A new radio station in London, WKFC, has nothing to do with the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants.

“We thought it was catchy and easy to remember,” Manager Dave Colvin said. “Those call letters were available and we were looking at finding something relating to Laurel County and the Corbin, Whitley County area and that was Colonel Sanders Cafe.”

The station, which is located on South Main Street next to London Urgent Care, will play country, classic rock, 80s, 90s and oldies music.

“The bulk of our music will be country and classic rock, with a mixture of 80s and 90s and oldies,” Colvin noted.

Opening up the station was a dream of owner Jonathan Smith, who is originally from Stanford, Ky., but now lives in Chicago.

“He had the concept of a unique variety format and he felt very much it would work well for London and the tri-county area,” Colvin said. “Our tri-county areas consists of Whitley, Knox and Laurel.”

On FM the station will be known as Choice 101.9 and on AM, Information 1600 WKFO.

By reviewing the demographics of the area, it supports an additional radio station, Colvin said.

“The cry we have received from the surveys that we have put out, is that they were looking for a variety of music to be played with one station,” he said. “Also, what they were looking at was total local information, including news, community activities and events.”

The station has been broadcasting since April. For the last month, it has beenn playing Christmas music as an attention-getter. It is playing other types of music, now, until the staff is ready to bring their live shows on air, which will be Sept. 8.

“We will have a live, morning personality and an afternoon one in the beginning,” Colvin said. “We will have “Doc and the Medicine” show, which will start at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday and he will go until 9 a.m. We will gear to what our audience is asking for. It will be a wide variety. It will be a listener’s format. We will encourage listeners to call into our studios and chat with us in the mornings.”

Starting at 3 p.m., there will be an “Ollie Zone,” until 6 p.m. Ollie Hall comes from a Manchester radio station. This program will be very similar to the morning show. The rest of the evening will be a controlled programming.

In the near future, the station will have a football roundup on Friday evenings from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. During basketball season, the station will be having something similar. Reporters will be covering North and South Laurel, Corbin, Whitley, Williamsburg, Lynn Camp and Knox Central.

The station will be open for suggestions.

“We do encourage our listeners to give us a call about their ideas of what they would like from a radio station,” Colvin said. “That’s why we came to London and the tri-county area.”

This station, which will employ six in the beginning, was completely built from scratch. The owner did not buy out another station.

“We purchased the frequency, located our transmitters, and have all new equipment and facilities inside the building,” Colvin said.



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The direct line for callers is 878-WKFC or 878-9532.