KFTK was a commercial radio station that was licensed to East St. Louis, Illinois at 1490 AM, and broadcast from 1972 to 2020. KFTK's transmitter was located in East St. Louis. From 2016 to 2020, KFTK and low-power translator K254CR were operated by both Emmis Communications and Entercom as a full-time simulcast of KFTK-FM. The station's license was revoked by the Federal Communications Commission after it was revealed that the principal ownership—Entertainment Media Trust—was set up as a shell company for a convicted felon; this cancellation also included three other AM stations in the Greater St. Louis metropolitan area: KQQZ, KZQZ and WQQW.
History
The station was first licensed in 1972 as WESL. 1490 AM in East St. Louis was previously occupied by WAMV, which operated from 1935 until 1964. In July 2007, WESL changed its format from oldies to sports talk and its call letters to WFFX. In July 2009, WFFX dropped Fox Sports Radio, including Dan Patrick and Jim Rome, and changed to "urban sports talk" as what may be the nation's first sports talk format with only African-American hosts. Richard "Onion" Horton is a veteran of St. Louis radio. On January 19, 2010, the station again changed call signs, this time to WQQX. In February 2010, WQQX changed formats from sports talk to adult standards. In December 2011, WQQX flipped to a rhythmic oldies format. In March 2014, the station returned to the sports format. During its second incarnation with the format, WQQX aired local shows, Fox Sports Radio, and the Big Ten Network's BTN Live Radio show. WQQX began simulcasting news/talk station KFTK-FM on September 15, 2016; concurrently, WQQX added a translator station, K254CR in St. Louis. The translator had been acquired by Emmis Communications, KFTK-FM's owner, from Cornerstone Community Radio earlier in 2016 and relocated from Atlanta, Illinois to be used by WQQX. The simulcast allowed KFTK-FM to improve its coverage of the Illinois side of the market and downtown St. Louis. The call letters were changed to KFTK on September 16, 2016. In 2012, Mark Kern challenged the license renewals of KFTK and its sister stations, alleging that Robert Romanik, a convicted felon who is also known as the "Grim Reaper of Radio", was controlling the stations in violation of FCC rules that prohibit felons from owning broadcast stations and had been involved in creating the local marketing agreement between Emmis and EMT to operate the 1490 frequency. On June 5, 2019, the Federal Communications Commission designated all four EMT stations' licenses for hearing, finding that Romanik had established EMT and provided all the funding to acquire its stations even though he was not a party to any FCC applications. On March 20, 2020, the station's license was deleted by the Federal Communications Commission; K254CR was concurrently reassigned to rebroadcast KFTK-FM.
