WKYV signed on November 27, 1992, as WSVV, and carried an urban AC format that was targeted towards its city of license, Petersburg.[7] In August 1994, it would change call letters to WSOJ, but continued with the urban AC format.[8]
On February 10, 1998, WSOJ began simulcasting on newly acquired sister WVGO, which dropped its oldies format.[9]Radio One would buy the station in March 1999.[10] In October 1999, the WVGO/WSOJ simulcast ended, and Radio One began simulcasting their then-country station, WJRV ("105.7 The River") on WSOJ with new calls WARV-FM. In March 2001, Radio One sold the station to Honolulu Broadcasting, who would then lease it to Cox Radio via a local marketing agreement, and would split the simulcast by flipping WARV to a current-heavy country format as "Cat Country" to complement long-time powerhouse WKHK.[11][12]
In December 2002, Honolulu would terminate the LMA with Cox and sell the station to MainQuad Broadcasting, owners of WBBT-FM, and flipped it to ESPN Radio on April 1, 2003, after months of stunting. On January 21, 2004, WARV dropped ESPN programming and flipped to a simulcast of WBBT, which would also adopt an oldies format on the same date.[13][14]
In December 2005, WBBT and WARV, along with sister stations WWLB and WLFV, were purchased by Philadelphia-based Main Line Broadcasting.[15]
On July 1, 2014, Main Line Broadcasting sold its Richmond stations to L&L Broadcasting, with the combined entity taking the name Alpha Media.[16]
On October 20, 2014, WARV switched from simulcasting WBBT to sister WWLB, which aired a country format as "The Wolf".[17]
On December 5, 2016, EMF filed an application with the FCC to purchase both WARV-FM and WLFV for $2 million.[18]
On March 22, 2017, following the consummation of EMF's purchase, the station began stunting, directing listeners to sister station WWLB (the classic country-formatted "Hank FM").[19] On March 23, 2017, EMF re-launched the station as "K-Love".[20]
On April 24, 2017, WARV-FM became WKYV as part of a call letter exchange with its sister station on 90.1 FM in Colonial Heights (the WARV-FM calls were a better match for that station's new identity as part of EMF's Air1 network).
References
^Broadcasting Yearbook 2010(PDF). ProQuest, LLC/Reed Publishing (Nederland), B.V. 2010. p. D-562. Retrieved July 6, 2015.