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Sacramento has one less country station as “101.9 The Wolf” flips to Spanish

(Entravision Communications)
Listeners expecting to hear the latest popular country music on 101.9 “The Wolf” in Sacramento were suddenly and unexpectedly greeted with a totally different format: Regional Mexicana.

Entravision Communications, the parent company of KNTY (101.9 FM), flipped the long-time country station to a Spanish-language format on Monday, ending more than a decade of broadcasting country music to the Sacramento metropolitan area.

The format flip also affected sister-station KCVR-FM (98.9) in Modesto just four months after it adopted “The Wolf” branding. Both KNTY and KCVR are simulcasting a Spanish-language sister-station out of Marysville.

News of the impending format flip was first hinted when long-time Wolf broadcasters Kimberly “Kimmy” Kay and Tracy Leighann Brimmer posted notes to Facebook saying goodbye to listeners and thanking them for tuning in. Those notes were first reported Monday by the radio trade publication All Access.

The format flips follow a trend for Entravision in consolidating their radio portfolio toward Spanish-language offerings. The Santa Monica-based company operates dozens of radio stations across the country, most of them broadcasting Spanish music and talk programming. The company also owns a number of Univision and Unimas affiliates in small- to mid-sized television markets.

For Sacramento country music fans, options on the dial have become somewhat limited between top-rated station KNCI (105.1 FM), owned by Entercom, and a HD radio substation of iHeartMedia’s KYRV (93.7 FM) branded as “The Bull.” KYRV-HD2 also broadcasts on low-power translator K296GB (107.1 FM), but that signal is only available in the immediate Sacramento area.

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About the Author:

Matthew Keys

Matthew Keys is an award-winning journalist with more than 10 years of experience covering the business of television and radio broadcasting, streaming services and the overall media industry. In addition to his work as publisher of The Desk, Matthew contributes regularly to StreamTV Insider and KnowTechie, and has worked for several well-known news organizations, including Thomson Reuters, McNaughton Newspapers, Grasswire, Comstock's magazine, KTXL-TV and KGO-TV. Matthew is a member of IRE, a trade organization for investigative reporters and editors, and is based in Northern California.

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