KTLK
 | |
| Broadcast area | Minneapolis–Saint Paul |
|---|---|
| Frequency | 1130kHz |
| Branding | News/Talk AM 1130 |
| Programming | |
| Language(s) | English |
| Format | Conservative talk radio |
| Affiliations | |
| Ownership | |
| Owner |
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| History | |
First air date | December 23, 1923 |
Former call signs |
|
Former frequencies |
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Call signmeaning | "Talk" |
| Technical information[1] | |
Licensing authority | FCC |
| Facility ID | 59961 |
| Class | B |
| Power |
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Transmitter coordinates | 44°38′48″N93°23′31″W/ 44.64667°N 93.39194°W |
| Translator(s) | 103.5K278BP (Cottage Grove) |
| Repeater(s) | 100.3KFXN-HD2(Minneapolis) |
| Links | |
Public license information | |
| Webcast | Listen Live |
| Website | twincitiesnewstalk |
KTLK(1130kHz) – brandedNews/Talk AM 1130– is acommercialAMradio stationlicensedtoMinneapolis, Minnesota.It broadcasts aConservative talk radioradio formatto theTwin Citiesradio marketand is owned byiHeartMedia, Inc.Theradio studiosare on Utica Avenue South inSt. Louis Park.
By day, KTLK is powered at the maximum for AM stations, 50,000watts,and uses adirectional antennaat all times. At night, to avoid interference with other stations on1130 AM,it reduces power to 25,000 watts and uses a nine-tower array.Thetransmitteris on Flag Trail at Prairie Hills Lane inPrior Lake.[2]Programming is also heard onFM translatorK278BP at 103.5MHzinCottage Grove.[3]It is alsosimulcastover anHDdigital subchannelofKFXN-FM100.3 MHz.
History
[edit]Early years
[edit]KTLK is the second-oldest continuously operating station inMinnesota,dating to December 23, 1923, when Dr. George W. Youngsigned onhis station with theCall signKFMT. (KUOMbegan operation in 1922.)
Dr. Young first operated the station from his house in Minneapolis at 2219 Bryant Ave. North, cycling through the call signs WHAT, WGWY ( "W-George W. Young" ), and finally WDGY ( "W-Dr. George Young" ) in the next two years until being chastised by the government for changing too frequently. The station kept the WDGY call letters until 1991. WDGY operated on eight frequencies over its early years.[4]In the 1930s, it was heard on1180 AM,transmitting with 5,000wattsby day and 1,000 watts at night.[5]The station shared time with at least four local stations, includingWRHMandWCALduring its early years.
After moving out of his home, Young located the station's studios at several locations: his storefront at909 West Broadway in Minneapolis,the West Hotel on Hennepin at 5th Street and 609 South Second Avenue. Minnesota nativeGeorge Putnambegan his broadcasting career at WDGY in 1934. Putnam later gained fame as a Los Angeles television news anchor and talk show host. In 1938, WDGY relocated its studios to theNicollet Hotelat Washington Avenue and Nicollet Avenue after WCCO had vacated the facility for new studios at Second Avenue South and Seventh Street.
Move to 1130 AM
[edit]WDGY made its final move on the dial to 1130 AM in 1941 as required by theNorth American Regional Broadcasting Agreement(NARBA), under which most American, Canadian and Mexican AM radio stations changed frequencies.[6]Transmitter sites are known to have been at Young's house, at the Broadway address and from 1927 to 1949 at Superior Boulevard and Falvey Cross Road in St. Louis Park on the grounds of a fox farm. Dr. Young died on April 27, 1945.[7]
Later studio locations included Bloomington (two locations), 611 Frontenac Place in St. Paul and, in 2004 at theClear Channel Communicationsconsolidated offices in St. Louis Park at 1600 Utica Avenue. The transmitter site moved in 1949 to Bloomington at a site that would within a decade overlook I-35W, using a vast 9-tower array.
TV experiments
[edit]In 1933, Dr. Young was granted a license for W9XAT, an experimentalmechanical televisionstation that is credited with the first telecast in Minnesota. It is believed that the first transmission of the 45-line system occurred on August 4 of that year, featuring a handshake between WDGY station personalityClellan Cardand Minneapolis mayorWilliam Kunze.Later on, 120- or 125-line tests were done on theVHFband. The station pushed the technological limits of mechanical scanning and provided a lot of interesting exercises for WDGY engineers, but Dr. Young never got into regular broadcasts, as he did not want attention from radio hobbyists. The license for W9XAT expired in 1938, partly because mechanical television development was discouraged by that point. After 64 years of dormancy, anamateur radiogroup in the area acquired the W9XAT call sign in 2002 with the intention of using it for mechanical andnarrow-bandwidth TVexperiments.
Nine years after the 1945 death of Dr. Young, WDGY in 1954 flirted with modern TV, applying for Channel 9 in the Twin Cities. Also applying were competing radio stationsWLOLandKEYD.WDGY and WLOL withdrew their applications at the last minute and the new station was awarded to KEYD, going on the air in January 1955, today’sKMSP-TV.
Top 40
[edit]The station was one of the first stations in the country to programrock and rollmusic full-time, starting aTop 40format in 1956. It was then owned byTodd Storz,one of the pioneers in programming to thebaby boom generationwith some of its music rarely heard on "white" radio stations. Storz's stations were heavy on promotion, headline-grabbing contests, and high-profiledisc jockeys,using echo-chamber voice processing. Other Twin Cities station owners resented the attention WDGY received, but several jumped on the Top 40 bandwagon. Storz is credited with energizing radio at a time when network programming was moving to television.
WDGY gained the nicknameWeegeeafter a time, a sounding out of the call letters. By the 1960s, the station didn't use the name itself, but the name stuck among people in the radio industry. From about 1955 to 1977, WDGY competed for youthful listeners with AM stationsKSTPandKDWB,thoughWCCOremained the top station in the Twin Cities, with a mixture ofmiddle of the roadmusic (MOR), talk, news, sports and farm reports.
Country music
[edit]As the 1970s ended, young listeners began switching to theFM bandto hear contemporary music. That prompted WDGY to change to acountry musicformat on September 2, 1977.[8]The only other stations playing country in Minneapolis were KTCR,AM 690andFM 97.1.The AM was adaytimerpowered at only 500 watts and the FM's tower was only 150 feet tall, limiting both stations in coverage area.
In 1982, WDGY's sister FM station, 102.1KEEY,flipped to a country format as well. The AM station specialized in personality and several decades of country music, while the FM kept chatter to a minimum and played mostly contemporary country hits. In 1984, WDGY and KEEY were acquired by theMalrite Communications Group.
Talk and sports
[edit]The country format continued until April 16, 1990, when the station became "News Talk 1130, WDGY."[9][10]Just prior to this, WDGY became the inauguralflagshipstation for the expansionMinnesota TimberwolvesNBAteam. The talk format gradually added more sports programming until the station had switched to full-timesports talk.The call letters were changed to KFAN in 1991. Following this change, the WDGY call letters were moved to the 630 kHz frequency in August 1991, which was formerly KDWB (nowWREY). In 2000, KFAN and KEEY were acquired byClear Channel Communications,the forerunner to current owner iHeartMedia.[11]
KFAN experienced severe storm damage in April 2004 at its transmission site, when four of the nine towers at itsdirectional arrayinCredit River Township(nearPrior Lake, Minnesota) fell down.
Translator station
[edit]On August 22, 2010, KFAN's programming begansimulcastingon 103.7 FM usingtranslator stationK279AZ. The translator broadcast from a tower atop theIDS Center.It previously was owned by theEducational Media Foundation,which used the signal to broadcast itsK-LOVEChristian contemporarynetwork prior to the translator's move fromCottage Grove.
Within weeks of the upgrade, however, complaints were filed with theFederal Communications Commission(FCC) by listeners ofKLZZ( "the Loon" ) in St. Cloud, also at 103.7 FM. Because translators are a secondary service, a translator's owner must either immediately fix the problem or shut the translator down. As a result of the interference complaints, on September 24, K279AZ's power was significantly reduced and the translator moved to 103.5 underSpecial Temporary Authority(STA) from the FCC, and would change call letters to K278BP.
Frequency switch
[edit]On August 8, 2011,Clear Channel Communicationsannounced a two-way frequency swap flipping KFAN and KTLK-FM, effective August 15: KTLK-FM's talk format moved to AM 1130, while KFAN's sports programming moved to KTLK-FM's former frequency, 100.3 FM. FM listeners in Minneapolis, St. Paul and adjacent communities would be able to hear KTLK on FM, by listening to the translator station on 102.5 MHz (though this would later change to the aforementioned K279AZ).[12]
KTLK-FM
[edit]In 2006, Clear Channel Communications decided to launch atalk radiostation in the Twin Cities, in order to take advantage of itsPremiere Radio Networkssyndicationarm and the company's recent launch ofFox News Radio.Clear Channel informedAM 1500KSTPthat it would not renew its contract to carryThe Rush Limbaugh Showand it eventually did the same with KSTP's carriage ofSean Hannity.(After losing Limbaugh and Hannity, KSTP shortly switched to aSports radioformat.) Clear Channel decided to put a talk format using these and other Premiere Network hosts on one of its Twin Cities FM signals, choosing to discontinuesmooth jazzon 100.3 FM.
On January 2, 2006, the company switched KJZI to talk, becoming the second commercial FM talk station in the area after female-oriented talk stationWFMP.The new call letters on 100.3 were KTLK-FM. When KFAN and KTLK swapped formats and frequencies in August 2011, the KTLK call sign, however, did not move to 1130 because the KTLK call letters were already on a sister station inLos Angeles.Clear Channel instead chose the call sign KTCN for 1130. In early 2014, the Los Angeles station switched to the call lettersKEIB,with 1130 adopting the KTLK calls on January 8, 2014.
Programming
[edit]KTLK personalities Jon Justice and Andrew Lee hosted the weekday morningdrive timeprogram,Justice and Drew,until Andrew's sudden death on June 25, 2022. Jon Justice continues hosting the program solo. The rest of the weekday schedule comes fromnationally syndicatedshows, mostly from co-ownedPremiere Networks:The Glenn Beck Radio Program,Clay Travis&Buck Sexton,The Sean Hannity Show,Joe Pags(fromsister stationWOAISan Antonio),Jesse Kelly,Coast to Coast AMwithGeorge NooryandThis Morning, America's First News with Gordon Deal(viaCompass Media Networks).
Weekends feature shows on money, health, home repair, real estate, law, the military and technology, some of which arebrokered programming.Weekend syndicated shows includeBen Ferguson,Bill Cunningham,Kim Kommando,Gary SullivanandBill Handel.National news comes fromFox News RadioandNBC News Radio.
See also
[edit]- KFAN Antenna Network
- Transmitter Visit of KFAN
- KTCN (KFAN) Transmitter Site Tour and WDGY Transmitter Site Historical photos,courtesy former KFAN Chief Engineer Aaron White.
- WDGY call sign and technical history timelime,courtesy former KFAN Chief Engineer Aaron White
- University of Minnesota 1970 thesis on the history of WDGY at radiotapes
- Twin Cities Civil Defense Manual, circa 1951-53,courtesy Mark Durenberger
- WDGY brochure featuring the Happy Hollow Boys, approximately 1930at radiotapes
- St. Louis Park Historical Society Twin Cities radio history
- Rick Burnett's Twin Cities Radio Airchecks.ComHas old photos and airchecks of many of the WDGY 1960's and 1970's DJ's
- Dismantling of WDGY tower at 909 West Broadway, Minneapolis, 1947from MN Historical Society
- RadiotapesMany historic airchecks of WDGY dating back to 1938
- 1933 Modern Mechanix & Inventions magazine article about television authored by Dr. Young
- W9XAT: The Twin City Experimental Amateur Television Society
- Historical reference to 1954 applications for TV channel 9 by WDGY Radio and WLOL Radio,Box Office Magazine, April 24, 1954, page 71
References
[edit]- ^"Facility Technical Data for KTLK".Licensing and Management System.Federal Communications Commission.
- ^"KTLK-AM 1130 kHz - Minneapolis, MN".radio-locator.
- ^"K278BP-FM 103.5 MHz - Cottage Grove, MN".radio-locator.
- ^"History".KFAN Transmitter Tour.Archived fromthe originalon January 20, 2008.RetrievedApril 2,2010.
- ^Broadcasting Yearbook 1935 page 38
- ^Broadcasting Yearbook 1943 page 106
- ^"Billboard".May 5, 1945.
- ^Broadcasting Yearbook 1980 page C-121
- ^"WDGY Flips To News/Talk"(PDF).R&R.April 20, 1990. p. 4 – via worldradiohistory.
- ^Broadcasting Yearbook 1991 page B-176
- ^Broadcasting & Cable Yearbook 2002-2003 page D-240
- ^"Make The Switch".twincitiesnewstalk.Archived fromthe originalon January 27, 2013.
External links
[edit]- News/Talk 1130 website
- Facility details for Facility ID 59961 (KTLK)in theFCCLicensing and Management System
- KTLKinNielsen Audio's AM station database
- FCC History Cards for KTLK
- Facility details for Facility ID 142412 (K278BP)in theFCCLicensing and Management System
- K278BPat FCCdata.org