KDWN (720
AM) is a
commercial
Commercial may refer to:
* a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television)
** Radio advertisement
** Television advertisement
* (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...
radio station in
Las Vegas, Nevada, owned and operated by
Audacy, Inc.
Audacy, Inc. is an American broadcasting company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1968 as Entercom Communications Corporation, it is the second largest radio company in the United States, owning 235 radio stations across 48 media ...
. The station pronounces its
call letter
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...
s as "K-Dawn." The station's studios are located in the unincorporated
Clark County area of
Spring Valley. Programming is
simulcast on 250-
watt FM translator station
A broadcast relay station, also known as a satellite station, relay transmitter, broadcast translator (U.S.), re-broadcaster (Canada), repeater (two-way radio) or complementary station (Mexico), is a broadcast transmitter which repeats (or tran ...
K268CS at 101.5
MHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...
.
KDWN airs a
talk radio format. It runs several
nationally syndicated
Broadcast syndication is the practice of leasing the right to broadcasting television shows and radio programs to multiple television stations and radio stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in the United States where ...
conservative talk
Conservative talk radio is a talk radio format in the United States and other countries devoted to expressing conservative viewpoints of issues, as opposed to progressive talk radio. The definition of conservative talk is generally broad enoug ...
hosts, along with local shows, most of which are
brokered programming
Brokered programming (also known as time-buy and blocktime) is a form of broadcast content in which the show's producer pays a radio or television station for air time, rather than exchanging programming for pay or the opportunity to play spot comm ...
. National hosts include
Brian Kilmeade
Brian Kilmeade (born May 7, 1964) is an American television and radio presenter and political commentator for Fox News. On weekdays he co-hosts the morning show, ''Fox & Friends'', and he hosts the Fox News Radio program ''The Brian Kilmeade Show ...
,
Sean Hannity
Sean Patrick Hannity (born December 30, 1961) is an American talk show host, conservative political commentator, and author. He is the host of '' The Sean Hannity Show'', a nationally syndicated talk radio show, and has also hosted a comment ...
and
Mark Levin. Other hours are devoted to money, health, real estate and sports. In most cases, the local hosts pay for their time on the air and are permitted to run their own advertising. Most hours on weekdays begin with world and national news from
Fox News Radio. A local staff provides
Nevada news, weather and traffic. Weather coverage is supplied by
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are ...
Network affiliate KSNV
KSNV (channel 3) is a television station in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, affiliated with NBC. It is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group alongside dual CW/MyNetworkTV affiliate KVCW (channel 33). Both stations share studios on Foremaster Lan ...
.
KDWN's original 50,000-
watt transmitter was on Galleria Drive in
Henderson Henderson may refer to:
People
* Henderson (surname), description of the surname, and a list of people with the surname
*Clan Henderson, a Scottish clan
Places Argentina
*Henderson, Buenos Aires
Australia
*Henderson, Western Australia
Canada
* ...
, and was nondirectional in the day and used three inline towers to produce a directional night signal nulled toward
WGN (AM) on the same channel in
Chicago. In 2020, it moved to a new site shared with
KXST on North Sloan Lane in
North Las Vegas
North Las Vegas is a suburban city in Clark County, Nevada, United States, in the Las Vegas Valley. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 216,961, with an estimated population of 251,974 in 2019. The city was incorporated on May 1, 19 ...
. Currently, KDWN broadcasts with 25,000 wats during daytime hours and 7,500 watts at night, still protecting WGN with an asymmetrical three-tower pattern. While the old nighttime signal could be heard throughout most of the
Western United States, north into
Canada and south into
Mexico., the new signal is more economical, continuing to cover the same metro with less spent power. KDWN also broadcasts using
HD radio technology and is heard on the HD3
digital subchannel of co-owned
KMXB
KMXB (94.1 FM, "Mix 94-1") is a commercial radio station licensed to Henderson, Nevada, and serving the Las Vegas radio market. KMXB airs a hot adult contemporary radio format and is owned by Audacy, Inc. The station's studios and offices ...
in
Henderson Henderson may refer to:
People
* Henderson (surname), description of the surname, and a list of people with the surname
*Clan Henderson, a Scottish clan
Places Argentina
*Henderson, Buenos Aires
Australia
*Henderson, Western Australia
Canada
* ...
. KDWN is
Southern Nevada
Southern Nevada (SNV) is a region and the southern portion of the U.S. state of Nevada which includes the Las Vegas Valley. It also includes the areas in and around Pahrump and Pioche. Tonopah and Hawthorne are sometimes also referred to as par ...
's primary entry point station for the
Emergency Alert System.
History
From music station to talk radio
KDWN first came on the air on April 7, 1975. It was founded by A.J. Williams and Jack Reeder. Williams owned
KTYM
KTYM (1460 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a Spanish language Catholic radio format from ESNE Radio. Licensed to Inglewood, California, United States, the station serves the Los Angeles area. KTYM is owned by El Sembrador Ministries of Chat ...
-AM-FM in
Inglewood, California and also owned television station
KAIL
Kail () is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Cochem-Zell district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Kaisersesch.
G ...
in
Fresno. Reeder was the chief
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the lim ...
of
KRLA
KRLA (870 kHz) "AM 870 The Answer" is a commercial AM radio station broadcasting a talk radio format. Licensed to Glendale, California, it serves Greater Los Angeles and Southern California. The station is owned by Salem Media Group, which also ...
in Los Angeles. Reeder died, leaving his half of the station to Williams, who owned the station until his death in 2005.
The station began by broadcasting 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''
* Ful ...
format of
Middle of the road music, news, sports and talk. The music format lasted longer on KDWN than on most AM radio stations of the day. In the 1970s, many AM stations were leaving music formats to FM, and switching over to talk programming.
KDWN's transition from music to talk began slowly. In the late 1970s, KDWN aired a mix of music and some talk during the day. In January 1980, KDWN began broadcasting talk around the clock. KDWN was the top news/talk outlet in the Las Vegas
radio market
A media market, broadcast market, media region, designated market area (DMA), television market area, or simply market is a region where the population can receive the same (or similar) television and radio station offerings, and may also incl ...
and won an award for its coverage of the 1980
MGM Grand Fire
The MGM Grand fire occurred on Friday, November 21, 1980 at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino (now Horseshoe Las Vegas), located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The fire killed 85 people, most through smoke inhalation. The fire began ...
.
Unlike most Las Vegas-area stations, KDWN remained locally owned even as most of its competitors were bought out by large radio corporations such as
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 ...
and
Infinity Broadcasting. The continuity of ownership kept a consistent style of station sound. The station continued to rely on experienced, yet older, hosts who may have had been with the station since it began broadcasting in the talk radio format. The station did well in the ratings as one of the first generation of talk radio stations.
Call screening
Call screening is the process of evaluating the characteristics of a telephone call before deciding how or whether to answer it.
Some methods may include:
* listening to the message being recorded on an answering machine or voice mail.
* check ...
was not used until recently.
Art Bell and Rush Limbaugh
Noted radio talk host
Art Bell
Arthur William Bell III (June 17, 1945 – April 13, 2018) was an American broadcaster and author. He was the founder and the original host of the paranormal-themed radio program ''Coast to Coast AM'', which is syndicated on hundreds of ...
, after minor jobs at several
California radio and TV stations, began hosting an all-night show on KDWN in 1983. KDWN had just been granted permission from the
Federal Communications Commission to increase its nighttime power from 10,000 watts to 50,000 watts. KDWN was now audible with a good radio between nighttime and dawn in
Los Angeles,
San Francisco and around the
West Coast. So Bell called the show "West Coast AM" because it aired between 1 and 6 a.m.
Pacific Time
The Pacific Time Zone (PT) is a time zone encompassing parts of western Canada, the western United States, and western Mexico. Places in this zone observe standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC−08:00). ...
.
Bell began by discussing mostly politics. But he increasingly added discussions of the
paranormal and
conspiracy theories
A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources:
*
*
*
* The term has a nega ...
to the program, resulting in increased ratings and national attention. The show got nationwide syndication in 1993, when it was renamed "
Coast to Coast AM
''Coast to Coast AM'' is an American late-night radio talk show that deals with a variety of topics. Most frequently the topics relate to either the paranormal or conspiracy theories. It was hosted by creator Art Bell from its inception in 19 ...
." Bell did the show from the
Plaza Hotel, where KDWN had studios. Later it moved to a studio in his home in nearby
Pahrump, Nevada
Pahrump ( ) is an unincorporated town located at the southernmost tip of Nye County, Nevada, United States, about west of Las Vegas, Nevada. Pahrump lies adjacent to the Nevada–California border and the area had a population of 44,738 as of t ...
, in
Nye County
Nye County is a county in the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 51,591. Its county seat is Tonopah. At , Nye is Nevada's largest county by area and the third-largest county in the contiguous United States, be ...
. Eventually KDWN, no longer in control of the program, decided not to continue carrying it in syndication and it was picked up by rival Las Vegas talk station
KXNT.
KDWN was one of the first radio stations to carry
Rush Limbaugh's nationally syndicated show in 1988. Limbaugh helped boost KDWN's midday ratings. In 1996, with the rates to carry it increasing, KDWN decided not to renew the show. Like ''Coast to Coast AM'', ''
The Rush Limbaugh Show'' moved to KXNT. KDWN produced and broadcast a local morning show, ''The Snoozebusters'', from the early 1980s until 2006. It was hosted by Ken Stahl and Hart Kirsch.
Beasley Broadcasting acquisition, trade to Audacy
In March 2006,
Beasley Broadcast Group
Beasley Broadcast Group, Inc., based in Naples, Florida, is an owner/operator of radio stations in the United States. , the company owned 63 stations under the Beasley Media Group name.
History
The company was founded in 1961 by George G. Beasl ...
, a
Naples,
Florida–based company, announced plans to buy the station for $17 million. A Las Vegas newspaper reported a rumor that KDWN would change to an
all-sports format, effective July 1, 2006, although the switch did not happen. Host Jim Dallas reported on ''Wake Up, America'' on July 21, 2006, that audience backlash against the change forced Beasley to retain the talk radio format.
In the fall of 2006, Beasley introduced a morning
drive time news and information show hosted by
Heidi Harris, with the remainder of its weekday talk format consisting of nationally syndicated shows and local brokered programming. Harris' show was discontinued in 2012, with the nationally syndicated
Laura Ingraham show moved into the morning time slot which was later discontinued. Harris had also been heard on KDWN from 1988 to 1998.
In June 2017, the
Oakland Raiders, in preparation for
their relocation to Las Vegas, announced that a two–year deal had been reached with the Beasley Broadcast Group to carry Raiders games on KDWN and FM
sister station KCYE, starting with the
2017 NFL season
The 2017 NFL season was the 98th season in the history of the National Football League (NFL) and the 52nd of the Super Bowl era. The season began on September 7, 2017, with Kansas City defeating defending Super Bowl LI champion New England in ...
. In 2019, the team moved their broadcasts to
KYMT.
On October 6, 2022, Beasley Broadcasting announced a station swap with
Audacy
Audacy, previously known as Radio.com, is a free broadcast and Internet radio Computing platform, platform owned by the namesake company Audacy, Inc. (formerly known as Entercom). The Audacy platform functions as a Recommender system, music reco ...
wherein Beasley would swap ownership of KDWN to Audacy in exchange for ownership of
KXTE. No other changes are currently planned with the move on ownership.
Beasley and Audacy Swap Stations in Las Vegas
/ref>
References
External links
*
*
FCC History Cards for KDWN
Founder of KDWN 720 AM Talk radio Dies
KDWN Program Schedule
Doctor Daliah show website
KDWN official website
Tru Hawkins internet radio show
{{Coord, 36, 16, 04, N, 115, 02, 42, W, type:landmark_region:US_source:FCC, display=title
1975 establishments in Nevada
DWN
News and talk radio stations in the United States
Radio stations established in 1975
DWN