Owned by iHeartMedia, its studios are located in the Kenwood section of Sycamore Township, while its transmitter site is in suburban Villa Hills, Kentucky.

WCKY's daytime coverage is not nearly as large as that of other 50,000-watt stations, in part because of the reduced groundwave characteristic of its fairly high transmitting frequency.

By comparison, WLW, aided by the superior groundwave of its much lower frequency of 700 kHz, can be heard at city-grade strength in large portions of Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.

WCKY has a long history of a powerful night-time signal, and its country music programming of the 1950s and 1960s brought listener responses from many points even outside the United States.

It can still be heard in much of eastern and central North America with a good radio; it can be picked up as far as Chicago, Detroit, Wichita, and Miami.

[9] Unsatisfied with its somewhat limited schedule, WCKY petitioned the FRC to delete the two remaining Chicago-area stations, and give it unlimited use of its frequency.

An FRC examiner recommended that this request be denied, however a review by the full commission ruled on October 30, 1931 in favor of WCKY, and ordered both WJAZ and WCHI deleted.

[15] On March 29, 1941, under the provisions of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, WCKY moved to 1530 kHz, which has remained the station's assignment ever since.

It featured recorded country music with disc jockeys such as Wayne Rainey, Nelson King, Marty Roberts and Jimmy Logsdon.

[citation needed] During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the station was used to broadcast news and information to the area, due to its southerly directional signal pattern.

The new pattern reduced the distant southern coverage, while strengthening the northern signal for local listeners around Cincinnati and Dayton.

[citation needed] Nick Clooney returned to the station as afternoon host starting September 13, 1999, moving to mornings in November to replace Bob Braun, who left for health reasons.

The station introduced listeners from states all over the region to Air America personalities like Al Franken, Randi Rhodes, Marc Maron and Mike Malloy.