Radio Talk 1200 (WXKS)

WXKS (1200 AM; "Talk 1200") is an AM station licensed to Newton, Massachusetts, and serving the Boston, Massachusetts area. It is owned by Clear Channel Communications. It has a news/talk format.The station signed on April 21, 1947 as WKOX, a daytime-only station on 1190 kHz in Framingham. The call letters stood for how the original owners felt about their newly licensed radio station, We're Kind Of Excited[citation needed]. WKOX signed on an FM station at 105.7 in May 1960; it is now known as WROR-FM and is owned by Greater Media. Fairbanks Communications purchased the station in 1970. In 1985, WKOX moved to 1200 kHz to gain authorization to go 24 hours.For many years, WKOX functioned as a full service station, oriented towards the MetroWest region. However, during the 1990s, the station changed formats constantly, from a satellite-fed oldies format to a talk format to a simulcast of the FM station (by then WCLB-FM, a country music station) to a separate, satellite-fed country format. Another attempt at talk, including a show hosted by former WEEI and WRKO host Gene Burns, was made on October 2, 1995 (by this point, WKOX had begun to orient itself to the Boston market as a whole rather than MetroWest); after only one year, this was replaced with an ethnic format in October 1996.By this time, Fairbanks Communications was attempting to sell WKOX. Although companies such as Westinghouse Broadcasting and B-Mass Holding Company expressed interest in acquiring the station, they did not actually do so, and by 1998 WKOX had become Fairbanks' last radio station. A few months after the death of owner Richard M. Fairbanks in August 2000, the station was finally sold, to current owner Clear Channel Communications. The ethnic format (by then primarily a Spanish-language religious format) was retained until 2004, when the station began simulcasting a progressive talk format with the original WXKS (1430 AM). This was dropped two years later in favor of a Spanish tropical format, branded as "Rumba".As early as 1995, WKOX had been pursuing options to upgrade its power and serve the entire Boston area. The station was approved by the FCC to move to the WUNR site in Newton, where it would run 50,000 watts and change its city of license to Newton in the process, but the plan was met with a great deal of community opposition. Finally, in fall 2008, the station left Framingham and began broadcasting from a new tower array on the WUNR site. In April 2009, it was announced that WKOX is now 50,000 watts full-time.WXKS was known as "Rush Radio 1200" from March 8, 2010 until February 28, 2011.Clear Channel announced in January 2010 that WKOX would once again change to a news/talk format in April; the launch was moved to March 8 after rival WRKO dropped The Rush Limbaugh Show.[14] In preparation, the station swapped call letters with 1430 AM (which by then had returned to separate programming) and became WXKS on March 1. "Rumba" programming ceased on March 5, at which time the station began stunting. For the first year of the talk format, WXKS branded as "Rush Radio 1200", which was named for Limbaugh (Clear Channel has also used this branding at WRNO-FM in New Orleans, WRDU in Raleigh-Durham, and WPTI in Greensboro, North Carolina)[14]; on February 28, 2011, the station dropped the "Rush Radio" name and now calls itself simply "Talk 1200 Boston".[15]