Historic KOKE Radio Gets New Life on Air
The original KOKE station pioneered progressive country music. Image courtesy kokefm.comBy Chip Skambis
A new radio station is set to hit the airwaves with the iconic KOKE call letters. KOKE, the city’s only locally owned commercial station, will broadcast at 99.3 FM.
Meteorologist Troy Kimmel is among the station’s on-air personalities. He says the plan is to make it Austin-centric, just like the original, progressive-country KOKE station that went off the air in the late 1980s.
“I’m not sure you can copy KOKE of many years ago, but I can tell you what, you can certainly go in there and replicate what it was all about,” Kimmel said. “And there’s no doubt, when you talk to people who have been in Austin for a while, that KOKE was about Austin and about Texas.”
KOKE will focus on local news and music. It will begin broadcasting on Sunday.
Chip is incorrect when he says that KOKE went off the air in the 1980s. KOKE has never left AM radio in the Austin area. KOKE is 1600 AM radio in Austin. In the sixties KOKE was a top-40 radio station on 1370 AM. After KNOW on 1490 AM captured the top-40 listeners, KOKE on 1370 AM changed its format to country music. KOKE simulcasted on 95.5 as KOKE-FM. In the seventies, KVET on 1300 AM captured all of the country music listeners. Trying to find an audience, KOKE on 1370 AM tried a Spanish language format and KOKE-FM on 95.5 tried the mostly unsuccessful hippy, progressive country format. It was KOKE-FM that left the air in the eighties, but although KOKE has changed frequencies a couple of times, KOKE has continued without interruption on the AM band in Austin.