KWDZ (910 AM) was a

broadcast Broadcasting is the distribution (business), distribution of sound, audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic medium (communication), mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio ...

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 radi ...

licensed to

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

, serving the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. The station was owned and operated by iHeartMedia. The KWDZ

broadcast license A broadcast license is a type of spectrum license granting the licensee permission to use a portion of the radio frequency spectrum in a given geographical area for broadcasting purposes. The licenses generally include restrictions, which vary ...

was held by Citicasters Licenses, Inc.

History

The station was founded in 1945 and originally held the callsign KALL. It was originally owned by Mr. and Mrs. George C. Hatch and Mr. and Mrs. Robert H. Hinkley. In 1946, John F. Fitzpatrick, publisher of '' The Salt Lake Tribune'' (owned by the Kearns Corporation), representing the Tribune, purchased fifty percent interest in the station from the owners. The Tribune's interest (Kearns-Tribune, Corp.) sold its interest in 1954 to permit its owner (Kearns-Tribune, Corp.) to apply for a license to buy a television license and to purchase a fifty percent ownership in

KUTV KUTV (channel 2) is a television station in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, affiliated with CBS. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside independent station (North America), independent station KJZZ-TV (channel 14 ...

Channel 2. KALL had long aired a

full service Full service or Full Service may refer to: * Full-service radio, a wide range of programming * Full Service Network, a communications company Entertainment * "Full Service", a song by the New Kids on the Block from their album ''The Block'' * Fu ...

format. In the early 1990s, the station began airing a news/talk format, carrying programming such as '' The Rush Limbaugh Show'' and '' The G. Gordon Liddy Show''. The station's ownership changed several times during the 1990s;Sale splits KALL radio between 2 new owners - Deseret News
/ref> in 1992, Communications Investment Corp. sold the station to Apollo Radio Partners, owner of KKAT, ending George C. Hatch's ownership of KALL. Apollo Radio sold its stations to Regent Communications in 1995; Regent, in turn, sold its stations to Jacor in 1997. Jacor merged with

Clear Channel Communications iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...

in 1999. On March 6, 2000, the station's format was adjusted when its sister station KNRS adopted a talk radio format, and the station adopted the slogan "talk radio with an attitude", carrying hosts such as Jim Bohannon and Phil Hendrie. Clear Channel sold KALL to Mercury Broadcasting Company after its 2001 acquisition of KTVX brought them over ownership limits; it continued to sell advertising on the station under a joint sales agreement. In 2003, Disney/ABC purchased the station for $3,700,000, while the intellectual property and callsign was purchased by Clear Channel Communications for $2,000,000.Lynn Arave,
Radio dial: A Utah radio first: separate deals on content, frequency
, ''

Deseret News The ''Deseret News'' () is the oldest continuously operating publication in the American west. Its multi-platform products feature journalism and commentary across the fields of politics, culture, family life, faith, sports, and entertainment. Th ...

'', February 28, 2003. Accessed August 20, 2015 Disney/ABC bought the station to clear its Radio Disney network, which was about to be dropped by previous affiliate

KBEE KBEE (98.7 FM), branded as B98.7, is a commercial radio station in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is one of the oldest FM stations in the Western United States, tracing its history to 1947. The station is owned by Cumulus Media, and it airs an ad ...

. Clear Channel moved KALL's talk programming and the KALL callsign to 700 kHz, and on April 30, 2003, the station changed its call sign to KWDZ. In June 2013, Disney put KWDZ and six other Radio Disney stations in medium markets up for sale, in order to refocus the network's broadcast distribution on top-25 markets. On August 17, 2013, KWDZ dropped the Radio Disney affiliation and went silent. After almost one year, KWDZ resumed operations on August 14, 2014. Initially broadcasting locally originated automated programming upon its return to the air, Radio Disney programming returned sometime around late September 2014. By that time, Disney had announced plans to sell all but

one 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

of Radio Disney's remaining 23 owned-and-operated stations. Originally planning to sign-off the stations on September 26, 2014, Disney later decided to keep the stations on the air until they were sold. On May 29, 2015, Radio Disney Group filed an application to sell KWDZ to the Citicasters Licenses, Inc. subsidiary of iHeartMedia (the former Clear Channel Communications). iHeart bought KWDZ (and WRDZ-FM) for $1.95 million. The sale was approved by the FCC on July 14, 2015. The sale was completed on July 17, 2015 and the station went silent again. Following temporary operations in May 2016 and April 2017, iHeartMedia surrendered the KWDZ license on April 25, 2018; the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisd ...

cancelled it on June 26, 2018.

References

External links

FCC Station Search Details: DKWDZ
(Facility ID: 2445)
FCC History Cards for KWDZ
(covering 1944-1980 as KALL) {{IHeartMedia Mass media in Salt Lake City IHeartMedia radio stations WDZ Radio stations established in 1945 1945 establishments in Utah Radio stations disestablished in 2018 2018 disestablishments in Utah Defunct radio stations in the United States WDZ Former subsidiaries of The Walt Disney Company