KALI (AM)

KALI (900 AM) is a radio station licensed to West Covina, California, with transmitter in Chino. The station is owned by Multicultural Broadcasting and broadcasts Mandarin Chinese and other ethnic programming.

Historically, KALI was KGRB, a big-band music station that remained in operation through 1995.

History

KGRB

The station was put on the air by former KTLA contract engineer Robert Burdette and his wife Gloria on September 25, 1963 (with call letters standing for Gloria and Robert Burdette). The new AM radio station, a daytimer broadcasting with 250 watts, gained an FM sister when Burdette acquired KSGV from the San Gabriel Valley Broadcasting Company and rechristened it KBOB on January 1, 1967. The stations promoted themselves as "KGRB, KBOB, The Twin Voices of The (San Gabriel) Valley". Burdette, who had once been an engineer for Tommy Dorsey and other big band artists, programmed a big band format for KGRB and the station featured a library including original 78 rpm recordings. KGRB was authorized to increase its power to 500 watts in 1975, though the higher power level did not take effect until 1977. KGRB and KBOB became only partial simulcast partners in 1977 when, to satisfy FCC regulations, KBOB programs began to originate for five hours a day from the University of La Verne campus.

In 1994, after Burdette suffered a stroke, KGRB was put into a conservatorship. Steve Ray (who had worked at KCLU, KLIT, KMPC, and KRCI) was brought in to manage the stations. He made KGRB an NBC affiliate, renaming it "AM 90 NBC". Ray was in the process of acquiring the KNBC (AM) call letters when the format ended on December 28, 1995 when court conversatorship took over.

KRRA

The conservators leased KGRB and KBOB to El Dorado Broadcasting, and KGRB reemerged at the start of 1996 with a Regional Mexican format as "El Ranchito"; a new KRRA callsign debuted on May 6. Later in 1996, El Dorado bought the combination outright, but they did not hold on to the cluster for long, selling KRTO (the renamed KBOB) to Cox Radio and then selling KRRA to Multicultural Broadcasting. On June 28, 1999, KRRA became KALI, call letters formerly associated with the 1430 AM frequency (which became KMRB).

KALI

In 2008, Multicultural was forced to place KALI in a trust, Transition Radio, when its owner, Arthur Liu, acquired KHIZ television. When Multicultural sold KYPA, it was able to reclaim the station from the trust.

References

External links

{{Multicultural Broadcasting

ALI (AM)
Radio stations established in 1963
1963 establishments in California
Mandarin-language radio stations