadcasting Company. It broadcast on 1370 kilocycles and was powered at 100 watts. KGFG's studios were housed in the Cotton Exchange Building. The call letters were changed to KTOK on February 17, 1937. With WKY as an NBC Red Network station and KOMA carrying the CBS Radio Network, KTOK first became a network affiliate of the Mutual Broadcasting System. But by the 1940s, it had switched to the NBC Blue Network.
1940s and 50s
In 1941, with the enactment of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, KTOK moved to 1400 kHz. The power increased to 250 watts. But management wanted to make KTOK's signal competitive with 930 WKY and 1520 KOMA. In the late 1940s, KTOK got permission from the Federal Communications Commission to move to 1000 kHz. The power increased to 5,000 watts by day, 1,000 watts at night. The station also added an FM companion. KTOK-FM signed on in 1946 at 104.3 MHz, powered at 43,000 watts. It mostly simulcast the AM station. But management saw little hope in making KTOK-FM profitable and gave it up after several years. By the 1950s, as network programming was moving from radio to television, KTOK switched to a full service, middle of the road format of popular adult music, news and sports. As WKY and KOMA became youth-oriented Top 40 stations, KTOK began carrying sports from their former networks, NBC and CBS, including the World Series, championship fights and auto racing. An advertisement in the 1960 edition of the Broadcasting Yearbook said KTOK plays "toe-tapping music and all of the announcers are adults," to contrast KTOK with the youthful Top 40 disc jockeys on WKY and KOMA.
1960s - 1980s
In the 1960s, the nighttime power increased to match the daytime power, 5,000 watts. But it had to use a complicated directional antenna system to make the higher nighttime power work, while still protecting other stations on AM 1000. In 1978, KTOK was acquired by the Insilco Broadcasting Group, which also bought an FM station at 102.7, KZUE, which aired an adult contemporary music format. KTOK became an affiliate of the ABC Information Radio Network. KTOK gradually increased the talk programming and cut the MOR music programming. By the 1980s, it had become a talk station.
1990s - Today
KTOK and its FM station were acquired in 1992 by San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications. At one time, the news staff numbered 12. iHeart moved its Oklahoma City operations to 50 Penn Place off Northwest Expressway and Interstate 44. In the 2010s, the station got a slight power increase, going from 5,000 watts to 5,800 watts, day and night. It also got a simulcast on an HD Radio subchannel of co-owned 96.1 KXXY-FM.
