KVCU 1190 is Radio 1190, the University of Colorado’s freeform student station, on a frequency that started out as the original home of KBCO. Brocade Broadcasting began applying in 1969, got a permit for a Boulder daytimer in November 1972 and signed on KADE on November 1, 1973, with middle-of-the-road music and news. When that didn’t pay, a sales manager talked the owners into progressive rock. Two years later the Greenlee and Gawne families (Centennial Wireless) bought it for $220,000, and in 1979 it was approved for 5,000 watts.
The Greenlees bought 97.3 FM in 1981 and named it KBCO. The AM took the KBCO name too in 1985. Noble Broadcast Group bought both for $27.25 million in 1987, and Jacor bought Noble in 1996. In mid-1997 Jacor needed to shed a station to buy another FM, so it donated 1190 to CU. The station went silent in January 1998 and came back on November 4, 1998, as KVCU, with student DJs and volunteers.
It shut down for a while during COVID in 2020, went off the air in May 2022 for infrastructure work and returned to AM on February 16, 2023. On February 13, 2025, it added a Denver FM translator at 92.9. In the winter of 2025–26 its studios moved from the basement of the University Memorial Center, home for almost 50 years, to the garden level of Carlson Gymnasium.
Station information
- Frequency: 1190 kHz; FM translator 92.9 (since 2025).
- City of license: Boulder.
- Signed on: November 1, 1973.
- Branding: Radio 1190.
- Call history: KADE (1973–1985), KBCO (1985–1998, briefly KBLD in June 1994), KVCU (1998–present).
- Owner: University of Colorado Foundation.
- FCC facility ID: 48965.
References
STATION FILE
FROM THE TIMELINE
Moments in KVCU-AM History
Jacor donates KBCO-AM 1190 to the University of Colorado
On December 30, 1997, Jacor Broadcasting donated the FCC license, transmitter site and related equipment for KBCO-AM 1190 to the University of Colorado Foundation. The donation gave CU’s student-radio effort the broadcast facility it had spent years trying to secure.
KVCU Radio 1190 hits the air at CU Boulder
November 4, 1998 — After Jacor donated the old KBCO 1190 AM to the University of Colorado and the station went silent in January, it came back as KVCU, Radio 1190, run by student DJs and volunteers from the basement of the University Memorial Center.
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