KCLT

The KCLT radio station (FM 104.9) in Helena-West Helena (Phillips County) began broadcasting urban contemporary music on December 10, 1984, in eastern Arkansas and the northwestern Mississippi Delta. Although the station’s target audience was African Americans ages eighteen to thirty-four, its all-Sunday gospel music format also attracted others. In fact, as the popularity of the station grew, many of the Black churches that had broadcast their worship services on other stations moved to KCLT to take advantage of the larger targeted listening audience. KCLT eventually became the anchor of a larger network called Delta Force 3, which serves a significant part of the Mississippi Delta region.

KCLT was conceived as a project of Raymond Simes, a 1978 radio-television graduate of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro (Craighead County), and his brother, attorney L. T. Simes II. The brothers applied for a frequency with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1980. In addition, they formed the West Helena Broadcasters, Inc., a group consisting of individuals who helped to finance the purchase and construction of the tower site, other major equipment such as the antenna and transmitter, and the office headquarters located in West Helena. The brothers were the majority owners of KCLT; the last two letters in the station’s name, LT, were chosen in honor of their father, L. T. Simes Sr.

In 1994, the Simes brothers purchased the KAKJ radio station (FM 105.3) of Marianna (Lee County) and Forrest City (St. Francis County). Like KCLT, it broadcast urban contemporary music along with an all-gospel and religious format on Sundays. It began targeting the ages twenty-five to forty-five demographic by broadcasting adult contemporary music. With the acquisition of KAKJ, the Simes brothers began branding the two stations, now a network, as Delta Force 2. The Force 2 Network began simulcasting both stations from one control room. However, after five years of simulcasting, a separate control room and station were established for KAKJ in Helena-West Helena.

In 2004, the Simes brothers acquired a license to expand their radio network into Clarksdale, Mississippi, the Delta town just twenty-five miles south of Helena-West Helena and adjacent to the Mississippi River. Three of the call letters for this new station, WNEV (FM 98.7), were chosen in honor of their mother, Nevader Simes. Following the purchase, the network became Delta Force 3.

What started as one station in West Helena, Arkansas, began operating stations in three cities to form a tri-state coverage area of more than 130 miles. The area includes ten eastern Arkansas counties with a reach of more than 200,000 potential listeners; eleven northwestern Mississippi counties with a reach of more than 400,000 listeners; and a South Memphis reach in Shelby County, Tennessee, of more than 100,000 listeners.

In 2012, the Force 3 Network began hosting an annual blues festival on Labor Day weekend. Gospel Sundays eventually grew to include the weekly show Sunday School in Review, which Judge L. T. Simes II hosted until his death in 2015. Various churches, one from Chicago, also contracted with KCLT to broadcast their worship services on the network.

For additional information:
Force 3 Radio Network. https://www.facebook.com/force3radio/ (accessed December 11, 2024).

Lillie Mae Fears
Arkansas State University