KJLH (102.3
FM) is an
urban adult contemporary
Urban adult contemporary, often abbreviated as urban AC or UAC, (also known as adult R&B,) is the name for a format of radio music, similar to an urban contemporary format. Radio stations using this format usually would not have hip hop music on ...
radio station
Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
serving the
Los Angeles area
Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Cou ...
. It plays R&B and classic soul music under the format, and occasionally plays some hip-hop, gospel and smooth jazz tracks. Licensed to the Los Angeles suburb of
Compton, California
Compton is a city in southern Los Angeles County, California, United States, situated south of downtown Los Angeles. Compton is one of the oldest cities in the county and, on May 11, 1888, was the eighth city in Los Angeles County to incorporat ...
, the station is owned by
Taxi Productions, which in turn is owned by Stevie Wonder. It operates with an
effective radiated power
Effective radiated power (ERP), synonymous with equivalent radiated power, is an IEEE standardized definition of directional radio frequency (RF) power, such as that emitted by a radio transmitter. It is the total power in watts that would hav ...
of 5.6
kW from a transmitter site in a portion of unincorporated Los Angeles County in
View Park-Windsor Hills
A view is a sight or prospect or the ability to see or be seen from a particular place.
View, views or Views may also refer to:
Common meanings
* View (Buddhism), a charged interpretation of experience which intensely shapes and affects thou ...
, and operates from its studios in
Inglewood.
History
The 102.3 signal was originally licensed to
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California.
Incorporate ...
with the callsign KFOX-FM consisting of a
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...
format; upon a 1961 sale to the Illinois-California Broadcasting Co., the callsign was changed to KILB.
In 1965,
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
businessman John Lamar Hill, then-owner of the
Angelus Funeral Home
Angelus Funeral Home is a funeral home in South Los Angeles, California. It was listed as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2006 and on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. In 1925, Angelus Funeral Home was the first Black ...
based in
South Los Angeles
South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of downtown.
It is "defined on Los Angeles city maps as ...
, bought KILB from the previous owners. It was relaunched as KJLH with a Black radio format consisting of smooth R&B, soul, jazz and
MOR music. Not long after Hill took ownership, KJLH's transmitter was moved from Long Beach to its current location to give better signal coverage to the growing African American community in Los Angeles (as well as Compton and Inglewood), and the city of license was relocated to Compton. For years, the station's original studios were based in the
Crenshaw district, just north of present-day
Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza
Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza (alternately BHCP) is a shopping mall located in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. This was one of the first regional shopping centers in the United States built specifically for the automo ...
shopping mall
A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...
, and next door to the Angelus Funeral Home on
Crenshaw Boulevard
Crenshaw Boulevard is a north-south thoroughfare in Los Angeles, California, that runs through Crenshaw and other neighborhoods along a 23-mile (37.76 km) route in the west-central part of the city.
The street extends between Wilshire Bouleva ...
, near 39th Street.
In 1979, after 14 years of ownership, Hill sold KJLH to R&B/pop/soul musician
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...
for more than $2 million; he created a separate
corporation
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...
, Taxi Productions, for the purposes of purchasing and managing the station away from his other business affairs. Under this change of ownership, Wonder gave KJLH its on-air slogan to match the call letters: "Kindness, Joy, Love & Happiness."
[https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Other-Documments/LA-Radio-Guide/LA-Radio-Guide-1997-01-02.pdf ] It also transitioned its format to
urban contemporary
Urban contemporary music, also known as urban music, hip hop, urban pop, or just simply urban, is a music radio format. The term was coined by New York radio DJ Frankie Crocker in the early to mid-1970s as a synonym for Black music. Urban contem ...
at the time. To date, even in spite of two different ownership phases, KJLH is the oldest African American-owned radio station on the
West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
.
During its first eight years, KJLH enjoyed modest success as a R&B/Urban station, and a had great familiarity with the African-American community. However, it was hampered by the fact that the station was on a Class-A FM signal; it only broadcast at 2,250 watts, limiting the signal to the central and southern portions of Los Angeles County (including Downtown and South Central Los Angeles), while in other areas like the San Fernando Valley, the signal would be weak or non-existent, depending on where the station can be picked up with a strong antenna. (KJLH received a signal upgrade to 5,600 watts in 2000.)
From the late 1970s up to the late 1980s, they were one of five R&B/Urban stations in the market that targeted the African-American community, along with AMs
KGFJ and
KDAY
KDAY (93.5 FM, "93.5 KDAY") is a radio station that is licensed to Redondo Beach, California and serves the Greater Los Angeles area. The station is owned by Meruelo Media and airs a classic hip hop format. The station's studios are located in ...
, and FMs
KACE and
KUTE. Of the four that have since flipped formats, only the KDAY calls have since been revived, but on the FM dial, and like KJLH, they also have limited signal coverage.
In 1986, KJLH would pick up an unlikely competitor that would deal them their first major blow:
KPWR
KPWR (105.9 FM) – branded as ''Power 106'' – is a commercial radio station in Los Angeles, California, broadcasting to the Greater Los Angeles area. KPWR is owned and operated by Meruelo Group and airs a Rhythmic Hot AC format. KPWR's studio ...
. When that station debuted, Wonder retaliated by cutting new imaging and liners in the hopes of retaining their listener base, but that tactic backfired as they began to see its audience going over to the full-powered "Power 106", and would never recover.
Its second setback would be the 1990 debut of
KKBT, whose evolution to an R&B/soul/hip hop direction would result in KJLH going into a more Mainstream Urban direction in 1992 under the programing of Frankie Ross (who was terminated from the station in late 2003), and renamed the station ''KJLH Rhythm 102.3'', but that tactic backfired also. KJLH went through a great deal of turmoil as it struggled with poor ratings during 1993–95. In November 1995, former morning jock Cliff Winston was appointed to PD and bought KJLH into its current urban AC direction, and increased its playlist with urban smooth jazz crossovers, R&B oldies, current R&B and gospel crossovers. In addition, KJLH would embrace the growing neo-soul music genre at the time.
KJLH would get more competition in 2001, when KCMG dropped rhythmic oldies to become KHHT. That move would lead to rumors that KJLH would flip to an all-
gospel music
Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music, and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is com ...
format, but the station decided not to make a format change. In 2006, the rumors came back once again, as KKBT dropped their R&B/hip-hop direction to go adult R&B (and six months later, change their calls to KRBV and adopt new branding), giving the market three stations with the same format (KRBV is now
Contemporary Christian
Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is o ...
-formatted
KKLQ).
Despite the setbacks, KJLH has maintained serving the community in addition to its longtime audience. It has an extensive lineup of religious programming, including gospel music weekday mornings and all day Sundays. KJLH is also the only adult R&B station with a continuous live and local air staff. In addition, most of KJLH's on air staff has been with KJLH longer than former rivals KHHT and especially KRBV, which have seen multiple turnovers. Both KHHT and KRBV abandoned the format in the late 2000s.
KJLH became the third overall urban radio station in Los Angeles to carry ''
The Steve Harvey Morning Show
''The Steve Harvey Morning Show'' is a national radio program which is currently broadcast from Los Angeles. The nationally syndicated show features host Steve Harvey and a team of comedians and commentators.
The show runs approximately four ...
'' on August 10, 2009; this comes after KDAY dropped the show. The former KKBT was the original home of the Steve Harvey Morning Show when it started out as a local show.
As of
2009
File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...
, when
KDAY
KDAY (93.5 FM, "93.5 KDAY") is a radio station that is licensed to Redondo Beach, California and serves the Greater Los Angeles area. The station is owned by Meruelo Media and airs a classic hip hop format. The station's studios are located in ...
flipped to classic hip-hop, KJLH added more
hip-hop in the playlist, still classifying the station as
urban adult contemporary
Urban adult contemporary, often abbreviated as urban AC or UAC, (also known as adult R&B,) is the name for a format of radio music, similar to an urban contemporary format. Radio stations using this format usually would not have hip hop music on ...
. In August 2009, KJLH tweaked towards a rhythmic-leaning urban AC direction for a brief period, and dropped a majority of the urban jazz content that they used to focus on for much of the 1990s and early 2000s, to satisfy the younger end of its listener base. KJLH also briefly added hip hop artists such as
J. Cole
Jermaine Lamarr Cole (born January 28, 1985) is an American rapper and record producer. Born on a military base in Germany and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Cole initially gained recognition as a rapper following the release of his d ...
,
Drake
Drake may refer to:
Animals
* A male duck
People and fictional characters
* Drake (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the family name
* Drake (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* ...
,
Lil' Wayne
Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. (born September 27, 1982), known professionally as Lil Wayne, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record executive. His career began in 1995, at the age of 12, when he was signed by rapper Birdman (rapper), ...
,
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter (born December 4, 1969), known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and founder of Manhattan-based conglomerate talent and entertainment agency Roc Nation. He is regarded as one of ...
, and
Nicki Minaj
Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty (; born December 8, 1982), known professionally as Nicki Minaj ( ), is a Trinidadian-born rapper based in the United States. She is known for her musical versatility, animated flow in her rapping, alter egos and accent ...
to its playlist to fill a void for urban hip hop audiences, as KPWR has long since refocused its audience target to Latinos with its rhythmic format; it later on scaled back on most hip hop titles with KRRL's debut in 2015. As of November 2013, KJLH faces new competition with
KTWV
KTWV (94.7 FM) is a commercial radio station licensed to Los Angeles, California, and broadcasting to the Greater Los Angeles area. The station is owned by Audacy, Inc., and airs an urban adult contemporary radio format. KTWV has studios on ...
, which has evolved from
smooth jazz
Smooth jazz is a genre of commercially-oriented crossover jazz and easy listening music that became dominant in the mid 1970s to the early 1990s.
History
Smooth jazz is a commercially oriented, crossover jazz which came to prominence in the 19 ...
to a pop-driven urban AC direction.
KJLH celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015.
References
External links
Station website
{{coord, 33.998, N, 118.360, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title
JLH
Urban adult contemporary radio stations in the United States
Compton, California
Radio stations established in 1951
1951 establishments in California
Stevie Wonder