KFYI-AM
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KFYI (550 AM) – branded ''News/Talk 550 KFYI'' – is a commercial news/talk
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 ...
licensed to serve
Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...
. Owned by
iHeartMedia 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 ...
, KFYI serves the
Phoenix metropolitan area The Phoenix Metropolitan Area – also the Valley of the Sun, the Salt River Valley, or Metro Phoenix (known by most locals simply as “the Valley”) – is the largest metropolitan area in the Southwestern United States, centered on the city ...
as the market affiliate for
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, ''
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show ''The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show'' is an American radio program hosted by former Fox Sports Radio personality Clay Travis and former '' America Now/The Buck Sexton Show'' host Buck Sexton. It is broadcast on over 400 talk radio stations n ...
'', '' The Sean Hannity Show'', the ''
Glenn Beck Radio Program ''The Glenn Beck Radio Program'' is an American conservative talk radio show, hosted by commentator Glenn Beck on over 400 radio stations across America, his company's own TheBlaze Radio Network, with a live television simulcast weekdays on TheB ...
'' and '' Coast to Coast AM''. Established as KFCB in 1922 by Earl A. Nielsen after a year of experimental broadcasting, this station adopted the KOY call sign in 1929. Sold to interests controlled by the '' Prairie Farmer''/ WLS in 1936, KOY was the Phoenix outlet for CBS radio in the 1930s and 1940s as well as an early home for Steve Allen and Jack Williams, the latter a part of the station from 1929 until his election to Arizona governor in 1966. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, KOY featured a popular
adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...
format headlined by Bill Heywood, but declining ratings resulted in a 1988 flip to satellite-fed adult standards. As a result of mass consolidation, KOY's call letters and standards format were moved in 1999 to , with assuming the KGME call sign and
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format. Since 2000, this station has featured the KFYI calls and talk format—which had previously originated on —after a second
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swap. Studios for KFYI are located near 48th and Van Buren streets, near Sky Harbor Airport, and the transmitter is located on South 36th Street near East Vineyard Road in Phoenix. In addition to a standard analog transmission, KFYI is simulcast over the second HD
subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or digital terrestrial television, television Television station, station on the same radio freq ...
of KYOT (95.5 FM) and streams online via
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.


History


Early years

KFYI was first licensed as a broadcasting station, with the call sign KFCB, on September 6, 1922. However, the station's history includes earlier broadcasting experimentation by the station's founder, Earl A. Nielsen, and the station has claimed a 1921 start date on several occasions. From 1912 to 1927, radio communication in the United States was regulated by the Department of Commerce, and originally there were no formal requirements for stations, most of which operated under Amateur and Experimental licenses, making broadcasts intended for the general public. In order to provide a common standard, the department issued a regulation effective December 1, 1921 requiring that broadcasting stations would now have to hold a Limited Commercial license that authorized operation on two designated broadcasting wavelengths: 360 meters (833 kHz) for "entertainment", and 485 meters (619 kHz) for "market and weather reports". The first two Phoenix broadcasting station authorizations were issued to Smith Hughes & Company for KDYW on May 15, 1922, and McArthur Brothers Mercantile Company for KFAD (now KTAR) on June 21, 1922, both for 360 meters.


KFCB

In 1921, Earl A. Nielsen, a native of
Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...
, received a license for an amateur station, with the call sign 6BBH, located at 115 South 21st Avenue in Phoenix. The Nielsen Radio Supply Company was incorporated in 1922 to purchase and distribute radios in Phoenix. The Department of Commerce's December 1, 1921, broadcasting regulations barred amateur stations from making broadcasts intended for the general public. Despite this, it was reported that on May 23, 1922, the Nielsen company, operating on the standard amateur radio wavelength of 200 meters (1500 kHz), had conducted what were described as the "first broadcasting tests in the Salt River Valley". On September 6, 1922, the Nielsen Radio Supply Company was granted a broadcasting license with the call letters KFCB, for operation on 360 meters. This call sign was issued randomly from an alphabetical roster of available call letters. Because at this time only the single entertainment broadcasting wavelength of 360 meters was available, stations in a given region were encouraged to devise time-sharing agreements. In April 1923, KFCB's time slots were 7 to 8 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. KDYW shut down in early 1924, leaving KFAD and KFCB as the only stations in the state capital. There were several frequency changes in the early years. KFCB was deleted in mid-1923 but quickly relicensed on 1280 kHz, which was changed to 1080 kHz later in the year. In 1924, KFCB was moved to 1260 kHz, which was followed by a reassignment to 1230 kHz on June 1, 1927, with 125 watts. In the fall of 1927, Nielsen opened new studios at Pierce Street and Central Avenue; the $70,000 ($ in dollars) building also housed the company's sporting goods division and contained a basement with eight bowling lanes. On November 11, 1928, KFCB was initially assigned to a "local" frequency, 1310 kHz, as part of the Federal Radio Commission's implementation of General Order 40, a national radio reallocation. This was soon changed to a "regional" frequency, 1390 kHz.


KOY

On February 8, 1929, KFCB changed its call sign to KOY; the new call sign began to be used on March 16, when the station was rebuilt and began broadcasting with 500 watts. This power level was increased again to 1,000 watts during daylight hours in 1933.


Salt River Valley Broadcasting Company ownership

In 1936, Nielsen—whose radio and sporting goods businesses both suffered during the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
—sold KOY to the newly formed Salt River Broadcasting Company, owned by
WLS radio WLS (890 Hertz, kHz) is a commercial radio, commercial AM radio, AM radio station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois. Owned by Cumulus Media, through licensee Radio License Holdings LLC, the station airs a talk radio radio format, format. WLS has its ...
in Chicago and the '' Prairie Farmer'' and headed by Burridge Butler. (Nielsen later moved to Hawaii, where he managed
Hilo Hilo () is a census-designated place (CDP) and the largest settlement in Hawaii County, Hawaii, Hawaii County, Hawaii, United States, which encompasses the Hawaii (island), Island of Hawaii. The population was 44,186 according to the 2020 United ...
station KHBC and served as a territorial legislator; he died in 1966.) At the time, KOY was a station in need of major repair: the station's antenna had fallen, hanging over Central Avenue, and the station had "gone broke twice and was floundering". Major changes followed, including a new transmitter and new facilities just outside the city limits in the 800 block of North Central Avenue. On March 1, 1937, KOY joined CBS, marking its second time with that network after a five-month stint in 1932, and several days later, it began using a new transmitter site at 12th Street and Camelback Road. In September 1937, KOY established the Arizona Network with Tucson's KGAR (which became KTUC) and
KSUN KSUN (1400 AM) is a Spanish-language radio station broadcasting out of Phoenix, Arizona and serving the Phoenix metropolitan area. It is locally owned by the Marques brothers and operates a regional Mexican music format under the branding "La ...
in Bisbee. Burridge Butler's ownership strongly emphasized community involvement and service, in some cases copying successful WLS features as the Christmas Neighbors Club and its country music-oriented ''Dinnerbell'' program. A donation from Butler established the first two Boys Clubs in Phoenix, and a settlement of his estate led to the creation of a third, named in Butler's honor. In 1938, KOY applied to move from 1390 to 550 kHz, which was approved by 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 jurisdiction ...
(FCC) on March 13, 1940, over the objections of KOAC in
Corvallis, Oregon Corvallis ( ) is a city and the county seat of Benton County in central western Oregon, United States. It is the principal city of the Corvallis, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Benton County. As of the 2020 United ...
; the station made the move on April 7. A further power increase to 5,000 watts was initially granted in December 1941, but
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
postponed KOY's plans to make the change until 1948. Burridge Butler did not live to see the frequency change carried out; he died in April 1948, with ownership of KOY given to three company executives, per his will; one of these was program director John R. "Jack" Williams. Williams had already been a KOY veteran by this time, having been interviewed by founder Nielsen and hired on the same day in 1929, when Williams was a 20-year-old college student; he was appointed program director when the Butler ownership took over in 1936. Among Williams's hires was Steve Allen, who began his broadcasting career at KOY in 1942 before moving to
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. In a 1992 book, Allen called his years at KOY "pleasant ones and extremely educational". KOY lost its CBS affiliation on January 1, 1950, to KOOL (960 AM), which went on the air in 1947;
Gene Autry Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning s ...
was one of the principal owners of KOOL, and his deep ties to CBS and
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helped seal the deal. In exchange, KOY picked up the MutualDon Lee hookup previously held by KOOL. In 1952, KOY filed for a television station on channel 10; in competition with a similar bid from KOOL, and wanting to spare years of comparative hearings, the two parties agreed to a time-sharing proposal. On October 24, 1953, KOY-TV and KOOL-TV signed on, sharing time and studio and transmitter facilities on channel 10. After five months, KOY sold its interest to KOOL, which took over full operation of the venture; two months later, KOY-TV was no more. Jack Williams's popularity on the air was also evident. In addition to his duties as program director and announcer, he forged close political ties with others. From 1945 to 1948, he read the State of the State address for governor Sidney Preston Osborn, who suffered from
multiple sclerosis Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This d ...
, and in 1952, he was appointed to fill a term on the Phoenix City Council. His KOY career was considered the springboard to his political career, which included terms as
Mayor of Phoenix The following is a list of the mayors of Phoenix, Arizona. Living former mayors of Phoenix There are six living former mayors of Phoenix, the oldest being John B. Nelson (served 1994, born 1936). The most recent death of a former mayor of ...
and Governor of Arizona. Even while mayor, he continued to host his program on KOY and only stepped aside from his duties at the station in 1965, when he prepared his first gubernatorial campaign.


The 1960s, 70s and 80s

In 1964, the sale of KOY to a Pennsylvania real estate firm, Cote Realty, was announced; the deal never went through because of excessive signal overlap with KTUC in Tucson, which Cote already owned. In 1967, KOY was instead sold to the Southern Broadcasting Company of
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, for $2 million. Southern filed to move the transmitter to its present site at the end of 1967 and sold the Camelback land to the Coulter car dealership group. Gary Edens became KOY's general manager in 1970 and helped bring Williams back to a part-time role at the station, hosting a taped version of his previous ''Yours Sincerely'' program, which would not discuss state government issues. In 1973, Southern bought KRFM (95.5 FM), a
beautiful music Beautiful music (sometimes abbreviated as BM, B/EZ or BM/EZ for "beautiful music/easy listening") is a mostly instrumental music format that was prominent in North American radio from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Easy listening, elevator musi ...
station; however, the two would operate from separate premises until August 1984. 1973 brought someone else to KOY who would have a long run on the station. A format change at KTAR had cost Bill Heywood, that station's morning man, his job. He moved to Las Vegas, but Edens wanted him for his station, which happened to have an opening in morning drive. Edens flew to Las Vegas and went to Heywood's house in a successful bid to lure him back to Phoenix. Heywood grew to be one of the market's most popular radio hosts, being honored in 1975 as "Grand International Air Personality", the top individual honor of the International Radio Programming Forum, and pulled as much as 13 percent of the morning audience. The station supplemented its middle-of-the road format, which evolved into
adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...
, with Heywood and sports. In 1983 and 1984, KOY was the broadcast home of the
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of the
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, though it lost money carrying the nascent team's games. Southern Broadcasting merged with
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in 1978. Three years later, Edens was appointed president of the company's broadcast division, which was renamed Harte-Hanks Radio and relocated its corporate headquarters from Winston-Salem to Phoenix. When Harte-Hanks went private in a leveraged buyout in 1984, the company sought to shed its radio properties, and Edens purchased all nine of its stations—including KOY and the sister FM (then called KQYT)—for $40 million, forming Edens Broadcasting.


Decline and standards format

On July 1, 1986, Edens Broadcasting ended KQYT's long-running beautiful music format and launched KOY-FM, which simulcast the AM station's talk-heavy adult contemporary during the day and aired music at night while the AM station continued with talk shows. However, even with the FM added in an attempt to capture music listeners who had moved away from AM, ratings were falling, and Heywood's popularity diminished. KOY-FM split off as an adult top 40 station under the "Y-95" moniker in July 1987, with AM and FM only sharing Bill Heywood's morning show. The next month, Heywood departed, citing the incompatibility of the Y-95 format and his program; he then was hired by KTAR in January 1988. In a cost-cutting move, in November 1988, Edens fired 12 employees and dropped KOY's music-and-talk format for the satellite-delivered AM Only format of adult standards music; Edens felt that what would have been the natural evolution of KOY, to a talk format competing with KTAR and KFYI (910 AM), would have taken too long, and that the move would allow the company to focus on KOY-FM. Gary Edens later cited that moment as the death of the "legendary KOY". Sundance Broadcasting acquired the Edens Phoenix stations in 1993, creating a four-station cluster with KOY, 95.5 (which was relaunched as "rhythm and rock" KYOT), KZON (101.5 FM), and KISO (1230 AM). Radio deregulation in 1996 brought more acquisitions in short order: Sundance sold its Phoenix cluster and five other stations in
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and Boise to Colfax Communications for $95 million, Before that deal had even closed, Colfax sold those four and KOOL-FM to Chancellor Media, plus seven stations in other cities, for $365 million.


KGME

In 1999, Chancellor sold KGME (1360 AM), a sports talk station, to Salem Communications. Its programming and call sign then moved to the 550 frequency, with KOY and its nostalgia format replacing classic country KISO at
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. Chancellor then merged with Capstar Communications later in the year and changed its name to AMFM, Inc.


KFYI

Later that year, Clear Channel Communications, predecessor to iHeartMedia, merged with AMFM. Clear Channel opted to sell four of AMFM's FM stations in Phoenix and retain all of its local AMs, including KGME at 550 and KFYI at 910. When the deal closed in September 2000, Clear Channel immediately moved to swap KFYI and KGME, moving the talk station to 550 and sports to 910. In conjunction with the swap, KFYI debuted a morning show hosted by former KTVK anchor Heidi Fogelsong and Jim Sharpe. In 2001, Heywood returned to the 550 frequency from KTAR, replacing Sharpe; the morning show was ended in 2003 and Heywood released due to "lack of ratings performance". Former
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hosted a weekday show in the late 2000s on KFYI. He resigned from KFYI in 2010 to pursue an unsuccessful run for the
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against Senator
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. On March 8, 2006, KFYI made news when fill-in host Brian James suggested that the
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should shoot to kill people illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexican border. He also said on the air that he would be "happy to sit there with my high-powered rifle and my night scope" and kill people as they cross the border. Those remarks prompted Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard and
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Paul Charlton to complain to the
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(FCC), calling the remarks "irresponsible and dangerous".


Programming

KFYI's weekday lineup begins with a local interview and information show hosted by James T. Harris, "The Conservative Circus"; Harris began hosting afternoons at KFYI in 2018 and moved to mornings in 2020. In afternoon drive time, Mike Russell and Rob Hunter host ''Russell & Hunter''. The rest of the weekday schedule consists of nationally syndicated conservative talk shows, many supplied by co-owned
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, including ''
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show ''The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show'' is an American radio program hosted by former Fox Sports Radio personality Clay Travis and former '' America Now/The Buck Sexton Show'' host Buck Sexton. It is broadcast on over 400 talk radio stations n ...
'', Sean Hannity,
Glenn Beck Glenn Lee Beck (born February 10, 1964) is an American conservative political commentator, radio host, entrepreneur, and television producer. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Mercury Radio Arts, the parent company of his television and rad ...
, and '' Coast to Coast AM'' with George Noory. Weekend programs include a variety of specialty shows on topics including money, health, gardening, real estate, the outdoors, and beer, plus weekend syndicated shows from Bill Handel,
Ben Ferguson Benjamin Grant Ferguson (born August 28, 1981) is an American cable television talk show host and a radio talk show host on 600WREC/Memphis, TN. His radio show originates from his home in Texas. His nationally syndicated radio show, ''The Ben F ...
, and
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. Because Arizona does not observe
daylight saving time Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time or simply daylight time (United States, Canada, and Australia), and summer time (United Kingdom, European Union, and others), is the practice of advancing clocks (typicall ...
, syndicated programs air on a one-hour recorded delay from mid-March to early November, so they can be heard in the same time slots on KFYI year-round. This practice has been utilized by KFYI since the mid-1990s (when it was at 910).


Notes


References


Bibliography

* *


External links


Official website

FCC History Cards for KFYI
(covering KFCB / KOY for 1927–1980) {{IHeartMedia
FYI "FYI" is a common abbreviation of "for your information" (or "for your interest"). "FYI" is commonly used in email, instant messaging and other messages to indicate an informational message, with an intent to communicate to the receiver that they ...
News and talk radio stations in the United States Radio stations established in 1922 1922 establishments in Arizona IHeartMedia radio stations Radio stations licensed before 1923 and still broadcasting