Origin and History
In the late 1970s, many U.S. radio stations began calling themselves "Kiss". Among these was KIIS-FM in Los Angeles, which adopted that callsign in 1975 when it became a sister station to KIIS (AM)—whose callsign comes not from the word "Kiss" but rather its dial position at 1150, with the letters "I" and "S" being the letters most closely resembling 1 and 5, respectively. Gannett, which owned the station, filed a federal trademark registration for "KIIS" in 1986, which has passed on to subsequent owners of the station. In 1997, Country Club Communications registered the only current federal trademark for "KISS FM" (which has since also been assigned to Clear Channel); the logo registered then included a stylized pair of lips.
Numerous other stations using "Kiss" as (part of) a service mark were acquired over the course of Clear Channel's growth, among them Boston's WXKS-FM and Hartford's WKSS; however, other stations calling themselves "Kiss" which predated the "KISS FM" trademark were not acquired, such as CBS Radio's WNKS in Charlotte, North Carolina. Furthermore, not all Clear Channel "Kiss" stations use the national brand: WXKS-FM, the Boston branch, has never used "KISS FM", maintaining its "Kiss 108" identity from 1979.
The current logo for KISS-FM is a blue ball with KISS-FM in red lettering with yellow around the lettering and the radio frequency at the bottom in yellow. There are some stations never owned by Clear Channel that license the KISS-FM branding including the ball logo. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, WXSS 103.7 Kiss FM is a Mainstream Top 40 station using the KISS-FM brand. Most non-Clear Channel "Kiss" stations do not use this logo.
On November 17, 2006, Clear Channel announced that the company intends to be sold to a group of private equity firms.. Clear Channel announced on the same day its intent to sell off many radio stations in smaller radio markets, including some KISS-FM formatted stations. Former Clear Channel KISS-FM branded stations that have been sold and retained the KISS brand as of March 2007 include WDKS 106.1 KISS-FM Evansville, Indiana; KTRS-FM 104.7 KISS-FM in Casper, Wyoming.
On December 15, 2008, Clear Channel reached an agreement to acquire five CBS Radio stations, one of them being KBKS 106.1 Kiss FM in Seattle, Washington. In return, CBS would acquire two Clear Channel stations in Houston, Texas, as an effort to expand its focus on the larger markets.
Read more about this topic: KISS-FM (brand)
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