New Tejano Station Brings San Angelo to the Big City

There is Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, there’s George Strait, country royalty, and then there’s Emilio.

“There’s no difference. They play at the same level,” said Tony Cuellar, founder of San Angelo’s newest Latin radio station KQTC-FM.

Cuellar explained how likely it is to tune into a station locally and hear a song by Michael Jackson or George Strait, but for a while you could not find Tejano artist Emilio Navaira’s music on the air.

“All the other people who like him and this type of music were being left out,” he said. 

Q99.5 (KQTC-FM) officially launched in May in order to fill this void in the San Angelo area. The station is based in Eldorado and has a broadcast radius reaching Ballinger, Junction and as far west as Fort Stockton.

“Well it’s a new voice for the Concho Valley. It’s new for the Latinos, but not even only for the Latinos,” Cuellar said. 

He says his format is unique, as you don’t see music from different decades and different genres being played by one station.

“For the longest time, I thought if I got the radio station, I want to do a little bit of everything, this way everyone can listen to it,” Cuellar said.  “They don’t have to sit there and listen to something they don’t relate to. Either you grew up in my era or you’re younger or older, we’re playing everything.”

Cuellar said as a kid he listened to artists like Ruben Ramos and Little Joe, what he calls his parent’s music, and their parent’s music.

“My kids they don’t know anything about Tejano music,” he said. “They aren’t teaching the new generation who these artists are. But I cannot allow it to stop here with me. I have to continue showing them.”

In order to bring in a wider audience, Cuellar says he teases the music with a mix of country, pop and a little bit of hip-hop.

“A lot of people look at it like it’s a nondirectional radio because they don’t know which way we are going,” he said. “We know which way we are going. For my kids to listen they would have to hear Bruno Mars, and then here comes a cumbia, or here comes a polka, and now they’re singing right along with that music too…It’s just because if you hit it with straight Tejano it’s not going to work.”

Although there are other Spanish radio stations in the area, Cuellar said after 20 years of not having a Tejano station, KQTC-FM is representing a different group and is becoming not only a bridge between generations, but between cultures.

“To me it’s very important because you know we aren't from Mexico, we’re from Texas. We have a different style,” he said.

Raul Torres, one of the station’s DJs said, “Before I started here I was familiar with the big names like Selena and the Kumbia Kings, but I’ve learned there’s so much more.”

Torres, a Cuban American from the Miami area, said that in his experience in radio he has not seen such a passionate group of people like the Tejano listeners.

“Maybe it’s because there hasn't been anything for them in a while,” he said. “If they wanted to hear their music they had to look for it somewhere else, find it online.”

Cuellar said when he hired Torres, he hired him for his personality.

“I told him, ‘don’t change who you are’. If you can talk a little Spanish then throw it in there, but just be who you are, that’s what’s going to make us,”

Cuellar said the station is more Spanglish than it is bilingual, much like its audience.

“The listeners tell me, ‘man, y’all got it sounding like San Antonio, like the bigger city,’” Cuellar said. “It’s because I’m bringing in these people and I tell them to stay with your style and just play the music.”

Cuellar also credits San Angelo native Jason Meza’s involvement with the station for its quick uprising.

“He had a dream to work and had an opportunity to work at KXTN, the biggest Tejano station in San Antonio, and now he is on hand with us leading us in the right direction,” Cuellar said. 

Cuellar, who as a teenager pursued his dream of being a DJ by working house parties until it could no longer pay the bills, said as much as everyone has contributed, the music selection is all him.

“It’s me. I’m cooking all the enchiladas, I’m cooking all the sauce and everything. They are just serving it,” he explained.

But Cuellar said initially he did not realize the technicalities behind running a radio station. When the station first hit airwaves in December 2014 to perform program testing, the broadcast would switch on and off.

“People were hearing us before we were even officially up. They would hear us go out and say, ‘oh, they aren’t going to last’. It was discouraging,” Cuellar noted. “But we aren’t going anywhere. We want to be there for the community and be another voice for the community, because it is time for San Angelo to have another voice.”

KQTC-FM is broadcasted on 99.5 FM, for more information on the station visit their website at www.q99sanangelo.com.