Talk:KFTI

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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on KFTI. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110101215243/http://www.radio-info.com/news/wichitas-kfti-1070-flips-from-classic-country-to-true-oldies to http://www.radio-info.com/news/wichitas-kfti-1070-flips-from-classic-country-to-true-oldies
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Pivotal KFDI years overlooked almost entirely
This article, while giving much due attention to the station's nationally historic prominent beginnings as KFKB, completely overlooks the station's later heyday, as KFDI (1960-2001), when it was THE dominant radio station in the region, of all format types. In country music, it was a colossus, shaping much of the country music market, and every major country-western music star in the U.S. courted it, dropping in to be interviewed at KFDI's "Radio Ranch."

Often described as "the nation's biggest country/western station," KFDI hosted rodeos and sponsored some of the nation's biggest (at the time) country-western concerts (especially in the early/mid-1960s).

This was a time when Wichita was heavily involved in country-western entertainment, industry and culture, as a national hub of agri-business (including the cattle industry), home to the globally renowned "world's largest western store" (Shepler's), two western-themed theme parks (Frontierland and Old Cowtown Museum), the Mid-America All-Indian Center (Wichita has one of the largest, most diverse populations of Native Americans of any U.S. city), various rodeos and pow-wows, and the leading collection of works of pre-eminent cowboy artist Charles M. Russell. KFDI was the on-air expression of that regional culture.

KFDI was also south-central Kansas' pre-eminent radio news source, and weather reporter -- with its legendary fleet of "Red Roamer" radio cars patrolling the Wichita community during rush hour traffic, and scouting for tornadoes and severe weather all around the Wichita metro area, and beyond, during severe storms -- attentively monitored during bad weather by the whole community, even by those who did not like its music (myself included). It was the only Wichita-area radio station whose news team were widely held in as high regard as TV newscasters.

In audience-size ratings, it was the undisputed king of south-central Kansas radio. As a symbol of the station's uniquely iconic influence, at its height, at least one-tenth of Wichita cars and trucks (probably more like one-third) sported a conspicuous postcard-sized "KFDI" sticker in the rear window. This despite nearly a dozen other competing radio stations in the area.

While I'll attempt to document this in the article (with appropriate WP:RS), as time permits (and I encourage other editors to beat me to it), it's troubling that this article was drafted without even a hint of the station's former importance and influence -- locally, regionally and nationally -- under the still-legendary "KFDI" call sign.

(A great place to start researching: https://worldradiohistory.com/ )

~ Zxtxtxz (talk) 17:08, 9 July 2023 (UTC)