About WCKYs beautiful music format:Due to the auroral absorption, I haven't been able to determine what's on 1530 in Denver at night. Daytime, it's a very faint KQSC "Mountain Country 107.3" Colorado Springs. It's so weak that only my GE Superadios can pick it up.
Last week, I was in Des Moines, IA - Listening before Sacramento local sunset, WCKY dominates. Daytime, there wasn't anything; 500-watt KDSN Denison is just too far away.
Retro: In Missouri, many times in the window between local sunset and Sacramento, it was WCKY, with a beautiful-music format that stood out on the AM dial. Never heard KFBK there. Of course, during my 25 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, I heard KFBK all that time, day and night.
Back in the 70s when I was a teenager, I knew a lot of "older people" that didn't have FM in their cars, listened to WCKY. It had a loyal following in Lexington, and put a decent day/night signal into Central Kentucky.
When WCKY flipped to talk in the late 80s, they were one of the first stations to carry Rush Limbaugh.