KHVN

This station started out as Daytimer KWBC in 1946 with a Variety/Ethnic format that comprises mostly local, amateur, and public service programming under the ownership of Associated Broadcasters.

In 1950, J. Dean McClain joined the station with his hour-long "Blues at Sunrise". program. By the late 1950s McClain was program director, and later was station manager and general manager.[1]

By 1953, most commercial billings were from Ethnic shows, so their owners reimaged the station as KNOK-AM to serve an African American audience.

By 1954, KNOK-AM changed the format to R&B with Country and Spanish language programming on weekends. After 1957, KNOK-AM became a full-time R&B station and was the first station in the DFW area to exclusively do so. In the late 1960s, the African American Clay Smothers, who later served in the Texas House of Representatives was the station news editor known for his conservative commentary.[2]

From 1957 to 1979, it simulcasted to its FM sister station of the same callsign. In 1979, KNOK-AM transferred its R&B format to sister station KNOK-FM and changed its format to Jazz. Three years later, the station was renamed as KSAX (callsign to have stood for SAXophone) while maintaining its Jazz format before making its final switch to a Black Gospel formatted station as KHVN in 1985 as "Heaven 97".

There have been rumors that KHVN 970 would be scheduled to go dark by New Year's Eve 2007 as part of the FCC's dial expansion program of 1989, in exchange for a frequency with a full day/night schedule on KKGM 1630. This move was scheduled for 1998 but Infinity/CBS Radio sold the frequency. Since Mortenson owns 970 and 1630, the divesting could feasibly still happen. As of 2018, it has not taken place.

KHVN's logo used until 2020.

On December 2, 2020, iHeartMedia announced that it's acquiring KHVN and sister station KKGM from Mortenson Broadcasting for $950,000; including its respective translators 95.3 K237HD and 92.1 K221GV. The deal includes a Local marketing agreement (LMA) that took effect from January 2, 2021 until full consummation. The purchase also allowed iHeartMedia to max out its DFW cluster threshold.[3] Later on December 24, it was announced that both stations will join the Black Information Network as affiliates on January 2, 2021, jettisoning the gospel formats.[4][5] Mortenson Broadcasting and KHVN has confirmed this programming change and has asked its listeners via Facebook to join them in the Farewell Broadcast on January 1.[6]

After sending the gospel format "to heaven" on January 2, KHVN and KKGM began stunting with African American speeches, interspersed with messages such as "Our Voices Will Be Heard" and "Our side of the story is about to be told," with the new BIN news format that officially launched on January 4 at 12:00 p.m. (Central).

The following churches have been featured on KHVN during its tenure as a Gospel station

Brenda Cherry along with Jim Blackwell on the Robert Ashley Show on KHVN.

• Victory International Church, Fort Worth, TX[7]
• New Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas
• East St. Paul Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas
• Heaven's Embassy Church, DeSoto, Texas
• Church of the Living Waters, Garland, Texas
• Love Chapel Church of God in Christ, Grapevine, Texas
• Evergreen Baptist Church, Irving, Texas
• Owens Chapel Church of God In Christ, McKinney, Texas
• Hebron Community Church, Grand Prairie, Texas
• St. Emmanuel Missionary Baptist Church, Denton, Texas
• First Baptist Church of Hamilton Park, Richardson, Texas
• Bear Creek Community Church, Irving, Texas
• The Glorious Anointing Church Of God In Christ, Arlington, Texas
• Praise Fellowship Worship Center, Frisco, Texas
• Logos Fellowship Church, Cedar Hill, Texas
• New Day Church, Bedford, Texas

• Official website
• DFW Radio/TV History
• DFW Radio Archives

• KHVN in the FCC's AM station database
• KHVN on Radio-Locator
• KHVN in Nielsen Audio's AM station database