WJKV


WJKV is a non-profit FM radio station in Jacksonville, Florida. It is owned by the Educational Media Foundation and airs the national "K-Love" Christian contemporary music radio format.
WJKV broadcasts from a tower off Hogan Road in Jacksonville. In addition, programming on the station is also heard on two translator stations: W208AV 89.5 MHz, San Jose, and W281AM 104.1 MHz, Macclenny.
WJKV has been observed with HD1, HD2 and HD3 services in December 2018.

History

On February 8, 1973, the station signed on as WFAM, at 91.1 MHz. It was owned by Jones College. WFAM had a different radio format for each part of the day. In the morning it played classical music, afternoons it was Top 40 and in the evening it was Jacksonville's only jazz station. The students staffed the station as part of their classes in broadcasting. In the 1980s, the station moved its frequency to 90.9, and also got a boost in power and coverage area.
In 1986, after easy listening station 96.1 WKTZ-FM switched to soft adult contemporary WLSC, Jones College decided to acquire the intellectual property of WKTZ-FM and its call sign. The new 90.9 WKTZ-FM would continue playing its soft, instrumental music, but as a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station.
As one of the last remaining beautiful music stations, WKTZ-FM had a loyal and devoted audience, which grew nationally after the advent of streaming via the internet on its website. Its AM counterpart, 1220 WKTZ, was also acquired by Jones College. It carried a syndicated adult standards format.
Facing declining broadcast ratings and the aging of its audience, the stations' licenses were sold to religious broadcaster EMF for $3.375 million. EMF announced plans to re-launch the stations with Christian formats. At 3:30 PM on November 6, 2014, both 90.9 FM and 1220 AM went dark, although the internet streams stayed active. A week later, WKTZ-FM and WKTZ returned to air as members of EMF's K-Love network. On July 21, 2015, WKTZ-FM changed its call letters to WJKV.
In response to the sale, public radio station WJCT-FM added an easy listening format to one of its HD Radio subchannels, in an effort to placate WKTZ's former audience.
EMF does not usually operate AM stations; as such, AM 1220 WKTZ was spun off to the American Family Association which airs its national Christian radio format on the station.

Translators