KRNB is an urban adult contemporary-formatted radio station in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex. It is owned by Service Broadcasting Corporation alongside its sister station KKDA-FM. Its studios are located in Arlington, Texas and the transmitter/antenna tower is located north of its city of license, Decatur, Texas.
History
KRNB was first launched at 6 a.m. on September 16, 1996, with an Urban Adult Contemporary format playing R&B music, hence the call sign. At the time its only other competitor for the rest of the decade was KRBV, which went off the air as an R&B station in 1998 due to a transmitter problem that caused low ratings. In the early years of the station, it was home to The Tom Joyner Morning Show until 2002 when its new competitor KSOC took over the affiliation to the show. After KRBV changed formats, KRNB was the sole Urban AC for two years, but due to its transmitter location, it was easier to pick up in the northern and western portions of the Metroplex but harder to pick up in the Southern and Eastern portions, especially in the southern half of Dallas and downtown Dallas. Then it got new competition: KSOC changed formats from Jammin' Oldies to Urban AC. So KRNB modified its format to an R&B Oldies format by playing only R&B music from the 1970s to the 1980s, and changed its branding from 105.7 KRNB to Old School 105.7. The modification did not last long; KRNB reverted to Urban AC in 2005, changed the name back to 105.7 KR&B and became the home of The Steve Harvey Morning Show through Premiere Radio Networks, a division of Clear Channel.. Harvey's morning show was dropped in September 2018 in favor for a local morning show called "The Morning Rush" hosted by comedian Rudy Rush and reality TV personality and model Claudia Jordan. Like many Urban AC stations across the country, KRNB has a nighttime Quiet Storm show. In 2010, KRNB has rebranded to "Smooth R&B 105.7" while keeping its current format. KRNB's current on-air personalities include Rudy Rush, Claudia Jordan, Sean Andre, Keith Solis, Lynne Haze and Janet G. Since 2002, it has competed with KSOC with an Urban AC format. However, as of November 15, 2014, KSOC flipped to classic hip hop, leaving KRNB as the sole Urban AC station in the metroplex until September 11, 2017, when KSOC returned to Urban AC as "Majic 94.5".
Former KRNB
The original KRNB-FM was a tribal run student radio station in Neah Bay, Washington. Starting in 1976 the station provided news, weather and information for the Makah Indian Tribe. Located on the high school campus it was billed as "The Native American Voice of the Pacific Northwest" and operated at 10 watts with an international reach extreme southern Vancouver Island in Canada just across the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The station broadcast a wide range of formats including easy listening, contemporary 70s pop and at night album oriented rock. In 1982 the KRNB call letters surfaced in Memphis TN as "MAGIC 101" an R&B station now KJMS.
Signal
Unlike most of the area's FM stations like sister KKDA-FM, which transmit their signals from Cedar Hill, KRNB transmits its signal from an unincorporated area East of Alvord in Wise County. Therefore, KRNB's signal is much stronger in the Northwestern parts of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex as well as the cities of Decatur, Bowie, Gainesville, and Sherman, to as far north as South of Ardmore, Oklahoma, but is considerably weaker in Dallas and areas Southeast of the city itself.
