KYAT
Radio station in Gallup, New Mexico, United States
KYAT is a radio station on 94.5 FM in Gallup, New Mexico, United States. Owned and operated by Millennium Media, the station broadcasts a country music format in the Navajo language known as Ya'a'te'eh Diné (Navajo Country).
01History
94.5 FM was launched as KGLP on October 19, 1974, airing a country format. It was co-owned with KYVA (1230 AM), which had previously mixed Top 40 and country tunes, much to the chagrin of its air staff; the new country outlet allowed the two formats to be split. Both stations were sold to Road Runner Radio, Inc., owned by Russell Carpenter and George Malti, for $500,000 in 1977, and the FM's call letters were changed to KOVO on October 24. The station flipped to adult contemporary in 1986 and adopted the call letters KKOR.
In 2010, the call letters were changed to KYAT as the station began broadcasting full-time in the Navajo language, the first FM station to do so. Some program features remained in English, including news bulletins three times a day from the Navajo Times newspaper. Coverage was extended to Navajo-language play-by-play of high school basketball games in January 2017.
George Malti died in 2016 after owning KYVA and KYAT for 39 years.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “KYAT”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- KYAT FM 94.5 logo.jpg by Unknown author, Fair use
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.