KHQ was the second Seattle station licensed following the formal establishment of a broadcasting service category on December 1, 1921, by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the regulators of radio at this time. The first Seattle station licensed under these new regulations was KFC on December 8, 1921, which was operated jointly by the Northern Radio and Electric Company and the "Post-Intelligencer" newspaper. A third Seattle station, Vincent I. Kraft's KJR received its broadcasting station license on March 9, 1922. However Kraft had begun broadcasting over an experimental station beginning in 1920. Thus, when KHQ debuted it was described by a local newspaper as "the third broadcaster".