Its original purpose was a full-time signal to broadcast weather, sports, and other information, including things like school closings.

In 1972, the staff began a separate rock programming that was broadcast in the overnight hours, first after the AM sign-off, and then it was pre-taped and replayed the next day at 3 PM, later noon.

On April 1, 1974, an addition to the station allowed the AM to move into a new studio (complete with an interview room) and the FM to have the old one.

[2] Up through to the mid-1980s, KLZR (sometimes then referred to by on-air disk jockeys as "Lazer Rock") heavily featured a new wave music format, with artists such as Icehouse, Split Enz, Mi-Sex, and The Cure, as well as Elvis Costello, The Tubes, and Joe Jackson.

[2] During the 1990s, KLZR carried a modern rock format,[3] which was popular on the KU campus and in the college town atmosphere of Lawrence, as well as Kansas City; even garnering a mention in Rolling Stone magazine as one of the top ten "Stations that Didn't Suck" in 1998.

Groups protested the change, picketing outside the station and in local papers The Kansan and The Journal World, as well as petitions with thousands of signature and shirts with "The New Lazer Sucks" printed on them circled around.