KDAY (93.5 FM, 93.5 KDAY) is a radio station based in Los Angeles that airs a classic hip-hop format. KDAY is owned by Meruelo Radio Holdings, LLC, and is licensed to Redondo Beach.
To fill in coverage gaps in the eastern part of the market, KDAY simulcasts with co-channel station KDEY-FM in Ontario.
The studios for KDAY are located in Burbank. KDAY's transmitter is located on a site in Baldwin Hills, while KDEY's transmitter is on Haven Mountain near Rancho Cucamonga.
Video KDAY
History
The "Original" KDAY
KDAY is a resurrection of the original AM station of the 1970s and 1980s, KDAY AM 1580, which began as a soul/R&B outlet in 1968, flipped to Top 40 a short time later, then went to album rock in 1972, only to revert to soul/R&B in January 1974. As KDAY began losing listeners to FM stations like KJLH in the early 1980s, KDAY hired Greg Mack from KMJQ in Houston as music director in 1983. Mack eventually added hip hop to its playlist to appeal to mostly young black and Latino listeners. Dr. Dre and DJ Yella Boy became the first mixer DJs at the station.
In the first ratings period under Mack's leadership, KDAY's ratings beat another Los Angeles black AM station, KGFJ, and "began to enjoy a second life as the only rap-friendly station in town and, frankly, in the entire country."
After violence in the stands forced the cancellation of an August Run-DMC show at the Long Beach Arena for the group's Raising Hell tour, KDAY organized a "Day of Peace" on October 9, 1986. In a two-hour special, KDAY featured Run-DMC, singer Barry White, and boxer Paul Gonzales appealing on rival gangs to stop feuding and opened phone lines for callers to describe gangs' impact in their communities. There were no murders or incidents of gang violence that day. Within two weeks, the Bloods and Crips, the two largest gangs in Los Angeles, signed a peace treaty.
By 1990, FM stations were playing hip hop. KDAY upgraded its sound to AM stereo, described by Dan Charnas as "sounding like two tinny AM radios playing side by side." Mack left KDAY that year to work for FM rival KJLH. Realtor Fred Sands, who also owned iconic heavy metal station KNAC, bought KDAY the next year.
At 1 p.m. on March 28, 1991, KDAY switched to a business format with call letters KBLA.
Current KDAY
KDAY was resurrected on 93.5 FM on September 20, 2004, offering a rhythmic contemporary format that emphasized on old school hip-hop, a nod to their AM heritage. In April 2006, KDAY began moving away from a Rhythmic Contemporary direction to an Urban Contemporary approach as the station refocused its target audience towards African Americans. This was probably in response to competitor KPWR tilting back from Urban to Rhythmic in order to target Hispanic listeners. Due to sinking ratings, a month later, long-time hip-hop/R&B station KKBT eliminated hip hop from the format in favor of becoming a mixture of Urban AC and urban talk programs, similar in format to KHHT and KJLH. (Only afterwards did KKBT change its calls and name to KRBV "V-100"). In addition, KDAY brought Steve Harvey on board on Memorial Day Weekend, 2006. Harvey had been released by KKBT the previous year. Weeks later, rival KKBT signed on Tom Joyner to carry his syndicated morning show there, but in December 2006, KKBT would ax Joyner due to low ratings, partly attributed to Harvey's success.
On July 23, 2007, KDAY/KDAI temporarily moved from an Urban Contemporary format to a rhythmic format under the consultancy of Harry Lyles and newly installed PD Theo. In a statement to the website All Access, Lyles commented to the changes: "I am very excited and thrilled to be working with Don McCoy, Roy Laughlin and Theo. All we're doing is playing to the taste of Los Angeles and if we play what they want, they will listen. With PPM coming, this will make things a lot more interesting in Los Angeles." The format turnback might have been spurred by Magic's sale of KWIE. The KDAY call letters were originally intended to be dropped in favor of the station changing to "Wild 93.5" and picking up KWIE calls in its place. For a time, the station only referenced itself as "93.5" on air until it could come up with a name and calls to fit the rhythmic format. This happened in July 2007, when the sale of KWIE "Wild 96.1" was completed to Liberman Broadcasting and that station became KRQB. The KWIE call letters moved to the Ontario station, which was KDAI. After the sale was completed, it turned out that the format altering was only temporary so they could have KWIE listeners in the Riverside/San Bernardino area migrate to the 93.5 signal, as KDAY reverted to urban contemporary the following August.
On April 8, 2008, Radio One inked a deal with KDAY, which saw the station pick up the former "Beat" logo and several syndicated shows from Radio One. The move came after Radio One sold KRBV to Bonneville International, who in turn dropped KRBV's Urban AC format the previous day; that station is now KKLQ. From that point, the station used the slogan "The Beat of LA," a nod to the popular hip-hop station during the 1990s and early 2000s. Michael Baisden, host of the syndicated afternoon show Love Lust and Lies, returned to Los Angeles on KDAY on August 18, 2008, as KRBV previously aired the show until the format switch.
On August 14, 2008, KDAY was upgraded from 3.4Kw to 4.2Kw, thanks to a new tower that gave the station more coverage in the metro. The new tower will replace its former one, which had been in use for fifty years. Another move was the alteration of its Mainstream Urban format, as KDAY tweaked its direction to a hybrid Urban Adult Contemporary/Urban Talk approach (a direction similar to Urban AC, but featuring current adult-friendly R&B music with and on-air talk personalities and some Hip-Hop product) targeting an 18-49 audience, with most of its programming being filled by syndicated shows during the day, except for DJ Theo's slow-jam show "Theo After Hours," which aired live from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m. weekdays. The move also ended the simulcasts of both KDAY and KWIE, as the latter flipped to an Inland Empire-focused Rhythmic Adult Contemporary format as "FLO 93.5" on the same day.
Despite the changes, there had been criticism from listeners over KDAY's decision to move away from being a station that once supported Hip-Hop and a live airstaff to one that featured syndicated shows and an Urban Adult Contemporary/Talk format, claiming that the owners had ruined the legacy of both KDAY and "The Beat".
Those upset with that new approach predicted its demise as it was already tried before (and failed) at KKBT, while also feeling that Los Angeles could not support two Adult R&B outlets (referring to KDAY's main competitor, KJLH; KHHT is a Rhythmic AC aimed at Hispanics).
According to station management, the decision to tweak the format was due to Arbitron's plans to implement the PPM in the Los Angeles radio market and where they feel they can tap into certain areas where they can attract the African American audience. The new changes resulted in R&R and BDS removing the station from the Urban reporting radio panel in its August 29, 2008 issue.
Changes
There had been hints of possible changes coming over the past several months, which became evident in its decision to replace Mo'Nique's syndicated show in October 2008 for more music-driven local content. Another move would come with Theo's exit several weeks later, with Adrian "AD" Scott becoming interim PD in addition to his Operations Manager duties. As a result, KDAY made a shift back to Urban and was reinstated to R&R/BDS' Urban panel in January 2009. The following March, KDAY re-added local air personalities to its lineup, with DJ Dense taking middays and Tha Goodfellas, who had been handling afternoons and weekends, were moved to the 7-10 pm slot. The Steve Harvey morning show was dropped on May 29, 2009, but later resurfaced on KJLH. In addition, Michael Baisden's nationally syndicated show, which aired in afternoon drive, was dropped on July 31, 2009. Keith Sweat's nationally syndicated show, The Keith Sweat Hotel, was next in line to be dropped from KDAY.
At the "Fresh Fest" concert in Downtown Los Angeles' Nokia Theatre, hints were made on stage that a full-blown format flip to resemble the original KDAY's Classic Hip Hop sound would occur on Monday, August 17, 2009 at 7:30 am, when they would drop the branding of The Beat and revert back to KDAY. The new logo was shown on all stage banners and screen graphics.
As promised, the change came that very Monday morning with Boyz II Men's End Of The Road signaling the wrap of the old format, and Snoop Dogg's Gin & Juice being the first song under the new format. Station spots in between songs indicated that the previous syndicated fare was a programming mistake that did not reflect what Los Angeles fans were looking for and that the station would "never do that again." It officially left Los Angeles as the largest market without an urban contemporary station, unseating Houston in that title. A month later, KWIE would return to simulcasting KDAY under new call letters KDEY.
In November 2009, station management at KDAY made more changes by bringing in veteran programming consultants Bill Tanner and Steve Smith to help evolve the station alongside PD Adrian Scott, new OM Brian Bridgman and new GM Zeke Chaidez. In an interview from All Access, Tanner explained what was in store for KDAY pertaining to the future adjustments for the format: "Brian, Steve and I have offered some refinements based on our many years of experience in Los Angeles ... We're just getting started with the music. We will be adding jocks and more surprises in the weeks ahead." Mixing was soon brought back to the station with the additions of DJ Mr. AD, DJ Eddy Express, DJ Class1c, and DJ Dense.
On June 7, 2015, KDAY began carrying Art Laboe's syndicated six-hour Sunday-night oldies program, "The Art Laboe Connection," which had previously been heard on KHHT until February 2015, when the station dropped its rhythmic oldies format and switched to urban as KRRL.
KDEY would drop from the KDAY simulcast again in February 2017, as that station flipped to a locally-targeting urban format as "Wild 93.5." Before the switch, Meruelo would file a special temporary authority for KDEY by reducing power to determine any possible co-channel interference issues. However, after just seven months, KDEY would return to simulcasting with KDAY for a third time on October 30, 2017.
On August 28, 2017, KDAY moved its studios to Burbank with newly acquired sister station KPWR.
Maps KDAY
Previous Logo
Competition
As of 2017, KDAY's musical direction features a mix of Classic Hip-Hop/R&B, old school, and Rhythmic throwbacks. Currently, KDAY competes with urban contemporary station KRRL and urban AC's KTWV and KJLH.
Change of ownership
On December 27, 2010, Radio-Info reported that the KDAY/KDEY simulcast had been sold by Magic Broadcasting to SoCal935, LLC for $35 million. The principal investors Warren Chang and John Hearne also have a financial stake in recent Riverside Rhythmic Top 40 station KQIE. The FCC approved the sale on December 8, 2011. However, even after three extensions of time to consummate the sale, the transfer of ownership never took place.
On April 10, 2013, Lance Venta of RadioInsight reported that KDAY/KDEY were both sold again, this time to RBC Communications, a group led by Chinese/Hong Kong broadcaster Phoenix Television and its editor-in-chief and current affairs anchor Anthony Yuen. However, on October 1, LA Weekly reported that RBC had pulled out from the deal marking the 2nd failed attempt by Magic to sell off KDAY. In May 2014, KDEY and KDAY were sold to Meruelo Radio, which also owns Los Angeles television station KWHY.
On May 9, 2017, Emmis Broadcasting sold KPWR to Meruelo Group for $82.75 million. Meruelo began operating KPWR under the new ownership in July 2017. As a result of the acquisition and retaining KPWR's Rhythmic format, air staff and management, Meruelo announced that it will move KDAY and KDEY to KPWR's Burbank studios effective with the deal, with KDAY refocusing on Classic Hip-Hop and Rhythmic throwbacks to avoid overlap.
History of 93.5 FM
The 93.5 frequency, in Redondo Beach, signed on in 1961 as KAPP and was owned by South Bay Broadcasting Company; the station was awarded after grants for KPOL-FM and KNX-FM were denied. Chuck Johnson and Lonnie Cook came to 93.5 from 103.9 in Inglewood. The frequency was shared as the signal's programming came from Redondo Beach in the daytime, and the Pop/Blues/Doo Wop/Jazz format being aired by Johnson and Cook (from Chuck's home) at night. It has been determined that their FM Top 40 chart is the oldest one known to exist. In 1960, Alan Freed, who signed off at WABC in NYC, appeared for a short while on KDAY.
The station changed its callsign to KKOP with its sale to Southern California Associated Newspapers in 1965 and began playing mellow pop music. The transmitter moved to Torrance in the 1970s. In 1978, KKOP became KFOX-FM upon its sale to the former operators of KFOX at 1280 AM (now KFRN; like its predecessor, KFOX played country music. The format in the early 1980s was an adult contemporary hit music station. In 1981-82, 93.5 KFOX employed LA's youngest disc jockey at the time, a 16-year-old student of Torrance High School, Brett Nordhoff, who later changed his on-air name to Kidd Kelly.
By 1983, KFOX had evolved into a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual format such as Radio Rangarang (Persian), Radio Omid (Persian) and Radio Naeeri (Armenian). In the mid-1990s, this became "Radio Korea USA" with an all-Korean format. This continued until 1999, when the Church of the Foursquare Gospel, which, as a condition of selling 96.3 KXOL-FM moved the KFSG call letters and format to 93.5, which was acquired by 96.3's new owners, Spanish Broadcasting System, specifically for the purpose of relocating KFSG. In 2002, the lease arrangement with Foursquare ended, and SBS switched to a Spanish-language outlet, first as KMJR ("La Mejor") and later KZAB.
See also
- KDEY-FM
References
External links
- 93.5 KDAY's official website
- Magic Broadcasting LLC official website
- Query the FCC's FM station database for KDAY
- Radio-Locator information on KDAY
- Query Nielsen Audio's FM station database for KDAY
- Steve Harvey Is Back On-the-Air in L.A.
- Current web site for Farley Malorrus former host of 93.5 FM KFOX 12 Noon
- FCC History Cards for KDAY
Source of article : Wikipedia
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