KABF 88.3 is 'non-commercial' Community Radio, driven by volunteers, fueled by good-will donations and sustained by sponsoring underwriters.

We rely on donations to help us determine what programs you, the listeners, want us to broadcast. Our DJ's are all volunteers, and we offer programming that you will not find anywhere else. Underwriting sponsorships and goodwill donations are how we meet our operational costs.

KABF's broadcast license is owned by The Arkansas Broadcasting Foundation. Board of Directors meet monthly on the 3rd Tuesday, 6pm, in the first floor Conference Room located at 2101 S. Main St., Little Rock. Meetings are open to the public.

As a listener supported, non-profit 501(c)3 organization, all donations and underwriting subscriptions are tax deductible.

KABF 88.3 "Voice of the People," began broadcasting from Little Rock on August 31, 1984. Pieced together with discarded equipment, by 1990 the station's unique sprit and format were making national news.
 
“This is radio where the public decides what it wants to hear, and then plays it,” commented Tom Brokaw on the NBC Nightly News, in a feature about KABF's unconventional grass-roots approach where all the disk jockeys, program producers, broadcast engineers and administrative personnell  are volunteers.
 
“Most of the stations will only play what the big dollars will push,” Dale Hawkins (who recorded the top-hit “Suzy-Q” in 1957) said of the station's significance in 1990, and his words ring doubly true today. KABF's 'all volunteer structure' and community-mindedness remain a precious anomoly in a world of privatized, profit-driven mega-media.
 
Still, as KABF Program Director John Cain will tell you, it's not easy keeping an all-volunteer boat afloat these days. To keep all the wires connected, technology running, office equipment maintained and utility bills paid takes considerable dollars on top of a quantum investment of energy, skill, dedication, perseverance and time, too often leaving too much undone. 
 
That's why plans are in the works for a KABF 'broadcast technology upgrade and makeover', details of which will be announced soon. 
 
In the meantime, the 'all volunteer' programming Cain oversees will keep on going out to listeners, not only in Little Rock but all around the world on the station's Internet livestream.

MORE ABOUT KABF

August 2010 SYNC: Radio Free Little Rock
KABF Turns 20
Radio Station Information
FCC Data

PICTORIAL of the 2013 VALENTINE'S DAY MEET & GREET at the ARKANSAS STATE CAPITOL ROTUNDA

"Voice of the People"
updated February 24, 2013
 

A BIT OF KABF HISTORY
by Radio Journalist Michael Hibblen

"KABF was the first radio station I would broadcast on," writes Michael Hibblin (pictured at right). "Hosting a weekly alternative rock show called Radios In Motion. The 100,000 watt station had a signal that covered much of Arkansas and featured more than 100 volunteer program hosts like myself, offering a wide range of music and talk not heard on other radio stations in the state. It offered the incredible freedom of essentially being able to play anything you want on the air." [READ MORE]

Photo above: Michael Hibblen, (sitting in front of the control board) with longtime co-hosts Louisa Rook and Thad Gilbert, taken by Arkansas Gazette photographer Ellen Black in August 1990 as the newspaper was preparing a story about the station.