SummitMedia acquired the Honolulu cluster from Cox Radio in 2013; KRTR then was leased to Pinoy Power Media and operated as KPRP until 2021, programming primarily in the Filipino language.
KPRP was again reinstated by August 2023 after another donation was agreed to with the Raleigh-Wake Chapter of the National Alumni Association of Shaw University and resumed broadcasting by November.
On November 9, 1945, the Island Broadcasting Company, a partnership of three men—Henry C. Putnam, John D. Keating, and J. Elroy McCaw—applied to the Federal Communications Commission for permission to build a new radio station on 630 kHz in Honolulu.
[7] Putnam exited the station less than a year later to return to active duty in the Army; though he announced that he would be selling his ownership interest to Keating and McCaw,[8] he did not do so until 1949.
[18] KILA in Hilo was sold to its general manager,[19] while KPOA was acquired for $400,000 by Radio Hawaii, a subsidiary of the Tele-Trip Corporation of New York in early 1954.
[22] Radio Hawaii applied to the FCC in 1956 to move KPOA from 630 to 650 kHz and increase its power from 5,000 to 10,000 watts, a request the commission granted after a hearing in March 1958.
[34] Though reports suggested that three prospective buyers emerged after the auction,[35] the station went off the air a week later after a power surge affected its tower on Ala Wai Boulevard.
[37] KORL was off the air again by July 1988, in part because the Ala Wai tower—shared by four AM stations—emitted excessive electromagnetic radiation that, per a study by the Environmental Protection Agency, posed an immediate risk to residents of nearby high-rise buildings.
[38] A local group including former Hawaii governor George Ariyoshi acquired the license from Pacific Broadcasting and the equipment from O'Day, to whom rights had reverted under the terms of a promissory note, effective December 30, 1991.
[44] Thomas Gentry, a developer, became the majority owner of the station in 1994 amid a restructuring; studios were moved from downtown into a Gentry-owned building in Iwilei.
[46] By 1999, the station added local morning and afternoon drive programs to the Headline News audio, as well as a talk show with Honolulu mayor Jeremy Harris.
[48] Five years later, it purchased the former KPOI-FM 97.5 as part of divestitures required in another transaction and changed it to a simulcast of KHNR as KHNR-FM, by which time the station's format had shifted to conservative talk.
[54] Pinoy Power operated KPRP with a mix of Filipino language and other multicultural programming from studios in downtown Honolulu's Fort Street Mall.