Three more Wichita Rocking M stations and one very strange twist to the story

Last week, Have You Heard? reported that one Rocking M Media station is back on the air following the drama that unfolded with all of its Wichita-area stations last fall.

In addition to KKGQ, 92.3-FM, which is now known as the Brand instead of Kansas Country, KWME, 92.7-FM, is back on the air with a new format. Jammin’ is a rhythm-and-blues station.

KIBB, 97.1-FM, and KVWF, 100.5-FM, are also on their way back. So says the distributor, which is providing the formatting for the four stations.

That’s where the strange twist comes in.

Cleveland-based Envision Radio Networks is the distributor, which has nothing to do with Wichita’s Envision Broadcast Network — the former landlord for the stations that took all of them off the air due to what it called Rocking M’s failure to pay for the KKGQ license.

“Isn’t that crazy?” says Envision Radio Networks president and CEO Danno Wolkoff.

He says the only thing the two Envisions have in common is the name.

Wolkoff says Rocking M still owns the stations.

As of Sunday afternoon, KIBB and KVWF were still off the air, but Wolkoff says they’ll be returning. He won’t say what their formats will be.

“My comment will be, ‘Keep listening.’ ”

The return of the stations will be “very, very soon,” he says.

Wolkoff won’t give clues as to the formats, but he says, “We’re actually trying to fill the holes we see musically inside of the marketplace.”

The Brand and Jammin’ are formats that Envision Radio Networks distributes nationally, but the music, production and talent “is customized and is being done specifically for the Wichita marketplace,” Wolkoff says.

“We actually do it on the local level.”

For the second time in a week, Rocking M owner Monte Miller declined to answer questions about the stations before then hanging up a phone call.

Wolkoff says he can’t say if Miller’s intent is to keep the stations long term or get programming back on in order to sell them.

“That you would have to ask Monte.”

It’s unclear what might be happening with Rocking M’s Wellington station, KLEY, 100.3-FM and 1130-AM, which was known as the Wave, or its Winfield station, KKLE, 1550-AM, a news and talk station.

It does, though, sound like there’s at least one more twist that’s coming to this seemingly never-ending radio saga. Stay tuned.

This story was originally published February 3, 2020 at 4:47 AM.